Billy Shore, bearing witness

Can you afford to not do advocacy?

2012-02-06T17:19:00.000-05:00

A new study backs up what Share Our Strength has learned through the success of its No Kid Hungry campaign in enrolling more children in public food and nutrition programs. The National Committee on Responsive Philanthropy’s new report called Levering Limited Dollars found that every dollar invested in policy and civic engagement returns $115 in community benefits. The report cites numerous concrete examples. It can be found at @ http://www.ncrp.org/index.php?option=com_ixxocart&Itemid=41&p=product&id=66&parent=1

For many years, we funded advocacy but did little ourselves. It was only when we realized that one of the primary reasons that children in America were hungry was that they were not accessing programs for which they were eligible, like school breakfast and summer meals, that we built a capacity to better understand and intersect with relevant public policy matters. We did not become lobbyists, but we did work to ensure that those we serve were more likely to benefit from the programs policymakers, with bipartisan support, had established.

Too many nonprofits assume that they can’t afford to devote limited resources to advocacy. But with a return of $115 dollars for every dollar spent, how can they afford not to?

Does Your Nonprofit Manage a "Social Strategy Supply Chain"?

2012-02-02T14:11:00.000-05:00

When I was on the board of the Timberland company one of the major areas of focus for the senior management team was supply chain strategy. In its simplest terms the supply chain is the network of businesses who supply every material, part, piece, button, circuit, software, label, etc needed to make and ship a finished product. If the chain gets interrupted, if just one of perhaps hundreds of different suppliers drops the ball, something goes missing and the product fails. So might the enterprise. The fate of businesses rest upon supply chain management almost entirely. And so of course there are supply chain associations, journals, consultants, etc.

We don’t usually talk about supply chain in the social sector. But we should. Because solutions to social problems also depend on a highly integrated chain of inputs that might be thought of as a “social strategy supply chain”. New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman made me think of this when he wrote that “someone who really wanted equal opportunity … would support more nutritional aid for low income mothers-to-be and young children.” Instead of only narrowly prescribing changes in tax, trade and manufacturing policies, as President Obama did in his State of the Union speech, Krugman made the link to the critical ingredients across the entire length of the chain.

Some of the most successful, transformational, and rapidly growing nonprofits do exactly this. For example:

- The Nurse Family Partnership, aiming to break the cycle of poverty for low income fanmiles, advocates for not just one intervention, but for immunizations, breastfeeding, home visits, etc. and conducts randomized controlled trials that demonstrate better prenatal health, fewer subsequent pregnancies, increased maternal education and employment.

- The Harlem Children’s Zone is built around a “project pipeline” whose focus is “cradle to college” supporting young people with the most comprehensive range possible of family, social, and health services for their entire journey

- Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry strategy is designed to surround kids with nutritious food where they live, learn and play and so it’s social strategy supply chain must include not only food assistance, but nutrition education for moms and families, resource maximization skills, public policy interventions.

Timberland’s supply chain team understood that it would be futile to try to produce a quality footwear product if any critical ingredient from leather to glue was missing. The same holds true in the social sector but because we are habituated to resource constraints we often overlook this central, unforgiving reality. That’s why the supply chain that the Harlem Children’s Zone calls their “pipeline” is such a refreshing exception to the norm.

When it comes to succeeding on behalf of vulnerable kids we need to think not only about the expertise we can provide but about the entire social strategy supply chain, how we maintain it’s integrity, and how each link in the chain depends on every other.

The Political Courage of A Governor and No Kid Hungry Champion

2012-02-02T06:33:00.000-05:00

Because Maryland is of such great importance in our No Kid Hungry strategy, our focus in listening to Governor O’Malley’s State of the State speech yesterday was on whether he would include a reference to ending childhood hunger. He did. But the speech turned out to be well worth listening to for other reasons as well. It was not only ambitious in scope, but politically courageous.

O’Malley did what other political leaders rarely do: he told people what they did not want to hear, but needed to know. He said that creating jobs and investing in the future means there would need to be increases in taxes and fees.

The Governor tried to help legislators and voters think long-term and see the big picture:

“To create jobs, a modern economy requires modern investments: investments by all of us, for all of us. That’s not a Democratic or a Republican idea; it’s an economic and historic truth. It was true for our parents, it was true for our grandparents, and it is a truth that has built our State and has built our country….
"Everything has a cost. Failing to make decisions that are consistent with the interests of the next generation – this too has a cost," he said. "Progress is a choice."

Politicians don’t often say such things. But leaders do.

The Baltimore Sun coverage is at @ http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/blog/bs-md-state-of-the-state-20120130,0,6645505.story
and the speech itself can be found at @ http://www.governor.maryland.gov/documents/StateOfTheState2012.pdf

How has your nonprofit prepared for the new economic environment?

2012-01-04T06:46:00.002-05:00

The headlines of the past few days underscore why 2012 will be a year in which communities across the country need Community Wealth Ventures more than ever.

The lead story in the January 1 NY Times describes the Obama Administration’s decision to basically give up on getting anything significant done in Congress in 2012 except the extension of the payroll tax cut. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/us/politics/obama-to-focus-on-congress-and-economy-in-2012-campaign.html?ref=politics : “President Obama heading into his re-election campaign with plans to step up his offensive against an unpopular Congress, concluding that he cannot pass any major legislation in 2012 because of Republican hostility toward his agenda.”

The lead story of today’s NYT is about Defense Secretary Panetta’s proposal to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from the defense budget driven by the Obama Administration’s vision of fiscal reality. If these kinds of cuts in defense spending, which are a foregone conclusion, just imagine the constraints we are going to see on domestic and human and social service budgets at all levels of government.

With government both gridlocked and broke, there will be greater and greater pressure in the year ahead for nonprofits and public-private partnerships to advance innovative and entrepreneurial solutions to community needs. As government spending shrinks, more nonprofits will be expected to help fill the gap, notwithstanding the impracticality, if not impossibility, of accomplishing more with less.

Given CWV’s track record of helping high performing nonprofits embrace ingredients of growth and transformation, achieve sustainability and scale, and create community wealth; we may be filling a need, and intersecting with the national conversation, in ways greater than once imagined.

Encouraging evidence that we are broadening our base

2012-01-03T06:17:00.000-05:00

Share Our Strength ended 2011 with a record level of revenues, and year-end on-line giving up more than 130%, exceeding $1.4 million. These are remarkable results. The donation I am most excited about however was one we received for fifty bucks.

In the last days of 2011 this $50 contribution came from eight teachers in Fairfax County’s Family and Early Childhood Education Program (HeadStart) with a note that perfectly underscores one of our strategic imperatives for 2012. : “Please accept this donation to the No Kid Hungry campaign on behalf of the eight of us, all Early Childhood Resource Teachers in the FECEP/Headstart program in Fairfax County Public Schools, Fairfax, VA. We work with children and families of poverty each day and know their struggles. This year we decided to forgo our own gift exchange and donate to your cause instead. We appreciate all that you are attempting to do for these kids and their families!”

When teachers tell us that supporting our program is one of the most important ways of advancing their work, it is powerful testimony that ending childhood hunger through No Kid Hungry has the potential to become an education issue and with a larger constituency than we might have imagined. Childhood hunger and nutrition are health issues too. They are also tied to economic competitiveness.

Why is this so important? We’ve done a great job of capturing the imaginations and earning the support of those passionate about ending childhood hunger. But that universe of anti-hunger advocates, by itself, is not large enough to get the job done.
But it has given us a solid foundation from which to grow. Our strategic imperative going forward is to broaden our base, so that just like the 8 HeadStart teachers in Fairfax County who donated at year-end, those who are passionate about education, health care, and even economic growth come to see ending childhood hunger as a priority they should make their own.

All successful movements – from civil rights to the environment - succeed when they are able to cross over and appeal to a broader constituency than their original passionate but small base. It’s exciting to start 2012 knowing that those who work so closely with the most vulnerable of our children, such as the HeadStart teachers in Fairfax County, are reaching out to join our campaign.

Obama has an alternative to skirmishing with Congress: working with Governors on No Kid Hungry

2012-01-01T12:58:00.001-05:00

The lead story in today’s NY Times describes the Obama Administration’s decision to basically give up on getting anything significant done in Congress in 2012 except the extension of the payroll tax cut. See: @ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/us/politics/obama-to-focus-on-congress-and-economy-in-2012-campaign.html?ref=politics

It feels like good politics more than good governing but also a reasonably realistic choice given the recalcitrance of the opposition party to compromise in any way, shape or form. But there is another route for Obama to get things done, and that is by more closely working with the nation’s governors, who while political, do not operate in the same insular culture of Capitol Hill, and are not subject to the same pressures to build or preserve congressional majorities.

At Share Our Strength we’ve seen first-hand the impact that governors can have in bringing Obama’s policy goals to fruition. When it comes to ending childhood hunger for example Democrats like Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe and Republicans like Virginia Gov. McDonnell have been instrumental in helping close the gap between the number of children eligible for food and nutrition programs like school breakfast and summer meals, and those actually participating. Best of all, there are no budget battles to be fought because the programs are relatively small entitlements whose funding has already been assured with bipartisan support.

President Obama campaigned on the idea of changing the way Washington works. One way to do that is to reach out more powerfully to the state executives responsible for implementing programs the federal government has created. One result, even during this difficult economic period, could be an America that achieves the bold goal of ensuring there is No Kid Hungry.

NY Times editorial on hunger tells half the story

2011-12-30T06:49:00.000-05:00

The New York Times recent editorial @ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/30/opinion/the-school-lunch-barometer.html?src=rechp makes the important point that increases in the school lunch program to a record 21 million children is an important barometer of the need created by our nation’s economic challenges. And it makes the case for so many of our children receiving this help.

But the editorial fails to discuss the most relevant issue in the fight to end childhood hunger which is that all 21 million of the children who get a free or reduced price free lunch also are entitled to school breakfast but only 9 million get it,. And when the schools are closed in the summer time, only three million get summer meals. Amazingly, because these are entitlement programs with bipartisan support, the funds are available for all 21 million.

The most efficient and effective way of addressing childhood hunger in the U.S. is to close this gap between those eligible and those actually participating. That is the core of Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry strategy. Read more @ http://www.strength.org/state_partnerships/

Impressive Corporate Leadership in the Fight to End Childhood Hunger in the U.S.

2011-12-18T08:35:00.000-05:00

With a remarkable growth rate of more than 30%, to a budget greater than $32 million, there is no one factor that can be singled out as responsible for Share Our Strength’s growth this past year. But our corporate partners have played an especially important role in the fight against childhood hunger.

I don’t want the year to end without giving special thanks to this extraordinary group that includes but is not limited to Walmart, ConAgra Foods Foundation, Food Network, Hickory Farms, Arby’s, Sodexo Jimmy Dean, Ocean Spray, Hillshire Farm, Brown Forman, American Express, Weight Watchers, Whole Foods, Open Table, Sysco, Tyson, Williams-Sonoma, Tastefully Simple, Birds Eye, C&S Whole Grocers, Capital Grille, CGI, Corner Bakery, Ignite Restaurant Group (Joe’s Crab Shack), Ecolab, Family Circle, and the many more you will find on our website at www.strength.org

Many of these businesses are not only generous philanthropically, but play a critical role in creating the jobs America needs to get its economy moving again. And they have not only supported us, but shared their strengths through community service, mentoring, and sharpening our strategy. We look forward to an even more productive 2012 and to our ultimate shared success in ending childhood hunger in America.

The strategic imperative of broadening the base

2011-12-18T07:52:00.002-05:00

Recently in Boston I heard Senate U.S. candidate Boston Elizabeth Warren speak and field questions from a crowd of potential supporters. One of the first questions she was asked was how she would be able translate her ideas into concrete policy accomplishments in the hyper-partisan environment of Washington. She used the story of creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as her textbook example of how to get things done and there were some great lessons for our No Kid Hungry campaign.

Warren told how lobbyists for all of the financial and banking interest lined up against the legislation to create the CFPB and how they temporarily prevailed in the Senate to kill a vote on the bill.

