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fur, Sudan, where hundreds of thousands ofcivilians have been killed by governmentbackedmilitias.In October 2004, Hanis and Snidermanfounded the Genocide Intervention Fund,later renamed Genocide Intervention Network,or GI-Net. Soon after, Bell joinedthem. “We wanted to raise awareness aboutthe genocide but also take direct action,”Hanis says. “And one area we thought wecould contribute was to raise money for theundermanned (African Union) peacekeepersthere.” As senior editor of The New Republic,Jason Zengerle ’96 wrote in a recent profileof GI-Net: “It was an out-of-the-box,arguably ludicrous idea—college studentspassing the hat to support a military forcefor a foreign intervention—but the idea gotpeople’s attention.”Working out of a Swarthmore office andbased today in space provided by a liberalWashington think tank, GI-Net raised$250,000 in donations. They consideredbuying an unmanned aerial vehicle to helppeacekeepers track the movements of militiamenor funding private security firms—mercenaries—to go to Darfur. Theyapproached the African Union about makinga direct contribution, only to back offonce the group said it couldn’t make anyspecific guarantees on how the moneywould be spent. Finally, in January, GI-Netarranged to fund a nongovernmentalAfrican organization to train female peacekeepersto protect Darfurian women fromrape and worse while living in refugeecamps.Hanis, who in March was awarded a$300,000 fellowship from the DraperRichards Foundation to continue his workin Darfur, is the first to admit that GI-Net isnot going to stop the genocide on its own.“Look, this is a good example of what I cando that actually helps the situation on theground,” he said. “Sure, I think the governmentneeds to be doing more about thegenocide, and we cannot stop it without thepresident’s involvement. But meanwhile,there are steps we can take to save lives.”Like Hanis, Aaron Bartley realizes that hisgoal—reviving Buffalo—depends to a largedegree on factors beyond his control. Still,he’s identified areas where he can make asignificant contribution. Soon after hemoved back to his hometown, a few yearsAP PHOTO/RON HAVIV/VIIout of Harvard Law School, he discoveredthat the biggest holder of abandoned propertyin Buffalo was the state of New York. In2003, the Municipal Bond Banking Agency(MBBA) bought up 1,500 delinquent taxliens in Buffalo (and another 2,000 elsewherein the state). The idea was that thecity wouldn’t have to foreclose and auctionoff the properties, a route that had left manyabandoned homes languishing on the market.Instead, the state would assume thedebt, which it would eventually pay off bycollecting back taxes or selling the propertiesitself.But, since purchasing the debt, the statehas resold it to private investors, a commoninvestment scheme. Meanwhile, it has hadlittle luck collecting back taxes on the properties,so the liens continue to increase. Andrecent efforts to auction off properties havebeen met with no bids because to recoup itsmounting debt the state is asking for more36 : swarthmore college bulletin