ImagineNations

They describe themselves thus:

ImagineNations is a global alliance of social entrepreneurs, thought leaders, investors, financial institutions, global brands, media and organizations—all working together to empower and inspire a new generation of successful youth investment and employment in the developing world by providing young entrepreneurs with the financial resources through the launching of investment funds, training initiatives, and business coaching they need to work, participate in internships or apprenticeships, or start micro-enterprises and small businesses.

It is a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) organisation.

Directors

• Jacob Schimmel (Chair) one of the UK's richest men and chairman of UKI Investments, the Schimmel Family's investment arm. One of the largest private real estate companies in the UK, the Schimmel family has substantial interests in real estate, financial services, technology, aviation, tourism and telecommunications, with business interests are centered in the United Kingdom, France and Israel with growing involvement in Eastern Europe and the United States. Schimmel recently purchased IDB Holding Corporation Ltd., one of the largest business enterprises in Israel in almost every field of Israeli industry, including telecommunications, finance, real estate, advanced defense electronics, building materials and technology with some $14 billion in assets. Schimmel serves on the Board of various charitable foundations, including the Schimmel Family Foundations, the United Way, the American Joint Jewish Distribution Committee and the European Board of the International Youth Foundation with Little, below and Matan (the Israeli branch of the IYF). Schimmel is a funder (along with the World Zionist Organization) of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
• Nada Al-Nashif: Regional director of the Regional Office for Arab States, International Labour Organization (ILO), in Beirut.
• Sir David Bell
• Alan H. Fleischmann senior vice president of Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates (PSB), the corporate and political consulting firm that specializes in strategic communications & messaging, market & opinion research, image and crisis management, brand & executive positioning, and corporate reputation. Fleischmann has worked with BP, Verizon, and Dominion, Microsoft, Ford Motor Company, General Electric (GE), Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Bill Clinton, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, among others.

He was staff director of the Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the U.S. Congress, involved with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). His ImagineNations biography states that he "served in an advisory support capacity to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and was granted Top Secret (Code Word) D.O.D. Security Clearance." During his tenure, he focused on all aspects of U.S. policy toward Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean, including U.S. policy toward Haiti during 'political transitions', U.S. counter-narcotics programs and policies, U.S. environmental policy and the protection of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon, the consolidation of the Central American peace processes, U.S.-Cuba policy, and the debt crises

He was the vice president of the private trade finance company, LATCORP, Inc. (Latin American Trade Corporation) after working as senior associate of the Chase Manhattan Private Bank in New York and Argentina, where he was a graduate of their senior executive training program. During the historic period of the fall of the Berlin Wall, he served as a policy aide in the German Bundestag, working with the Brandt Foundation.

Fleischmann has served on the Board of Directors of Wachovia Bank’s flagship wealth management arm, OFFITBANK, an independent private bank with more than $13 billion in assets under management. Fleischmann is a senior director of Stonebridge International. He is a managing trustee of the Lauer Foundation and a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Fleischmann received a M.A. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where he serves as a board member and chair of its Latin America committee.

• Jill Ker Conway: Chairman of Lend Lease, one of Australia’s largest companies, and is currently a senior director on the boards of Merrill Lynch, Colgate-Palmolive and Nike.
• Neal Keny-Guyer: InterAction, an alliance of humanitarian and development organizations, Yale School of Management Board of Advisors, and Nike Foundation Advisory Group. Keny-Guyer's ImagineNations states that "With Save the Children [...] Keny-Guyer designed and implemented high-impact relief and development programs in some of the world's most war-torn and politically sensitive regions including Somalia, Lebanon, West Bank/Gaza, Afghanistan/Pakistan, and Sudan. As Director of the agency's Middle East, Europe, and North Africa programs, Keny-Guyer managed a $44 million budget and supervised 900 staff in 10 countries." And he sits on a board with a guy with a Dept. Of Defence Security Clearance. Keny-Guyer is also a member of the Mercy Corps.
• Ambassador Inonge Lewanika: Zambia’s Ambassador to the United States.
• Rick Little CEO and president of the ImagineNations™ Group. Has worked in developing a variety of Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives with companies—including Nokia, The Financial Times, Nike, Gap, Groupe Danone, Lucent Technologies and the Kellogg Company. Little (who states that he is a Christian) is the creator and founder of Quest International funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation with the George Gund Foundation and the Reader’s Digest Association contributing additional start-up funds, where he served as president and CEO from 1975 to 1989. Whose somewhat cultish techniques caused some controversy:

The program has its problems; and, in the final analysis, he feels this is a case in which the bad outweighs the good. The authors of Quest have generally attempted to incorporate the work of secular humanists into their curriculum, thus introducing elements clearly unacceptable to Christians. In some instances they have prescribed group exercises and techniques closely resembling those employed in psychotherapy--a risky practice in the absence of professionally trained leadership. Even on these points where the 'values' promoted by the program are potentially compatible with Christian mores, interpretation and application are completely subject to the individual instructor's personal biases. This means that Quest could become a vehicle for communicating some distinctly un-Christian values.

This report also carries allegations that:

"The Lions Club is in a joint venture with the Quest program. This association seems to make the Quest program more acceptable. However, we are told: "'Service clubs such as the Lions sponsor sterilization camps that reportedly do 900 operations a week' in Kenya." Sounds like a real "compassionate" organization, doesn't it?

A New York Times report put Little in the frame for talent scouting 'The telegenic face of conservative Islam' for the State Department. ImagineNations themselves mention that Little is also 'interviewing" young Muslims for a book he is writing with Queen Rania of Jordan and that this led to an interest in promoting Amr Khaled.

"Khaled is a favourite of Queen Rania. His brochures are littered with happy snaps of him with the influential: with the President of Yemen, being presented with a UN award, signing a deal with the chief of Dubai police. It makes the preacher a powerful political lever for the West in its quest to neutralise the anger of young Muslims. The British Government has already seen the potential. In mid-2004, leaked Cabinet papers named Khaled as a figure worth promoting as a counterweight to the imams preaching jihad in England."

A Sydney Morning Herald report states that Little enlisted the Nike Corporation as an Khaled backer, through its 'international youth support arm', the Nike Foundation. Little has also appeared on radio shows with Khaled.

Little was involved in the establishment of the International Youth Foundation in 1990 with the largest CSR investment ever made by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation—more than $68 million, used to 'build partnerships' between private sector, civil society and governments including the Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank, and the United States Agency for International Development . Little served as IYF’s founding president & CEO from 1990 to 2002, and remains actively involved in its efforts as founder and member of its international board.

Little served as chairman of the Oversight Board of the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities from 2000 to 2004. Working in partnership with the World Bank, private foundations, universities, NGOs, trade unions, global brands and local factories, the Alliance sought to "improve the workplace experience and life opportunities of young adult workers in the global manufacturing supply chains of companies including Nike and Gap". Little is on the boards of the Nike Foundation, Mercy Corps and the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy. Little was the founding president and a member of the founding board of America’s Promise chaired by General Colin Powell in 1996. He was also Chairman of the 2nd Annual Middle East Summit on Corporate Social Responsibility held in Dubai in 2005. He was selected in 1996 as one of the world’s 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In 1997.

• Jane Nelson: Senior fellow and director of the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard (funded by the Mossavar-Rahmani Center's oil money it was founded in 2004 with the support of Walter H. Shorenstein, Chevron Corporation, The Coca-Cola Company, and General Motors), and a director at the Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF). A former Rhodes Scholar, Nelson has worked in the fields of banking, international development and corporate citizenship. Fellow of the Brookings Institution and an Aspen Institute scholar, formerly Vice President at Citibank and responsible for marketing for the bank's Worldwide Securities Services business in Asia Pacific. She co-authored four of the World Economic Forum's Global Corporate Citizenship reports. She serves on the board of the 21st Century Trust, the U.K. Environment Foundation, Instituto Ethos, the Business Women's Initiative Against HIV/AIDS, the International Council of Mining and Metals Resource Endowment Initiative.

Funding

In 2003 The ImagineNations Group was given a $3,700,000 start-up grant by the The International Youth Foundation to "establish itself as a viable, recognized, and self-supporting global advocate for children and youth", through the IYF Reserve Fund.