“Then we started broadening the base of our support by building a coalition. The SEIU became a huge champion. And we went to the AFL-CIO and they said this is not exactly our top priority but we’ll get involved. And we went to the Consumers Union, which in the past has focused on toasters and other products, and they said we can see why our members might be interested in this. And we went to the AARP which saw that a lot of their members were being taken advantage of by banks and credit card companies. And we eventually built such a large coalition that they had to give us a vote, and once we got the vote, Senators were afraid to vote against us. So it was about organizing that broader coalition.”

Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign doesn’t have special interests lined up against it, but we do face a lot of indifference which is just as bad if not worse. And to overcome it we will likely need the kind of broader coalition that is successful in the kind of legislative campaign that Warren described. This is the strategic imperative to broaden the base that is faced by virtually every movement and important cause.

Noel Cunningham's funeral: extraordinary tribute to private citizen with public following

2011-12-10T06:54:00.001-05:00

Noel Cunningham's funeral was yesterday. It was an extraordinary tribute to a private citizen who had developed such a devoted public following. St John’s Cathedral had an enormous standing room only crowd, that included Noel’s brother, sister and twin daughters, the mayor, Governor Hickenlooper, U.S. Senator Michael Bennett, former Senator Gary Hart, a number of Ethiopians, and close to a thousand Coloradans, virtually every one of whom Noel had roped into one good cause or another. Generations of Taste of the Nation organizers and Cooking Matters volunteers found themselves together under one roof for the first time.

Former Colorado Governor Bill Ritter gave the eulogy, which like all of the newspaper articles over the past week was filled with references to Share Our Strength, Noel’s anti-hunger work from Denver to Ethiopia, and Noel’s endearingly unique combination of relentless persistence and utter selflessness.

In the days just before the funeral Noel’s family revealed that Noel had taken his own life. This stunned the community to a degree I can’t begin to describe but I’m sure you can imagine. Toward the end of his remarks Governor Ritter addressed this directly and tenderly, giving comfort to many in convincingly arguing that Noel could not have intended to hurt anyone but that some unknown and unknowable desperation made it impossible for him to hear or see the many friends who would have sought to help him.

After the service everyone in the church was invited back to Noel's restaurant Strings for a reception that included Noel’s favorite dishes. And it seemed like everyone showed up. Bagpipes played Amazing Grace while we ate and thought about what the minister had said at one point in the service: that while Noel was truly irreplaceable, his deeds were not, and those deeds remain to be embraced and carried out by each and every one of us.

remembering Noel Cunningham: "a virtue went out of him, sugaring the sour ones"

2011-12-02T10:31:00.000-05:00

In the earliest days of Share Our Strength, one of the great forces in our growth, perhaps the greatest, was Noel Cunningham, a Denver chef and restaurateur who died suddenly yesterday at 62. He was instrumental in the creation of Taste of the Nation, served on our national board of directors for many years, traveled to Ethiopia with us, and pushed us hard to be the best we could be.

More than 10 years ago I devoted part of a chapter to Noel in The Cathedral Within, explaining that his power came from his vision and his commitment to remain true to it no matter how naïve it might seem or how uncomfortable it may make others. He was the first truly “unreasonable man” in the best sense of the word, that I’d ever met, and no one else has ever come close.

In the book I wrote: “Noel’s goodness is not always practical, but it is always authentic, and this authenticity moves people further than anyone would have guessed they were capable of being moved…. It’s so real, so undeniable, that it compels others to believe that there must be at least some of that same goodness in themselves, and thereby compels them to the same actions as Noel’s. His impact on people is similar to Billy Budd’s as described by Herman Melville: “A virtue went out of him, sugaring the sour ones.”

From Denver to Addis Ababa, and everywhere in between, Noel will be deeply missed.

Crossing the threshold to historic levels of childhood hunger

2011-11-30T08:32:00.000-05:00

For the first time in our nation’s history a majority of fourth graders in the U.S. are enrolled in the school lunch program, having crossed the threshold to 52% from the 49% that were enrolled in 2009. The total number of students receiving subsidized lunches now exceeds 21 million. That’s the bad news, which is reported today in a front page of the New York Times @ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/education/surge-in-free-school-lunches-reflects-economic-crisis.html?_r=1&hp about the millions of kids from once solidly middle class families who are getting free lunches for the first time because of changed economic circumstances and lost jobs.

The good news is that programs like school lunch and school breakfast are in place and as entitlements they are funded to absorb such increases in enrollment. They remain one of the few elements of the social safety net that can be relied upon, even as state governments are projected to face increasingly crushing economic burdens and anticipate cutting if not shredding many other efforts to help children and families in need.

This is a continuing affirmation of the very core of our No Kid Hungry strategy. And as we saw from yesterday’s incredible outpouring of support for Share Our Strength following the Dr. Oz Show, the American public gets it, wants to do something about it, and believes that No Kid Hungry is an effective answer worthy of their generosity. And so we enter this holiday period with increased resources and support, but also increased urgency knowing that not only hungry children, but those who care about them are looking to us to make the difference.

A Thanksgiving Blessing

2011-11-24T08:01:00.000-05:00

At our Thanksgiving dinner, we will repeat the short blessing we’ve been saying every night at dinner since Nate was born. Since Rosemary is Catholic and I’m Jewish the only thing we could agree upon was this passage from a Wendell Berry poem: “And so we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart and in eye clear. What we need is here.”

That feels especially true at Share Our Strength this year, given the amazing talent we’ve assembled, and the powerful collective commitment to end childhood hunger that we represent. Indeed, what we need is here. For this I am most thankful. All the best to you and your family for the holiday.

Jeff Bridges Day Off : All About Serving Others, Making Connections

2011-11-21T13:40:00.000-05:00

Jeff Bridges, the national spokesperson for Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign was in the middle of a four month movie shoot in Boston but he arranged to take off two days to help us mark the first anniversary of the launch of our No Kid Hungry campaign. We met in New York for a 90 minute session of our No Kid Hungry Taste Force, a Food Network reception that included a preview of a new documentary on hunger they are producing for 2012, and an appearance together on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

Even though this was his only break in months, Jeff took the following day to quietly tour a health center in Yonkers for people living with HIV, visit a bakery that trains the unemployed, and to help raise funds for a global peace campaign. In between he’d ask questions, suggest ideas for bringing more attention to these efforts, and help plan our strategy for continuing to grow and expand No Kid Hungry. We were accompanied by Jessie Bridges, his daughter, and a force in her own right who seems to bring the best out of her dad and everyone else around her.

“National spokesperson” only covers a small slice of Jeff’s enormous contribution to our success. His genuine compassion, dedication, and authentic commitment have inspired thousands of people to join our cause, and to give of themselves in ways they previously might not have imagined.

We didn’t get back to Boston until after 10:00 p.m. on Friday night and Jeff had to study his script for a long weekend of filming that began early Saturday morning. But he’d gone through the entire day relaxed and unhurried, not only seeking personal connection with those he met, but the interconnection between the various needs and causes that had won his attention.

No Kid Hungry, "What's" Been Achieved, and "So What?"

2011-11-14T06:25:00.000-05:00

It’s been about a year since we publicly launched our No Kid Hungry campaign with Jeff Bridges and we will have the good fortune to be with him again later this week in New York. The accomplishments of the last 12 months are worth reviewing.

Many facts and figures reflect what we’ve done – 18 No Kid Hungry state campaigns launched or about to be, more than 104,000 NKH pledge takers, huge increases in summer meals sites in Arkansas and Colorado, countless new relationships with policymakers, funders, and volunteers.

But our friend Jeff Swartz, former CEO of Timberland, always urges: don’t tell me the ‘what’, tell me the “so what”. In that spirit, let’s look at how the past year has produced four important answers to the “so what?” challenge:

 We have added tens of thousands of children to school breakfast and summer meals programs, through innovations like the school breakfast challenge and in-classroom breakfast. There is a clear correlation between NKH advocacy / community organizing and increased participation, demonstrating that: Ending childhood hunger through existing food and nutrition programs is achievable.

 Annual 2011 revenue around $34 million means we are raising almost $100,000 a day, every day, thanks to a diversified revenue engine with all of the necessary expertise – event, corporate, foundation, grassroots and large donor – to scale to the size necessary to end childhood hunger. That is probably only about 1/3 of what we will need to eventually raise on an annual basis, but will soon be in range and that is a manageable amount of money, proving that: Ending childhood hunger is affordable.

 We have changed the conversation from feeding kids to ending childhood hunger, and we have changed the focus from federal legislation to its implementation at the state level. We have led the effort to re-imagine and re-invent the nation’s strategy for ending childhood hunger in ways that attract bipartisan support including Republican leadership in Virginia and Texas, demonstrating that in contrast to the many issues on which our government is politically paralyzed: Ending childhood hunger is politically feasible.

 The need is greater than ever. With millions of Americans out of work, child poverty is climbing. For the first time in history, 45 million Americans are on SNAP, and more than half are children. Their current suffering puts their futures at risk. But solutions to childhood hunger exist and so does federal funding for those solutions, which makes: Ending childhood hunger a moral imperative.

We’re still a long way from reaching our goal. As we had hoped our early progress has inspired the support we need to sustain our strategy and continue to grow. The year ahead will be pivotal in cementing and scaling our early results, especially as we drill down deeper in the states where we’ve already launched No Kid Hungry campaigns. But in a few short months we have demonstrated that those ingredients most critical to our success are at hand: strategies that are achievable, affordable, politically realistic, and morally imperative. It would be difficult for anyone to say “so what?” to that.

Three Governors whose leadership makes a difference

2011-10-31T14:23:00.000-04:00

In the last two weeks I’ve been able to spend time with three of the Governors whose states have made the most progress in ending childhood hunger: Governor Martin O’Malley of Maryland, Governor Mike Beebe of Arkansas, and Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado. All three understand that children in America are not hungry because of a lack of food or even a lack of food and nutrition programs, but because they lack access to those programs. And all three are sincere in their passion to fix that.

Most important of all, each understands that while food and nutrition programs like school breakfast, summer meals, and SNAP (food stamps) are federally funded, they are implemented at the state and local level and so it is governors who have the power to make or break the national effort to end childhood hunger in America.

All three states experienced dramatic increases in participation in food and nutrition programs once their governors got involved. Arkansas increased summer meals sites from 330 to 441. Colorado increased from 315 to 392. Maryland recently saw a 17% increase in the same year that national participation declined 3%

The difference in each state? Leadership. Some of it has to do with a governor using the bully pulpit to persuade others to do what they should be doing anyway. And some of it has to do with changing the priorities and activities of the state bureaucracy. And this is the kind of leadership that lives and works closer to the people being served. So everyone is more motivated to ensure that good intentions translate to powerful results.

Governors O’Malley, Beebe and Hickenlooper have inspired many of their colleagues as well, such as Republican Governor McDonnell in Virginia and Democratic Governor Malloy in Connecticut. This bipartisanship is one of our greatest hopes for success in ensuring that there is No Kid Hungry.

Health conditions that emerge through poverty and cause it

2011-10-30T06:24:00.000-04:00

Peter Hotez, whose bold vision led to the first National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor University is someone I wrote about in The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men @ http://www.amazon.com/Imaginations-Unreasonable-Men-Inspiration-Purpose/dp/1586487647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303909402&sr=1-1 His persistence and commitment in developing a vaccine for hookworm is a great example of someone seeking to solve a problem for those so voiceless that there is no market for serving them.

Last week Hotez published an important op-ed in the Austin Statesman (http://www.statesman.com/opinion/hotez-neglected-tropical-diseases-deserve-attention-1935857.html ) about the “hidden underbelly” of neglected tropical diseases, which we typically associate with the developing world, that is now afflicted poor people of color in the American South. Describing these diseases as “the most important diseases you have never heard of” Hotez explains: “Not only do these conditions emerge through poverty, causing horrific disability and disfigurement, but the neglected tropical diseases have been shown to actually create poverty because of their ability to impair child growth, intellect and cognition, and adversely affect pregnancy outcome and worker productivity. These conditions are not rare; they afflict millions of Americans, almost all of them the disenfranchised poor.”

Let’s hope that Hotez’s research leads to the national dialogue he’s called for about how we finally break this cycle of poverty.

When social change begins with changing the conversation

2011-10-30T05:48:00.001-04:00

I had lunch recently with my friend Jim Down, a wonderful strategic thinker who led Mercer Management Consulting until retiring at age 50. Since then he has played a critical role in the nonprofit sector, advising organizations ranging from OxFam to the Centers for Disease Control. Jim is on the board of OxFam and I asked him what he thought their most impressive accomplishment was so far.

“Changing the conversation. Changing the dialog. Whether with the coffee industry, or mining, the most important thing we’ve done is to get people to think and talk differently about what the real issues are in the developing world, and to help them understand that there are policies that can be put in place to enable people to have the means to support themselves.

That squared with my own sense of the most important thing that OxFam or any social change organization could be doing, as well as our experience at Share Our Strength. With our No Kid Hungry campaign we shifted the conversation from emergency feeding and how we can afford to feed more people to actually ending childhood hunger once and for all, and how we ensure that people access existing, already paid for federal food and nutrition programs.

As an example, the government official in charge of the food stamp program in Arkansas told me how No Kid Hungry’s focus on access caused them to shift from focusing mostly on compliance with regulations to access and outreach, with the result being an increase in enrollment from 71% of the eligible population to 84%, and a workforce of state employees a lot more fulfilled in their jobs.

Once you change the conversation you’ve won more than half the battle. The rest becomes execution, and “how to?” not “whether to?” As soon as I heard those words from Jim Down I knew it was the perfect affirmation of how we think about our goal at Share Our Strength.

Still swimming against the current: an unreasonable man speaks out

2011-10-29T20:13:00.001-04:00

Malaria vaccines have been in the headlines once again, raising hopes that a vaccine that can prevent or even eradicate the disease is not far around the corner. But most scientists are more wary than the mainstream press that faithfully covers the hype if not contributes to it. Some of that wariness comes across clearly in an article in Nature News that raises questions about why GlaxoSmithKline published partial trial results for its RTS,S vaccine, and comments on the restraint Bill Gates exercised in announcing them. The story can be found @ http://www.nature.com/news/malaria-vaccine-results-face-scrutiny-1.9257

I had dinner with Steve Hoffman and Kim Lee Sim last week and we discussed this. Steve, who is the CEO of Sanaria and a developer of a rival vaccine based on live attenuated sporozoites is quoted in the Nature News article. While acknowledging the progress the trial results represent, and praising the unprecedented cooperation with African scientists, he seemed buoyed by the knowledge that his own vaccine is potentially much more effective even though it won’t be first to market.

I wrote extensively about Steve in my book The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men @ http://www.amazon.com/Imaginations-Unreasonable-Men-Inspiration-Purpose/dp/1586487647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303909402&sr=1-1 which documented the relentless rollercoaster of ups and downs that go hand in hand with trying to do something that’s never been done before. With as many as six different clinical trials of his vaccine taking place around the world, and a trial of his vaccine being administered via IV just beginning in the U.S., Steve can expect more of the same. That he persists is a testament to both his imagination and his unreasonableness, in the best sense of the word. And afterall, this is what scientific research is all about.

cathedral builders of science

2011-10-23T20:33:00.000-04:00

In his statement on the Phase III results of the clinical trial for malaria vaccine candidate RTS,S, Peter Hotez, the president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene says the accomplishment – “more than 24 years in the making” … “is a true testimony to perseverance in public health.” @ http://www.astmh.org/RTSS_Statement_101911.htm

Hotez should know. He’s devoted his life to developing cures for the parasitic diseases that take a terrible toll in the developing world but are all but ignored by much of modern science. Like the great cathedral builders who devoted their lives to efforts they would not see finished, these vaccine developers persevere.

Because of his commitment to solving problems that affect people so voiceless and economically marginalized that there are no markets for serving them, I included Hotez in my recent book The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men, where you can read more about his life and career. @ http://www.amazon.com/Imaginations-Unreasonable-Men-Inspiration-Purpose/dp/1586487647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303909402&sr=1-1

Remarkable Results from No Kid Hungry campaign in Arkansas

2011-10-23T16:29:00.000-04:00

On Friday I was in Little Rock with Governor Beebe to celebrate the first anniversary of our No Kid Hungry campaign in Arkansas, and ro recommit ourselves to even great investment there. Arkansas is a poor state that a year ago ranked first in the nation in food insecurity. But that was before we launched No Kid Hungry’s signature mix of public-private partnership that includes:

 gubernatorial leadership: not only the Governor and his wife but his senior staff and relevant cabinet officials

 local corporate involvement: WalMart, Tyson Foods, The Midwest Dairy Council

 leveraging federal food and nutrition programs like school breakfast, SNAP and summer meals,

 coordinated action with nonprofit partners: the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance

 an unprecedented level of collaboration among all of the above (which virtually everyone credits to Share Our Strength)

The results are compelling:

 an increase in summer meals sites between from 330 in 2010 to 440 in 2011, with the addition of programs in 14 counties that did not have any summer meals at all

 an increase in after-school meals sites from 48-119 or 248%

 six schools piloting breakfast in the classroom, which won a strong endorsement from First Lady Ginger Beebe who has nicknamed it “Desk Top Dining”.

 Cooking Matters pilots in 4 sites

 SNAP enrollment up from 71% of eligible to 84% bringing $740 million of SNAP benefits to the state.

What is palpable wjhen visiting Arkansas is the degree to which the conversation has changed – in every corner of the state and at every level of state government – from feeding kids to ending childhood hunger, and to doing so through our No Kid Hungry strategy of focusing on increasing access, outreach and participation in programs like school breakfast, summer meals, and SNAP.

A scientist whose tools are microscope and macroscope

2011-10-23T10:03:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Dr. Peter Hotez, neglected tropical diseases are neglected no more. His vision for a National School of Tropical Medicine has come true and in the fall of 2012 he will accept the first class for the School at the Baylor College of Medicine. @ http://www.bcm.edu/news/item.cfm?newsID=4609

Hotez has not only been a brilliant researcher of parasitic diseases that plague the developing world and that the developed world has or too long ignored. He has also found a way to finally ensure that this work achieves more prominence. He’s used both the microscope is his work, and through the National School of Tropical Medicine has created a “macroscope” to bring that work before a larger audience.

Hotez not only employs science, but innovation, entrepreneurship and communications skills. For these reasons I included a profile of him in The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men, which uses the race to develop the first malaria vaccine as a way of writing about how you solve problems affecting people so vulnerable, voiceless and marginalized that there are no markets for solving them. @ http://www.amazon.com/Imaginations-Unreasonable-Men-Inspiration-Purpose/dp/1586487647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303909402&sr=1-1

As a voice for the voiceless, his is one to which we must listen.

lessons in "eradication", whether malaria or childhood hunger

2011-10-20T07:00:00.002-04:00

On Tuesday while we were at our staff retreat in Baltimore the Gates Foundation was hosting a forum in Seattle with 300 scientists from around the world to release the latest information about its campaign to eradicate malaria. I wrote The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men because I thought there were so many lessons to be learned from that work that were directly applicable to our goal of ending childhood hunger. Tuesday’s results only reinforced that belief. There were three specific points worth noting.

First, In a report published by Roll Back Malaria at the start of the forum, it was shown that seven countries recently eliminated malaria (their “proof of concept” countries) and that up to a third of the 108 countries where malaria is endemic are moving toward being able to eliminate it. The results were widely reported and seen as inspiring more nations and donors to join the fight.

Second, results were released of the largest clinical trial ever of a malaria vaccine – RTS,S (a competitor to Steve Hoffman who I wrote about) developed by GlaxoSmithKline after 25 years of research and more than $300 million spent. It was tested in more than 16,000 children across seven countries. Only half were protected. It is still considered a major milestone in malaria research, though as one prominent researcher pointed out underscoring the difficulty of eradication: “The reality is that malaria does fight back.”

Finally, In 2007 Gates and his wife Melinda urged the international community to fight for the global elimination of malaria saying that to aspire to anything less would be “timid”. On Tuesday Bill Gates, (sounding like Josh!) challenged the malaria community to be “smarter, faster, and more ambitious”. Gates added: “it will take leadership, innovation and money to plan for malaria’s eventual eradication.” It’s noteworthy that he put “leadership” first – precisely the point of our Conference of Leaders, and the key ingredient we must assess at every level of our work.

Billy

What we owe our partners and other stakeholders

2011-10-11T06:28:00.000-04:00

I’m writing from my home away from home - National Airport - where I’m waiting out a 90 minute delay on a flight south. The concourse is filled with the usual assortment of software salesmen, lobbyists, lacrosse teams, U.S. Army Rangers, and electricity scavengers looking for a place to recharge iPads. We have little in common but the vague scent of Aunt Annie’s pretzels. Next to me is a man in a green t-shirt that says “Margaritaville on the back, and on the front “There’s Booze in the Blender” It’s a dark and rainy night and the plane looks like a small sparrow next to the 737s heading to New York and Boston. I am missing Rosemary and Nate and second-guessing my decision to try to inspire a small college’s undergraduates with the Share Our Strength story.

Distracting myself by plowing through e-mail, I just opened one that includes the audio message that John Miller, CEO of Denny’s, sent to his team about the Great American Dine Out (They have more than 700 restaurants participating.)

It’s not unusual for our corporate partners to issue communications to motivate their staff and get buy-in. But instead of reading it, I was able to listen to John’s voice as he talked – and as he described the impact Share Our Strength is having, what it means both nationally and at the community level. That must explain why this one hit me more personally.

What struck me is that not only are our partners committed and generous, but that they go to extraordinary lengths – taking risks actually – to vouch for us, to put their own reputation on the line – to link the brand they’ve worked day and night to build to our brand and especially to our brand promise that we will end childhood hunger.

From Whole Food, William-Sonoma and WalMart to Jimmy Dean, Hickory Farm, Denny’s – and everyone in between – men and women with their own businesses and careers to worry about are sticking their necks out further than they have to on our behalf. They are giving testimony in the most public way, that Share Our Strength is where you want to place your bet. Their employees, whose engagement is so critical to Dine Out and our other partnership promotions, know us mostly through what their management tells them. And what they are hearing is that we make a difference, and that while we still have a long way to go, we are going to end childhood hunger.

Humbling, ain’t it? Scary too. There are more people counting on us than we could ever count, more people investing their hopes in us than we could ever have hoped for. It is not only America’s hungry children (as if that weren’t enough) to whom we owe our best, but many others to whom we’ve given our promise as well. Makes it hard to complain about small planes to small towns on dark and rainy nights. Makes it seem more like an honor.

When poltical calculation becomes politcal callousness

2011-10-07T10:43:00.000-04:00

I’m en route from Boston to Anchorage, Alaska. During the course of ten hours in the air it’s hard to not be impressed with what a vast country ours is, and just how formidable is the task of ending childhood hunger, or solving any major national problem for that matter. I’m making the trip at the invitation of the Alaska World Affairs Council, and partly to satisfy my desire to get to the only one of the fifty states to which I have not yet been.

Such a long journey guarantees that rare opportunity to read every single article in the newspaper. What I read today reinforced the vital responsibility that both Share Our Strength and CWV have to be a voice, even if a lonely one, for those whose voices are not heard.

The New York Times reported on the latest round of skirmishing between Democrats and Republicans over taxes and spending, almost all of it designed to score political points rather than impact the economy. In another article, about the team guiding President Obama’s re-election, his top political adviser David Plouffe, asserts that Obama offers the American people the choice “of a president who says ‘Every decision I make is focused on the middle class.’”

What about the rest of the country? 46.2 million Americans now live below the poverty line. I wonder what it feels like to hear that they are not even in the scope of the President’s work, let alone a priority.

Plouffe’s comments have bothered me all day, especially for how deliberate they were. His enforcement of message discipline is legendary in political circles. His carefully chosen words were meant to be music to the ears of many Americans who fit squarely into that most popular and potent of all political cohorts: the election-deciding middle class. They of course have legitimate wants and needs, but at least they have a voice. What of those who don’t?

We have reached a new low when political leaders and their spokespeople actually brag about representing not all of the nation, but only a portion of the population, albeit a politically powerful one. Political calculation has morphed into political callousness.

Presidents are uniquely elected to set a higher and unifying national standard. When they don’t the bar is lowered for everyone else. That’s apparent in Congress’s response to the President’s jobs bill, which Thursday’s NY Times also discusses in its lead editorial. Not only is the jobs legislation during this unemployment crisis being held up by the president’s Republican adversaries, but also by members of his own party who lack the courage to advocate government action that may be politically unpopular.

From 37,000 feet up here somewhere between Boston and Alaska, looking down at the farms and factories, at the small towns and schools where children were taught that Presidents act on their behalf no matter which class they belong to, America looks fertile and full of possibility. But our leaders no longer see the whole, as one can from this vantage point. They have instead narrowed their vision to see only what is small and advantageous in the short-term. As a result they perpetuate the smallness, the narrowness, and the division. By such actions they are choosing to follow rather than to lead. The only remedy is for others to lead, for citizens and community organization to act not on behalf of a class, but on behalf of a country. That remains our work, more important now than ever.

Why We Can Succeed in Ending Childhood Hunger (Remarks at Autumn Harvest Dinner)

2011-09-28T08:18:00.002-04:00

Thank you so much for being with us for such a special evening. I’ve had the privilege of speaking to you from this podium 18 times now, during good times and bad, but never at a moment as pivotal as this.

I’m grateful that Savannah Guthrie is here, and grateful to Kim DiPalo and Danny and everyone on their team for such support. I do want to say a word about Danny Meyer, because there is no one in the country who has made a bigger difference in our success – and we now have an annual budget of $37 million a year – than Danny has as a mentor, leader, champion and friend. The recent New York Times magazine cover story told of how successful he’s been, but it didn’t say what he has done with his success, to what purpose he has put his success, and it is that which I admire most about him because Danny is not only a successful business leader he is a leader in the community and an example of what inspired citizenship can achieve. The reason it wasn’t in the magazine is that it would take an entire book to describe his accomplishments. Fortunately that book is being written today in the smiles of children who have been fed, and on the bodies of children who are strong and healthy because of Danny’s support and leadership.

As I thought about how to describe for you the special blend of idealism and pragmatism that I think is at the heart of Share Our Strength’s effectiveness, I was once again helped by the words of our six year old son Nate. He spends a lot of the summer in Maine at a small cottage we have on the water.

Recently a neighbor came over and said “I had an interesting talk with your son.” This is the moment I begin to hold my breath. Anyhow, this man on the beach comes over and says “I had an interesting talk with your son. I was building a sand castle down by the water’s edge with my son”, he continued” and your son came over to us, hands on hips and said: “Just so you know, I’ve seen a lot of these and they’re always gone by morning.”

Well many of us might say the same about some of the causes and campaigns that we’ve seen come and go, be it the war on poverty, the war on drugs, climate change, even hunger. But I’m here tonight to tell you that this time is different. We’ve got a dream but it’s not built on sand. In fact it’s got a more solid foundation than anything I’ve seen before.

Here’s why it’s different. Hunger is a problem, but it is a problem with a solution. In fact the extent of the problem has never been greater. 46.2 million Americans live below the poverty line and 20 million of them live in deep poverty, families of four living on less than $11,500 a year. 44 million are on food stamps and half are kids. Secretary Vilsack told me that one of every two kids in this country will be on food assistance at some point in their lifetime. Today’s generation of children faces hard times worse than anything since the Great Depression.

The solution has to do with two facts:

First, kids are not hungry because we lack food or food programs but because they lack access to those programs. 20 million kids get a free school lunch but only 9 million get breakfast and only 3 million get meals in the summer when the schools are closed. Even though all 20 million are eligible. The reason they lack access is that sometimes they aren’t aware of the program, but most times the state or city where they live hasn’t set the program up.

Second, and this may be Washington D.C.’s best kept billion dollar secret, the food in the programs these kids lack access to is already paid for, it’s costs are 100% federally reimbursed. It buys milk from local dairy farmers, break from local bakeries. But the money doesn’t flow until the kids actually participate.

Here’s the catch: These kids are not only vulnerable but voiceless. They don’t belong to organizations and they don’t have lobbyists. There is no greater testament to their voicelessness than the fact that $1 billion has been allocated for their needs and they are not getting it. These are federal entitlement programs but not the programs that have given entitlements a bad reputation. They are not drivers of the national debt. They represent the bipartisan wisdom of our predecessors, the wisdom that says kids are the most vulnerable and the least responsible for the situation in which they find themselves, and something as basic as whether or not they eat should not be subject to the prevailing political winds of the moment.

So what we do at Share Our Strength, in its very simplest terms, is work with governors and mayors, nonprofits and businesses, in public-private partnership, to identify the barriers to kids participating in programs like summer meals and school breakfast. And then we knock those barriers down. If it means working with community organizations to set up additional sites, that’s what we do. If it means putting ads on radio stations to make parents aware of where their kids can get food, we do that too.

• Maryland: In August 2010, there has been a 45% increase in participation in summer meal programs over the previous year.

• Arkansas: They have nearly doubled the number of summer meals sites where families can access free summer meals.

• Colorado: There has been a 66% increase in the number of kids who are participating in school breakfast programs in the two years.

• Washington State: There has been a 64% increase in participation in SNAP in Washington State.

And we were recently joined by Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia in making this a truly bipartisan effort, and an important regional one, with Maryland Governor O’Malley, to end childhood hunger.

I hope what we are doing sounds good. But I also hope you will agree that good is not good enough. Why? Because Martin Luther King once said “In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood, it ebbs.” Despite our success there are still too many children for whom we are too late. The spectacular results we are getting in Arkansas have not found their way to Texas. The progress we’ve seen in Maryland, has not reached Mississippi.

If you are in this room tonight because you believe we can change the world, I hope you will agree that there is no higher likelihood of accomplishing that than by helping us address this problem with the solution I’ve described.

We’ve got a diversity of interests in this room, and many of you have numerous other community and philanthropic commitments. But we’ve come together because we believe that children are the most vulnerable and the least responsible for the position in which they find themselves. And it turns out that is one of the few things Democrats and Republicans have been able to agree on as well. And so do teachers, and doctors and Fortune 500 CEO’s and economists, and chefs, of whom some of the best in the world are here tonight. So this problem of hunger has a solution. Private efforts can’t take the place of vital public policy, but engaged and active citizens who put people ahead of politics, can show Washington the way.

We have worked too long and too hard and fought too many good fights to let our legacy be swept away by incoming tides of special interest and cynicism. We’ve worked too long and too hard and fought too many good fights to let our legacy be an America in which record numbers of kids go to bed hungry, wake up hungry, show up at school hungry, and become part of an economy and society weakened by such neglect.

So tonight I ask you to join me in ensuring that for my son Nate at the beach, and your own kids wherever they are, and for American children everywhere, that this time will be different, that this time what we build together will not be washed away like sand castles at high tide, that this time what we build together will be there in the morning, and will be there for the next generation, that this time what we build together will endure and inspire like the great cathedrals that have stood for hundreds of years.

This time what we build together will say to the world that we not only have a vision but a voice and that we have raised our voices together on behalf of those whose voices are not heard, and that rising together our voices finally changed the national conversation, that our voices unashamedly and finally made heard the idealism that brought us here in the first place, that our voices insisted that partisan politics should not only stop at the water’s edge but at the doorstep of any home where young children need a chance and are depending on us to give it to them, that our hopeful voices finally achieved an America in which there is No Kid Hungry.

SNAP (food stamps) one of our most effective childhood hunger programs

2011-09-21T19:42:00.002-04:00

Earlier this week we met with Bob Greenstein from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. He is also a long time member of the Share Our Strength board. Bob’s focus is poverty and hunger. He knows that are even more narrowly focused on childhood hunger. And he wanted to be sure that we understood that the most effective childhood hunger program in the country is SNAP (food stamps). Three-quarters of SNAP recipients are families with children. 93% of SNAP benefits go to families with incomes below the poverty line (about $22,000 a year for a family of four.)

SNAP is also the program at greatest risk from budget cuts. The child nutrition programs such as school breakfast and summer meals are not expected to come under attack. But there has always been a political mythology about SNAP, especially that it is subject to fraud and abuse and can therefore afford to be cut. At one time that was true. But Democrats and Republicans came together and reformed the program. Today benefits average less than $1.25 per person per meal. So to cut SNAP could compromise the basic health and well being of more than 20 million low income households.

Whether SNAP makes for good political fodder may be debatable. The facts are not. In 2009 SNAP lifted 1.7 million children above the poverty line. Any serious effort to address the record levels of poverty recently reported must protect SNAP.

Four questions nonprofits must ask in light of dramatic rise in poverty

2011-09-18T16:59:00.000-04:00

Last week the Census Bureau released a new survey showing a record 46 million Americans living in poverty below the poverty line, and more than 20 million living in deep poverty (below less than 50% of the poverty line) The sheer magnitude of the problem – greater than any time in the 52 years since such records have been kept – makes it likely that the work of virtually every nonprofit and social service organization will be impacted by heightened need. Most if not all will be asked to do more with less.

There are at least four questions that community leaders and nonprofit executives should be asking in light of this crisis level of poverty:

First, anticipating greater need, are we investing internally in building capacity to meet it?

Second, is it possible to do more with less or must we find ways to not only redistribute wealth but to also create a new kind of wealth called community wealth?

Third, will we go about doing business as usual, or can we reorganize to serve those most vulnerable and voiceless in our society?

Fourth, are our programs and services designed to yield incremental change or to achieve the transformational results necessary?

These are many of the questions we’ve wrestled with over the past 2 years at Share Our Strength and at Community Wealth Ventures. Share Our Strength has grown from revenues of about $14 million in 2008 to about $36 million today. The result is that we and others in the anti-hunger community been able to alleviate a significant percentage of hunger even as poverty has increased.

Community Wealth Ventures is working hard to tease out these lessons of success, and the ingredients of other transformational efforts, and to make them available to other nonprofits and community leaders. To see if they can help go to http://www.communitywealth.com/

Increase in Poverty Not Surprising, But Lack of Bold Response Is

2011-09-16T06:15:00.001-04:00

The government’s newly released statistics showing a record 46 million Americans living in poverty were shocking but not surprising. The dismal economic trends of the past few years made a surge in poverty predictable. But the sheer magnitude of the problem – greater than any time in the 52 years since such records have been kept – cannot fail to shock the conscience of the nation.

But it unfortunately has failed to shock the conscience of politicians and policymakers. Perhaps most surprising of all is the tepid response and the utter failure of the President or any other national political leader to come forward with a set of bold proposals designed to reverse this devastating descent into despair for so many of our fellow Americans. Most failed to even muster expressions of sympathy. The media’s front page coverage was met by sounds of silence.

Jobs creation is of course a critical piece of what is needed. And there has been a belated focus on that. But even in periods of robust economic growth, and much better employment rates, such as during the Clinton Administration in the 1990’s, we’ve had more than 30 million Americans stuck below poverty and little effort made to reach them.

There’s a callousness settling into our political system that is deeper and more disturbing than the kind that is reflected in the political infighting and cheap shots that have become par for the course under the Capitol dome. It’s a callousness toward the suffering of other human beings who have nothing to do with politics or one’s political adversaries, but simply have the misfortune to be vulnerable and voiceless. There are 46 million of them now and they need someone in Washington with the courage to speak out on their behalf.

A nation indifferent to the fate of 15 percent of its own citizens has worse shocks ahead.

bearing witness to famine in Horn of Africa

2011-09-12T05:53:00.000-04:00

Yesterday’s New York Times published a rare first person account of what it feels like to be hungry in the midst of famine. @ http://tinyurl.com/3zcc27l

The tragedy in Somalia and the Horn of Africa continues to unfold in the face of man-made logistical obstacles that make meaningful relief problematic. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do everything we can to continue to bear witness and fuel our own commitment to make a difference.

One of the lessons from the colossal suffering the world seems unable to stop, is that by the time a famine reaches this level, we have almost certainly missed the window of opportunity to intervene on a scale commensurate with the scope of the horror. The numbers are overwhelming and the political and security situation that prevents aid from being delivered, cannot be overcome merely with humanitarian best intentions and good will.

That is why long-range international development efforts, that do not lend themselves to dramatic film footage on the evening news, and which get so much less attention, are all the more important for us to support. One of the things we’ve always done best at Share Our Strength is to find creative ways to help people see needs of which they may not have been aware, and how they can share their own strengths to meet those needs.

As much as all of us naturally have the impulse to do something immediate for Somalia – and we have made an emergency grant and can hopefully do more - our greatest impact will come from developing a strategy, as we’ve done with No Kid Hungry here at home, that builds a larger and long-term constituency of supporters for efforts to ensure that those in famine struck regions can ultimately support themselves. That’s the kind of work that takes not only years but decades. It requires a kind of compassion and commitment that can be sustained long after this immediate crisis has passed.

Another chapter in The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men

2011-09-10T08:41:00.000-04:00

I get the question all of the time. “How does the story end?” After reading through 300 pages of my new book “The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men” it’s a fair question. Indeed one of the challenges in finishing the book was knowing that the story of developing the first vaccine that might prevent malaria probably wouldn’t and couldn’t have an ending for another 10-20 years. That is partly the nature of science and it partly represents the almost insurmountable obstacles that scientists have faced over hundreds of years in trying to combat malaria. (The book can be found @ http://www.amazon.com/Imaginations-Unreasonable-Men-Inspiration-Purpose/dp/1586487647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303909402&sr=1-1)

But that is one of the central points of the book, following the wild rollercoaster ride of Steve Hoffman in particular, from the beginning of his penniless lab in a strip mall to the infusion of more than $30 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which enables Hoffman to build a world class vaccine manufacturing facility. It takes certain qualities of character and specific entrepreneurial strategies to solve problems that affect people so vulnerable and voiceless that there are no markets for solving them.

Now, on the heels of a deeply disappointing clinical trial, Hoffman is back with a newly published paper in the journal Science with vaccine results that he describes as “staggering.” As any entrepreneur would, he took failure not as an end in itself but as another lesson learned along the continuum, and proposed the never before used innovation of introducing a vaccine intravenously. When tried on animals, the results were protection of between 71% and 100%, compared to protection of only 2 out of 44 when tried on humans via injection into the skin. (see summary of Science article @ http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/09/new-hope-for-crazy-malaria-vacci.html )

“It was an ‘aha’ moment “ said Robert Seder at the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Its classic entrepreneurship: try something, and if it doesn’t work, try something else. It is the twist-and-turn lineage of most great achievements, moreso than a straight line. The initial results left Hoffman disappointed but undeterred. And now he has taken a huge step forward, fully aware that further complications lie ahead, especially how to overcome the practical and logistical challenges of wide-scale distribution intravenously. “Our goal has always been to show that this vaccine is highly effective. Once we have done that. We’ll figure out how to make it practical”, he told Science Now. Just the sentiments that made Hoffman the central figure in The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men.

Two Books Give Voice to the Voiceless Suffering from Malaria

2011-09-06T06:54:00.002-04:00

Is the global campaign against malaria reinventing international aid? That’s the thesis of an important new book, Lifeblood, by Time’s Africa bureau chief Alex Perry. @ http://www.trust.org/alertnet/blogs/alertnet-aidwatch/the-business-case-for-beating-malaria-one-bug-at-a-time

The book, whose pub date is today, makes the case that former businessman and now UN Special Envoy for Malaria Ray Chambers approaches charity like a business. Having known Ray for many years, that is definitely one of the many strength’s he brings to the task.

In my recent book about the quest to end malaria, The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men, @ http://www.amazon.com/Imaginations-Unreasonable-Men-Inspiration-Purpose/dp/1586487647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303909402&sr=1-1 I try to look at the challenge from the other end of the telescope, not just using business strategies and tactics, but looking at the strategies and qualities of character demanded by the toughest problems to solve, which are those that affect people so vulnerable and voiceless that there are no markets for solving them.

The two books make a good pair: Perry’s looking at the distribution of insecticide treated bed nets to prevent malaria infections, and mine looking at the quest for a vaccine to eradicate the disease completely. Thanks to our publisher Public Affairs for giving voice where there was none!

Labor Day comments on link between jobs and hunger

2011-09-05T06:10:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday of this week the USDA releases its latest food insecurity numbers, and on Thursday, President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress about jobs. The press coverage will be unlikely to draw any connection between the two events, but it is essential for us to understand, act, and speak out on just how intimately these two issues are tied together.

Getting Americans back to work is a central ingredient to the long-term success of virtually every social program including the anti-hunger programs we champion. Record levels of poverty and unemployment make it extraordinarily difficult to reduce economic inequity and win battles to end hunger, ensure equal educational opportunities, and create a more just society. Those of us working toward those goals will come up short unless we take a larger and longer term view that includes economic growth and job creation as a priority. We must make our voices heard on those issues as surely as we will on the USDA hunger statistics.

The president’s jobs package is likely to be imperfect, and include compromises that reflect political reality. But it is critical to elevating the human catastrophe of millions of unemployed Americans as a priority on the national agenda. (As is typically the case, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities led by Share Our Strength board member Bob Greenstein, has an insightful analysis of the August jobs numbers @ http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3571 )

Until now the political will in Congress has been insufficient to achieve progress on jobs. It will remain so unless more of us speak out and specifically underscore the connection between our missions and the need for bold measures to address the jobs crisis. Part of our leadership responsibility at both Share Our Strength and Community Wealth Ventures is to encourage others in our sector to look beyond their specific silo, focus on the bigger picture, and raise their voices as well.

Nonprofit and advocacy organizations focused on human services need to reach out this week – to their supporters, donors, stakeholders and all of those they serve – and explain how and why concerted, bipartisan action on jobs is directly related to the mission of their organization.

In the case of our No Kid Hungry strategy, our challenge not only would be more manageable if more families had meaningful work and less need for public food assistance, but our efforts also can actually help create jobs. States have left more than $7 billion on the table in Washington because of the number of children and families who are eligible but not participating in school breakfast, summer meals, and the SNAP program. If that $7 billion were being spent locally to buy and deliver more food products it would create additional jobs at virtually every level of the supply chain. By itself it would not be a large enough number of jobs solve the unemployment crisis, but when there are as many American families suffering as there are today, every job counts and our efforts would be a net positive contribution to that solution.

It’s fairly obvious that when more Americans are working, they are less likely to need food assistance. But what’s less obvious is that enrolling more children in food programs as we do through our No Kid Hungry campaigns can also help create jobs. The national conversation this week and next will be focused almost exclusively on ideas to create jobs. If we want to be heard, we must find ways to talk about what we do in that context. And the large numbers of hungry children in America need us to be heard if they are to have a voice in that national conversation too.

Top 6 Reasons Why No Kid Hungry Campaign is Needed and Destined to Succeed

2011-08-30T07:12:00.000-04:00

I’ve been struck by the importance of relentlessly reinforcing the key messages of No Kid Hungry and what makes it so compelling. Given how powerful those messages are, and how strong a case we’ve built, I thought I’d summarize my view of the top 6 reasons why the time is right for Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign.

1. Record Levels of Need: In the aftermath of the recession, with unemployment at 9.1%, and persistent poverty, there are now 45 million Americans on the SNAP (food stamp) program and half of them are children. The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count Report shows that the child poverty rate in the U.S. has grown by 18% between 2000 and 2009, with 15 million of our children now living in poverty. More than twice that number lives in homes where no parent has a full-time job. Poverty rose in 38 of our 50 states over the last decade. But you don’t need to memorize all of these numbers. Just remember the faces from Katherine van Steenburgh’s photos of her summer meals visit in New Mexico. Innocent children are suffering in this country and No Kid Hungry is one of the fastest and most effective ways to change that.

2. Effective Solutions Exist and They Are Funded: The most effective tools for fighting childhood hunger are the public food and nutrition programs consisting of SNAP, school meals, summer meals, and WIC, to name a few. 20 million children in America get a free school lunch, but only 9 million get school breakfast and only 3 million get summer meals, even though all 20 million are eligible. I call this Washington’s best kept billion dollar secret because school breakfast, summer meals and SNAP are entitlement programs with at least than a billion dollars untapped but available to close the gap between the number of children eligible and the number actually participating.

3. No Kid Hungry is a Win-Win proposition: Everyone wins when more children are enrolled in public food and nutrition programs. The children are fed and healthier. Our schools and teachers have students better able to pay attention and are ready to learn. Better students and better schools mean an economy that is more competitive globally. And federal funds flow into cash-strapped states to reimburse for meals in ways that stimulate the local economy, buying bread from local bakers, mile from local dairy farmers, etc.

4. Measurable Results, Historically and Now: The programs work which is why they have been around for more than 30 years, have enjoyed bi-partisan support, and are continually reauthorized. At a time when so many doubt that government works at all, this is a shining example of public-private partnerships at their best. And we can count increases in summer meal sites, increases in school breakfast participation, etc. as we have in Maryland, Colorado, Arkansas and elsewere, so we know when the NKH campaign is effective and when it is not. That commitment to accountability inspires confidence in our stakeholders and distinguishes is from other organizations and efforts.

5. Unprecedented Community of Diverse Talent: We have attracted an unprecedented diversity of talented supporters including corporate CEO’s, chefs and culinary leaders, teachers and educators, Governors, Mayors and other elected officials, entertainers, philanthropic leaders, social media activists, and grassroots supporters in the form of nearly 60,000 NKH pledge-takers. There has never been such a broad-based, cross-sector, multi-faceted coalition championing this issue. It is a formula for success.

6. NKH is an Oasis in the Political Desert: Children’s Food and Nutrition programs were not cut in the budget deal that accompanied the debt ceiling increase, and were made specifically exempt from the automatic cuts that would be triggered if the Congressional joint “super committee” fails to reach an agreement. As other essential services, especially in health and education are cut, the safety net represented by the child nutrition entitlement programs stands out as all the more vital an oasis in the desert.

Needless to say we still have a long way to go to make No Kid Hungry a reality. There are plenty of obstacles and potential pitfalls along the way. And we have set the bar high in trying to accomplish something so difficult that no one has been able to yet achieve it. That’s what also makes it so necessary.

There are surely many other reasons, in addition to the six above, why the time is right for our No Kid Hungry strategy. But the larger point is that an unprecedented combination of ingredients, some brought about by your relentless efforts and leadership, now promises hope to millions of American children. That promise is ours to keep.

The Unique Role of Public Affairs in Giving Voice to the Voiceless

2011-08-29T09:19:00.000-04:00

This weekend I read a brand new book called Lifeblood: How to Change the World One Dead Mosquito at a Time, by Alex Perry, Time Magazine’s Africa Bureau chief. It’s a profile of the efforts of long-time friend and Share Our Strength supporter Ray Chambers to rid Africa of Malaria, first through an organization he helped create called Malaria No More, and then in his role as the UN’s first special envoy for malaria.

Much of the focus of the book is on how Chambers used business practices to scale up the effort to distribute insecticide treated bed nets, and the many lives that has saved. It’s a good read and because it is published by Public Affairs which last year published my book The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men @ http://www.amazon.com/Imaginations-Unreasonable-Men-Inspiration-Purpose/dp/1586487647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303909402&sr=1-1 about the race to develop a malaria vaccine, and about the challenge of solving problems that affect people so voiceless that there are no markets for solving them, I think of the books as worthy bookends.

Mostly I’m so admiring of Public Affairs for having the courage and commitment to tackle subjects that at first may not seem to appeal to a large commercial market, and nevertheless publish them in a way that enables such important issues, like malaria, to reach a wider audience. It’s a unique niche in American publishing today, and a true public service.

Sara Brenner's 8 common elements of successful social transformation initiatives

2011-08-28T17:55:00.000-04:00

My colleague Sara Brenner, who is one of the leaders of Community Wealth Ventures, recently gacve a keynote speech at the Good360 Conference and outlined 8 common elements of the most powerful adn effective social transformation initiatives. I've excerpted her comments below as they are a superb summation of manmy of our learnings.

Element #1: Good is not good enough

Successful social change initiatives are led by restless people, those who are unsatisfied with incremental change. They believe good is not good enough.

Take the example of our parent organization and client Share Our Strength (which is an anti hunger/anti-poverty organization fighting to ensure that NO KID is HUNGRY in the US).

For a long time everyone involved with Share Our Strength was satisfied with their success except those leading the organization. Share Our Strength distributed hundreds of grants a year helping other organizations feed people, asked for little in return and was very popular as a result. Who could argue with that? The organization got plenty of good press and it kept friends, family and stakeholders impressed and supportive. The organization probably could have kept it going in that fashion for quite some time.

But they were unsatisfied with not being able to quantify their impact, and therefore to assess, if only for themselves, whether their hard work was paying off. They had no specific goal and therefore no way of knowing whether they were moving towards it. They knew what they were doing was good, but also sensed it wasn’t good enough. The organization plateau at about $13M between 2005-2008.

Executives asked themselves, we are feeding a record number of people but what are we doing to help ensure that they wouldn’t need our assistance in the first place?

They wanted to have greater impact.

Once it’s decide that good is not good enough, the leaders we studied set big vision for a different world.

This brings me to element #2.

Element #2: Have a big vision, but believable goals

To quote Jonathan Kozol’s the education writer and reformer “pick battles big enough to matter but small enough to win”. In doing so, you’ve had impact and can demonstrate real progress – and you’ll be believable.

As an example – in 2009 Share Our Strength refocused their broad-based anti-hunger efforts on a specific subset: hungry children in the United States. They realized it was possible to do more than just feed kids, that they could actually end childhood hunger. The linchpin of the growth from $13 million dollar org to $34M organization was a commitment to shift away from short-term incremental progress in favor of long-term transformational change. The former is easy and comfortable. It is the norm. The latter is risky and hard to achieve.

Billy will say that “establishing the bold goal of ending childhood hunger – not reducing, reversing, or redressing, but ending it – represented transformational change and more than any other factor has been responsible for the organization’s growth and ability to have greater impact”.

For an existing organization – this is a process of steering the ship in a new direction, but what about new initiatives that are not born out of one organization.

When we spoke to Scott Case the former CEO and current Vice Chair of Malaria No More (which was established to end deaths from malaria by 2015), he shared… When you’re first starting a totally new initiative, it may not be practical to state the end goal at the beginning. It isn’t always easy to see what the end goals will be or what all the milestones will be. And, frankly the second or third milestone isn’t always easy to articulate until you’re well into working on the first. But sometime you just have to choose a first milestone and get going.”

In their case – they chose dramatic reduction of malaria deaths in one region of one country.

What Scott alludes to is action-oriented leadership – proving that it can be done. This is the third element.

The 3rd Element: Be relentless about showing immediate action and progress.

All the leaders we interviewed are relentlessly action-oriented and goal-oriented. They make decisions and they move, and they are able to bring in a small group of dedicated leaders to drive the initiative forward.

In the case of Malaria NO More’s work– they brought together a great leader in Ray Chambers with other government officials in the US and Africa and offered a solution of bed nets. They showed it was possible to make dramatic change in a particular country and moved on to the next. Once progress is shown, these leaders convince others that success is within reach and not working on the issue would be crazier than working on it.

This leads to element #4.These leaders not only act but are exceptional focused decision-makers.

Element #4: These leaders make tough and unpopular decisions; and take criticism

The leaders we studied are laser focused on achieving their goals, using data to inform decisions, and makes quick course corrections.

An example of this is when Geoff Canada who founded HCZ set the goal that every child complete college. Many of you may know HCZ. The organization has accomplished amazing results with graduation rates among disadvantaged youth that rival privileged private schools. He proved that regardless of one’s environment youth can succeed, and has changed people’s thinking about what works in education across the country not just in Harlem. He is a reformer.

Several years ago, HCZ built an employment program to create stability in the homes of these children. When they looked at the data from their employment program, they saw that the people who were availing themselves of the program didn’t have children.

Geoff had a tough choice. Many people in the community liked the program. It was helping people but it was not helping to achieve the goal of children completing college. He made the tough decision to close the program. This takes discipline and a relentless focus on your goal, and it takes courage.

This leads to element number #5. Successful leaders of social change initiatives need courage for tough decisions and also a tolerance for failure.

Over and over again, leaders we interviewed shared that you have to get comfortable with failure to be successful. For them, failure provided the opportunity to learn and change and do better. If you look at many highly successful for-profit entrepreneurs they failed several times before getting it right. Walt Disney was turned down by over 20 banks for capital until he came up with his “Mickey mouse” concept. He recognizes it was these failures that made his concept a huge successful.

Malaria is no different, efforts in the 1920s and 1950’s failed. At one time, places like Sri Lanka actually got the cases down to 20 or 30 cases. But if 1 or 2 rainy seasons come without intervention malaria can rebound rapidly, and it did. In 1990’s people began to ask if we can eradicate Malaria herein US why not eradicate it elsewhere – and let’s learn from past efforts to make lasting improvement this time.

Failure can yield better results though the social sector does not set up systems that allow organizations to take risks, fail, learn and try again. We need to accept failure as part of the journey in transforming social problems.

Failure can result from many things. Often is comes from not understanding and monitoring your theory of change (or your product) to ensure you are getting results. Once you get this right – your set. Failures of some social change initiatives also often come from the complexity of the multiple stakeholders involved.

This leads me to Element #6 : Successful social transformation efforts are lead by connectors who bring uncommon bedfellows together across sectors.

It goes without saying that a critical element of social change initiatives is the power of involving individuals and organizations/agencies across many sectors and rallying them around a common goal. The number of people and parties involved in all successful initiatives is mind boggling from governments, religious leaders, nonprofits, and for-profits. In HCZ case, it was national funders, the hospital, a health fund, local funders, police, tenant association, and the clergy (which he emphasize were critical partners) And, it’s safe to say, that prior to these initiatives, many of these parties were working in isolation toward different goals, rather than a common one.

What is characteristic of successful change initiatives is that they have a leader with the ability to bring together uncommon bedfellows and build bridges. It takes many interests and a diverse group – and many people.

Randomly visit the headquarters of any ten nonprofits and you’ll find that at least nine have a poster somewhere on their wall of Margaret Mead reading “never doubt that a small group of people can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”

While inspiring, it would be better stated by saying “can begin to change the world.” Actually changing the world takes a lot more than a small group.

One of the critical operating principles of effective social change leaders is that they increase the number of shareholders that has genuine ownership for creating change. This not only means collaborating, partnering, forging coalitions, etc., but also giving real ownership to others so that they are working with you or even independently of you, toward a shared objective.

People are critical. This leads to the 7th element.

Element #7 “Successful change initiatives value investment in raising political will and communications as much as programmatic investments. “

Successful initiatives invest heavily in increasing the political will among the general public, and the savviest initiatives view communications as a programmatic function rather than just a support function. Scott Case articulated the importance of mass engagement. Their team looked for platforms where they could reach masses of people (Nascar, American Idol, etc.) and then figured out how to make their cause/issue relevant, and have people take action. Share Our Strength did something very similar by asking America’s to take a pledge for NO KID HUNGRY and to get involved locally.

At its most basic- building political will simply means that you’ve succeeded in getting a broader base of people to care about your mission not just those immediately affected by it. It means building some capacity to engage in policy development at both the federal and local level, share and advance ideas with policy makers and ultimately bring some political pressure to bear on behalf of your ideas.

In SOS’s case this was a big shift for the organization that had never engaged government before. This meant new types of staff, new processes, and new systems. They found that the investment is worth it because if your mission is big enough to matter – you’ll need some partnership with government to realize large scale impact.

This brings me to the 8th and final Element: Leaders of successful change initiatives are beholden to goals and thereby control their own financial destiny

Geoff Canada shared that early on they made a decision not to accept restricted dollars. That’s right – no restricted dollars. This is the dream of many organizations. His believed that if funds were allocated for specific programs, funders would become attached to programs, and if those programs were not achieving outcomes, he’d have to cut the programs. He did not want partners/funders attached to particular programs that were unsuccessful, and cause difficulty for him in shutting them down. It would be a huge distraction from their goal. Rather he wanted them attached to the goals and he wanted them to hold him accountable to achieving those goals. He worked to change funders’ mindsets. It also helped that one big funder, George Soros, agreed to take the risk and be the first funder, and others followed.

Financial instability is distracting, demoralizing and debilitating, and many organizations that we work with to become more sustainable struggle with small financial decisions that feel like they will make or break the organization. The opportunity costs of spending time that way is both high and corrosive. For many organizations this is the norm.

Financial stability is about taking control, as in Geoff’s example, and calling the shots. It’s playing offense. We as a nonprofit sector cannot afford to play defense for too long. In defense, you can play and hold the line for a long time, but you’ll never win just playing defense.

Sounds of silence greet new report showing jump in child poverty

2011-08-21T17:41:00.003-04:00

The annual Kids Count report just released by the Annie E Casey Foundation shows that the child poverty rate in the U.S. has grown by 18% between 2000 and 2009, with 15 million of our children now living in poverty. More than twice that number live in homes where no parent has a full-time job. Poverty rose in 38 of our 50 states over the last decade.

Given the unemployment and economic crisis, these statistics are not surprising. But what does shock is the lack of response to so many kids in jeopardy.

When our banks are in trouble, Congress and the White House act. It’s the same when its auto companies or insurance firms. During the debt ceiling crisis there was enormous concern over whether the markets would suffer. But when it comes to children who are the most vulnerable and most voiceless, a report like this is greeted by sounds of silence. Where are the White House summits with the Speaker of the House? Where is the legislation that could help children?

This type of poverty is not just an economic issue. It’s a political issue as well. These children don’t belong to organizations, make campaign contributions, or have lobbyists. The result: their needs are not heard – and don’t make it onto the national agenda.

We can’t expect others to lead for us when it comes to changing the political climate. What are you doing to press policymakers for a response? At Share Our Strength we are working with governors across the country to ensure that they at least do everything possible to enroll more children in vital food and nutrition programs like school breakfast and summer meals. That is necessary but not sufficient. Is your nonprofit urging policymakers to do something about child poverty? If not, no matter how much good you are doing, it may not be good enough.

Washington is not just out of money, it is out of big and bold ideas

2011-08-09T10:10:00.000-04:00

The stock market continues to plummet. Unemployment is stubbornly stuck above 9 per cent. A record 45 million Americans are on food stamps for the first time in U.S. history. The median wealth of white households is now 20 times that of black households. The debt ceiling legislation underscores Congress’s unwillingness to make the tough choices necessary to get our budget under control.

One is tempted to ask how so many bad things could be happening at once. But the real question is: how could they not? Because these are not randomly coinciding unfortunate events. As is often the case they are inextricably interconnected as symptoms of a deeper problem. That problem has to do with a political agenda that is set by and centers on the needs of the influential and elite.

Did it really take the stock market dropping 1000 points and losing 15% of its value for the light bulb to go off that when nearly a fifth of the nation’s adults are out of work or have quit looking they are unlikely to have the money to buy the kinds of things that cause businesses to expand and leads to economic growth?

One of Washington’s iron laws is that nature abhors a vacuum, and its corollary is that you can’t beat something with nothing. The President came to the podium yesterday, in the midst of Wall Street’s precipitous plunge, and sought to counter it with nothing more than platitudes. Instead of reassuring he inadvertently showed a hand that held no aces, and the effect was just the opposite of what was intended.

Washington is not just out of money, it is out of big ideas. Or perhaps worse, it lacks the courage to put forth big ideas that may seem unfashionable in the prevailing political climate.

Given the enormously complex economic issues facing our country, our challenge of ending childhood hunger begins to look manageable by comparison. And in a way it is, especially since the programs are in place to achieve it, and the need is so basic as to be undeniable. But the deep hole we’ve dug for our economy means the forces of gravity must be surmounted at the same time. That means we must multi-task – executing our No Kid Hungry campaign with focus and determination – but also getting behind bold new ideas to move our economy forward.

In Reducing the Federal Budget we have Reduced the National Imagination

2011-08-08T08:13:00.003-04:00

There is a shockingly large inverse correlation between the number of pundits and politicians now saying that Obama should focus on jobs, and the small number of ideas being put forth to actually create them. One reason we hear so few specific big ideas about creating jobs is that to do so on the scale necessary to impact 9.1% unemployment would require an enormously ambitious and probably expensive agenda. Of the many negative consequences of the debt ceiling debacle, perhaps the greatest of all has been the national accommodation and acclimation to thinking small.

But that’s where presidential leadership is supposed to come in. Presidents are elected and paid to think bigger than the rest of us – to not be constrained by petty political considerations – even given the reality of the political environment in which their operate. From Lincoln to FDR, from Nixon to Reagan, we’ve seen presidents take risks when the stakes were high. President Obama needs to do more than call for a renewed focus on job creation as he did in his weekend radio address. He needs to put forth ideas on the scale that the problem exists, to show what our nation needs to do, not just center the debate around what some believe we can afford to do.

In reducing the federal budget we have also reduced the national imagination. The political failure we are witnessing today is not just a failure of fiscal discipline or of political civility, or even of long-range thinking. It is a failure of imagination. As I learned in writing The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men (@ http://ow.ly/5XC58 ) that is what most failures are really all about.

Of course presidents don’t have a monopoly on big ideas. Other policymakers, academics and advocates have a responsibility to step up as well. Enough cowering under the covers as unfavorable political winds blow. Let’s debate what we’d like to do, and then we can talk about whether it is worth the price. Our politicians might be surprised to learn just how much most Americans, who are more used to sacrifice than the elites, are willing to do to get this country working again.

Falling stocks and the need to create community wealth

2011-08-05T06:50:00.001-04:00

When the stock market drops by more than 500 points as it did yesterday, it is not only bad for the many companies who lost value, it is also bad for the endowments of the foundations that fund many of our grant recipients at Share Our Strength. During the last market turndown, foundations ranging from Annie E. Casey to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation saw their endowments shrink by double digit percentages.

The fragility of our economy underscores the need for nonprofits to diversify their revenues, and to not be completely dependent on traditional philanthropic giving.

The conventional wisdom was that if Congress did not agree to a debt ceiling deal the markets would react negatively. Despite everyone’s unhappiness with the substance, there was relief and self-congratulation on Capitol Hill when the deal was reached.

So why did the markets react so negatively anyway? Unfortunately it did not occur to the politicians who are so acclimated to political spin, that achieving a deal in name only, especially one that kicked down the road the tough decisions to yet another commission, would not be enough to reassure investors whose livelihoods are at stake.

It’s also a deal that threatens to tear at some of the basic fabric of American society: programs like WIC, Medicaid, the military while it is fighting two wars, and the unknown of potential across the board cuts in all government agencies. Our political system is failing to create either community or wealth. But putting them together, by aspiring to create community wealth as we do at CWV and Share Our Strength, may be the best way forward for our nation.

forgetting the unforgettable

2011-08-04T08:27:00.001-04:00

Yesterday a wise friend and accomplished leader in the New York business community wrote the following in response to my Washington Post article about famine in the Horn of Africa (@ http://ow.ly/5UYXP ) “The juxtaposition of the concentration of personal wealth with the increasing poverty and desperation of so many is more and more startling every day. It is clear that American politics today is dominated by greed with only a camera-ready nod toward compassion when it serves greed’s purpose."

I thought of his words while reading this morning’s NY Times. On Monday the Times had unforgettable images of suffering children from Somalia on page one, but today there is nothing to be found in the paper about this enormous ongoing catastrophe except a one paragraph AP wire service story buried inside. Page one instead has a photo of Louis Vuitton shoes being sold at Bergdorf Goodman for $1,495 a pair.

So the world inexorably moves on, even past the most horrific suffering, or perhaps especially past the most horrific suffering. The Czech author Milan Kundera wrote in 1979 in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting: “The bloody massacre in Bangladesh quickly covered over the memory of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, the assassination of Allende drowned out the groans of Bangladesh, the war in the Sinai Desert made people forget Allende, the Cambodian massacre made people forget Sinai and so on and so forth, until ultimately everyone lets everything be forgotten.”

That is the way of the world. But it need not be the way of the world we strive to achieve. Thanks to all at Share Our Strength who for nearly three decades have found a way to keep remembering, keep bearing witness, keep caring and organizing to bring change on behalf of those most vulnerable and voiceless.

Why the Debt Ceiling Deal Makes Our No Kid Hungry Strategy More Important

2011-08-02T10:09:00.001-04:00

I have received several inquiries as to how the debt ceiling deal and proposed federal budget cuts will affect our No Kid Hungry strategy. Most people assume it will make our work harder. In the broad sense that is likely to be the case, especially because the nation’s economic growth is much slower than expected and the mandated budget cuts are unlikely to change that. Also, some important hunger programs like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infant and Children (WIC) and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program face potential cuts.

But while there is not much in the deal to be happy about, there are some rays of light regarding the specific anti-hunger and child nutrition programs that are core to our No Kid Hungry campaign strategy. Here are three examples:

First, the entitlement programs that are the focus of our efforts to enroll more children: e.g. school breakfast, summer meals, and food stamps are not included in the proposed cuts. Although that could change in the future, this means everything we are doing in our No Kid Hungry state campaigns has as great a potential as ever to dramatically reduce and eventually end childhood hunger.

Second, the debt ceiling package reflects an implicit bi-partisan endorsement of our strategy which is based on the conviction that these programs work, they protect those most vulnerable and least responsible for their situation, and that they should be protected even when the economy and the political climate change – perhaps especially when the economy and political climate change.

Third, the legislative cuts in non-entitlement discretionary spending makes our strategy all of the more necessary and important. As other essential services, especially in health and education are cut, the safety net represented by the child nutrition entitlement programs stands out as all the more vital an oasis in the desert.

So we are more determined than ever to expand our No Kid Hungry campaign, with a renewed sense of urgency, to protect more children by ensuring they are enrolled in programs available where they live learn and play. I hope you will join our efforts to advocate for the vital role these programs play and to protect them from cuts, especially as the new Congressional Joint Committee debates their future.

Share Our Strength board member Bob Greenstein, the director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, has an analysis of the policy implications of the debt ceiling deal on the Center’s website @ http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3555

Avoiding the Truth: The Hypocrisy of Debt Ceiling Deals and Bad Marriages

2011-08-01T06:50:00.000-04:00

The debt ceiling deal has exposed our political system to be a lot like a bad marriage that perpetuates itself only when both parties to it tacitly agree to keep the relationship wholly superficial and at all costs avoid confronting the truth. It requires not only duplicity, but pretense, cynicism, hypocrisy, and a near complete abandonment of hope.

The details of the debt ceiling agreement are convoluted, upon which the illusion of substantive progress depends. But in fact most of the hard work has been left to the future, and that time-honored political dodge – a commission. As in a bad marriage there is so little confidence of it improving that even future action to reduce federal spending is predicated on automatic triggers rather than thoughtful deliberation.

Most observers would not have thought it possible for politicians to abdicate their responsibilities, let alone their principles, even further than they had over the past few weeks of negotiations. But with the final deal they managed to create a living monument to such cowardice.

The weak smiles of Senators Harry Reid and Charles Schumer walking through a Capitol corridor and captured on the front page of many papers the day the deal was done, betrayed the embarrassment of leading a party that has evolved, at least for now, into a paler, weaker version of their Republican counterpart. And President Obama, who put getting a deal ahead of his own once eloquently stated ideals, has unintentionally shown us just how much audacity it does take to continue to hope.

Remembering my turn at in that classic role: summer intern

2011-07-26T05:38:00.000-04:00

I’m looking forward to lunch later this week with Share Our Strength's amazing interns. I came to Washington more than 30 years ago as a summer intern for a nonprofit (The National Wildlife Federation) and I’ve never forgot what a formative experience it could be. Our happy band of interns worked long hours, felt underpaid and under-appreciated, were convinced that we knew more than some of those of the staff to whom we reported, (I hope this doesn’t sound too familiar to our interns!) and literally could not imagine how the organization would survive without us. Nevertheless we savored every moment, somehow intuiting that notwithstanding each morning’s Washington Post headline about some clash between political titans, it was actually the countless small and invisible acts of the rest of us that set the stage for genuine progress.

My job at the National Wildlife Federation was to cover Congressional hearings on environmental and energy matters, write reports for their newsletter (there was no internet or web) and attend meetings with my boss about advocacy strategies. My boss was named was not as old as I am right now, but he seemed old enough to be stuffed and on display at the Smithsonian to my young eyes. In the absence of any specific guidance I assumed that my job was to gently elbow him awake in all of the meetings at which he fell asleep. But then I realized this only made him grumpy for the rest of the day, and my role evolved into one of distracting the other people at the meeting from realizing that the boss was asleep.

Meanwhile I was meeting other interns and staff, getting a sense of just how many complex and fascinating public policy issues there were on which to work, and finding myself inspired every time I drove by the White House or the Capitol, or jogged past (yes, I once jogged) the Lincoln Memorial.

The most important thing I learned was that I wanted to come back to Washington to find a job right after I graduated from college at the University of Pennsylvania, and that was what I did, literally the day after commencement. I’ve been here ever since. Along the way I had a second tour as an intern, in the office of Colorado Senator Gary Hart. I’d met Hart’s legislative director through someone that had been at the National Wildlife Federation. And that led to 13 years on Capitol Hill, to presidential politics, and to the founding of Share Our Strength and Community Wealth Ventures.

I’m sure you’ll Share Our Strength's interns will have their own story to look back on years from now and I hope that their time at Share Our Strength plays some part in that emerging narrative. Thanks to each of them for choosing to be here, and for all they’ve done to advance our No Kid Hungry strategy. At the National Wildlife Federation we fantasized that we’d played a huge role in the organization’s success. I’m certain that they have in ours.

A harsh critique of leaders who won't use their post powerful tool: rhetorical suasion

2011-07-18T22:13:00.000-04:00

In this week’s New Yorker, staff writer George Packer, who is increasingly becoming that rare journalistic voice for the voiceless, has an excellent commentary juxtaposing the President’s focus on the deficit and debt ceiling, with the lack of any initiative around jobs for the now nearly one in six Americans who are out of work. @ http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/07/25/110725taco_talk_packer

Packer writes: “President Obama, responsibly acceding to the reality of divided government, is now the leading champion of fiscal austerity, and his proposals contain very little in the way of job creation. More important, he no longer uses his office’s most powerful tool, rhetorical suasion, to keep the county focused on the continued need for government activism…. What does either side have to offer the tens of millions of Americans who have settled into a semi-permanent state of economic depression? Virtually nothing.”

It’s a harsh critique, but not as harsh as life for those who have been unemployed so long that they’ve stopped looking for work, or for those navigating unemployment for the first time in their lives. Even a few words acknowledging their plight – let alone “rhetorical suasion” – could go a long way.

Letter from Goose Rocks Beach Observing Senators and Seals

2011-07-10T06:57:00.001-04:00

When we kayak here we almost always paddle out about 200 yards into the ocean and turn right toward the Batson River which borders our cove, and we then wind our way through the marshes. Recently we turned left instead, headed toward the rocks that jut out at low tide. In the winter they are covered with hundreds of Maine Harbor Seals but by the end of June most of them are gone, inhibited by the boats and noise that summer brings.

Last week there were maybe a dozen seals left: big and lazy, mostly grey or black, although one large redhead joined them sunning in the flat hollows of the rocky jetty. They seemed oblivious to us until we got within about 20 yards and then, as if we’d tripped an invisible alarm, almost all of them slid silently into the safety of the frigid water.

At first we were disappointed to not have a closer view. But when we turned the kayak around to head back, we saw that they had swum under or around us and were bobbing in the water, spread out in a nearly perfect semi-circle, as evenly spaced as charms on a necklace, with only their snout, eyes and top of head visible above the water line. It was a simple and instinctual act of self preservation and they had the energy and determination to stay in the water, and maintain their enhanced vigilance, for as long as necessary. We repeated this a few times over the next few days and the results never varied. Perceived threats to one’s existence motivate even the most complacent.

My 15 years working on Capitol Hill gave me ample opportunity to become attuned to almost identical behaviors, and they remain as observable today as ever. Just look at the robust debate over raising the national debt ceiling compared to the lack of debate over what to do about the jobs crisis in America that has left so many of our citizens suffering.

There’s been a frenzy of activity around the national debt negotiation. For more than three weeks it has dominated the headlines. The so-called Gang of Six (from the House and Senate) has been meeting with Vice President Biden at Blair House, and Speaker of the House John Boehner and President Obama had their own personal secret negotiations at the White House last weekend. Tonight there is a White House “summit” to iron out a compromise. What drives it all, in addition to the looming statutory deadline for increasing the debt ceiling, is fear of the political consequences of not acting to reduce the federal debt. Just like the seals roused from their slumber, except perhaps less gracefully, the Senators and members of Congress slide into action, when they sense an existential threat.

But when it comes to the catastrophe of persistent unemployment, and the poverty into which it has plunged a record number of Americans, our political leaders, fearing no political danger, go back to sunning themselves asleep on the rocks. Today’s NY Times business section has a thoughtful essay on just this issue of why the unemployed in America today, “in the grips of its gravest jobs crisis since Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House” remain politically invisible @ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/business/the-unemployed-somehow-became-invisible.html?_r=1&hp

Let’s hope that at some point policymakers recognize 9.2% unemployment, and 44 million Americans (half of them children) being on food stamps for the threat that it is: to our education system, our health care system, our competitiveness in the global economy. And that there will be White House Summits and secret meetings with the President about jobs and opportunity, and not just lifting the ceiling on the national debt, but putting a ceiling on hunger and poverty.

As Yogi Berra famously once said “you can observe a lot just by watching”. That is true for Senators and for seals. Observing both at close range is a powerful reminder of the need for us to remain vigilant on behalf of the most vulnerable and voiceless. They may not be perceived as the political threat that pushes politicians into action, but to ignore their plight threatens the very promise of America.

At P.S. 20 in NY to Launch Expansion of Summer Meals

2011-07-07T06:04:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we joined New York City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott at P.S. 20 in Manhattan to launch our comprehensive marketing and organizing effort to increase participation in summer meals. Only 30 percent of the school children in New York City who get a free or reduced price lunch during the school year, participate in the summer meals program when the schools are closed. And while that is almost twice the national average of 16 percent, the public-private partnership represented at yesterday’s press conference believes NY can do much better.

Chancellor Walcott praised Share Our Strength’s leadership and committed to the goal of increasing participation over last year’s level by attracting more children to more strategically selected sites. Our campaign, which includes posters, banners, public service announcements by NY Knicks guard Chauncey Billups, will also include NY’s first ever canvass for summer meals as fan out through targeted neighborhood on July 16 to make more families aware of this opportunity for their children. It is a lot like a political campaign but without the mudslinging and negative ads. Instead there is only one winner: New York City’s children.

Where Freedom Costs The Most

2011-07-03T06:46:00.000-04:00

It’s so quiet and peaceful here that bumper stickers boast of the e-mail address GooseRocksBeach.calm. But that may be more true for those of us lucky enough to vacation in Maine, than those born and raised here. As we decorate bikes with red, white and blue streamers for the annual children’s 4th of July parade, and prepare for an afternoon of beach and barbecue, the front page of the Portland Press Herald blares this headline: “MAINE HAS HIGHEST STATE RATE OF CASUALTIES IN AFGHANISTAN.”

According to Department of Defense figures just released, Maine’s casualty rate of 1.52 deaths per 100,000 residents is the highest in the country. Maine ranked third behind only Alabama and Nevada in the number of military recruits in 2009 with 213 per 100,000 young men and women. Economic factors such as lack of jobs play a role for many of those joining and staying with military service.

Maine’s tourist industry is significant which makes it a necessarily hospitable place. But while some of us who enjoy that hospitality hear only gentle waves lapping against the rocky shore, some of those extending that hospitality have family members hearing the terrifying blasts of improvised explosive devises and car bombs.

At a nearby store where we buy our pizza, slurpies and sun screen, the clerk tells me her 24 year old son has just returned from his second tour of duty in Iraq. “He came back once and was fine, but he came back this time and he’s not the same. Something’s wrong but he won’t talk about it.”

Maine is emblematic of the two societies into which America has so starkly divided. One that serves and sacrifices, another that benefits and almost obliviously goes about both its business and pleasure. Those of us, in service to community through nonprofit organizations like Share Our Strength, are fortunate to do work that bridges that divide.

The Fourth of July is always a much anticipated celebration of American independence and the blessings of liberty that go with it. In an America at war, and in an America with record numbers of citizens unemployed and hungry, it is also an opportunity to ask just what we do with that freedom, to what purpose do we freely choose to devote ourselves? Here in Maine, where freedom extracts a higher price than any other state, that question burns as bright as the fireworks we enjoy. The answer - service to others – shines even brighter.

Best wishes to all for the holiday!

Tribute to Triumph of Imagination That Lives on at The Barnes Foundation

2011-07-01T11:41:00.003-04:00

Many hoped this day would never come but today the Barnes Foundation in Merion, PA, will permanently close the unique galleries whose breathtaking collections of post-Impressionist and early modern art are a testament to “the imagination of an unreasonable man”. Although the collection will be relocated to Philadelphia, it will not ever again be seen exactly as Dr. Albert Barnes intended it to be seen.

My family made our first (and unfortunately last) visit to the Barnes Foundation last week: 181 Renoirs, 69 Cezanne’s 46 Picasso’s, 56 Matisse’s as well as Monet, Degas, Van Gogh and Modigliani, among others great works. The entire story, and images of the art, can be found @ http://www.barnesfoundation.org/

That one man could pull together such a collection during the early decades of the 20th century, guided by a vision not shared at the time by the traditional art establishment, is an inspiring example of how most failures are failure of imagination, and how the courage to take leaps of imagination can achieve outcomes that endure for all time. That was one of the most valuable things I learned in writing my most recent book, The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men.

Notwithstanding it being a completely separate field, I can’t help thinking of the similarities with Dr. Steve Hoffman, whose work is featured so prominently in that book. Hoffman has devoted his life to developing a vaccine for malaria. The disease infects nearly 300 million people a year and kills close to a million children, mostly very poor children in Africa. There has never been a vaccine for malaria or any parasitic disease for that matter, and the notion of eradicating the disease was considered so unrealistic that for many years eradication was referred to as “the E word”. You can just imagine the legion of naysayers that greeted Hoffman’s determination to confront conventional wisdom and pursue a course aimed at eliminating malaria once and for all.

Today Hoffman is in clinical trials with a vaccine that may prove more effective than any than any that have come before. Others, like GlaxoSmithKline are also advancing potential solutions. The UN Malaria Envoy Ray Chambers, whose long and impressive philanthopic track record includes revitalizing Newark and creating America's Promise to deliver more services to children, predicts a future with zero deaths from malaria. And Bill and Melinda Gates have also embodied “the imagination of the unreasonable” in using unprecedented amounts of funding to inspire new possibilities.

Like Dr. Barnes outside of Philadelphia, Hoffman also took on the establishment, traveled an unconventional and therefore lonely path, was dismissed at first and then won the grudging respect of competitors. Like Barnes he had a singular vision, one intended to represent the interests of those not typically represented. That always creates push-back. In Barnes case, the pushback was so strong that it resulted in today’s closing of the gallery in Merion, and a move of the art to Philadelphia, some would say against his literal will. In Hoffman’s case, it’s all documented in The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men @ http://www.amazon.com/Imaginations-Unreasonable-Men-Inspiration-Purpose/dp/1586487647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303909402&sr=1-1

If you like rooting for the underdog, learn more about Steve Hoffman and Albert Barnes. You’re sure to be inspired along the way.

"How does the story end?" Only time and "the imaginations of unreasonable men" will tell!

2011-06-30T06:35:00.000-04:00

I was riding my bike down Kings Highway at Goose Rocks Beach in Maine when I ran into Mr. Welch, the father of one of our staff at Share Our Strength who, coincidentally, spends a few weeks here each summer. “Hey, I read that book of yours” he yelled from his porch. “So how does the story end? Are those fellas gonna be successful? He was referring to my new book The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men, and also referring to one of the toughest challenges I faced in writing it: knowing that any conclusive ending is probably 10-15 years away at best.

The book tells the story of the race to develop the first ever malaria vaccine, as a way of dramatizing the challenge of solving the toughest problems of all; those that affect people so poor, vulnerable and voiceless that there are no markets for solving them. Malaria infects 200-300 million people a year and almost 800,000 die from it annually, mostly children in Africa. Just this week, Bill Gates told an assembly of Nobel Laureates that: "The true market failure is in diseases of the poorest countries because the voice of those people in the marketplace is silent," he said. "So that is why you get [a situation where] male pattern baldness gets 10 times the research [attention] that malaria gets."

That challenge – the lack of markets – and the fact that the malaria parasite has outwitted almost every threat to its eradication for literally thousands of years is what requires the strategies and qualities of character I’ve tried to capture in The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men. The book takes its name from a George Bernard Shaw passage in Man and Superman: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

The book follows the journey of Dr. Steve Hoffman, among others, as he attempts one innovation after another scale the production of a difficult to produce but effective immunogen discovered almost half a century ago but never brought to market. Hoffman was a captain in the Navy who has devoted his life to curing tropical diseases, and started his own biotech company, Sanaria, to combat malaria.

The short answer to Mr. Welch’s good question is that Hoffman’s vaccine, as well as the vaccines of leading competitors, are currently in clinical trials and and it will still be several years before any vaccines get into the arms of kids in Africa. But there is plenty of good news, much of it inspired by these leaps of imagination. For example annual funding for malaria R&D has quadrupled in the past 16 years from $121 million in 1993 to $612 million in 2009. And several dozen countries have cut their malaria caseload by more than 50%.

The fact that Steve Hoffman and others have never given up is probably the most inspiring news of all. It doesn’t guarantee a happy ending. But it does ensure steady progress and hope for those who are most vulnerable and voiceless

Latest HuffPosts re Reshaping The Natonal Agenda to Include End to Childhood Hunger

2011-06-29T10:58:00.000-04:00

Sharing my two most recent posts on HuffPost about resetting domestic priorities to include an end to childhood hunger:

While We're Waiting for the Peace Dividend, Let's Use the Children's Dividend

Posted: 06/29/11 09:20 AM ET

The prospect of reduced military expenditures in Afghanistan has already set off speculation about the purposes to which a so-called "peace dividend" might be employed to support domestic needs. A robust debate about resetting domestic priorities would be welcome. But there's another kind of budgetary dividend already at hand and we've been missing the opportunity to take advantage of it.

I'm talking about what might be called the Children's' Dividend -- the more than a billion dollars left untapped each year from the nearly $100 billion allocated for childhood hunger and nutrition programs, because of the unacceptable gap in the number of poor children who are eligible but not enrolled or participating.

More than 20 million children in America get a free or reduced price school lunch but only 9 million get breakfast and only 3 million get summer meals when the schools are closed. If we increased the national average of 16 percent for summer participation to 40 percent, still well under half, we would drive $313 million to the states in reimbursements for milk purchased from local dairies, bread bought from local bakeries, and other expenses. The same holds true for the Women, Infants and Children Supplemental Nutrition program and SNAP.

Although the federal government pays for this critical need, through programs that have a long record of bipartisan support and effectiveness, Governors and Mayors hold the keys to the lockbox where this Children's' Dividend resides. They have the power to eliminate barriers to participation and, working through public-private partnerships, increase awareness of and participation in these programs. But even many policy makers and elected officials are unaware that these funds are available -- a testament to how voiceless are the potential beneficiaries: low income children who don't belong to organizations, make political contributions, or have lobbyists. That's the real reason a Children's Dividend exists!

Before we engage in a predictably partisan and divisive battle over how to use any future peace dividend, we ought, for the sake of our children, use the dividend we already have so that we can end childhood hunger, and in so doing improve health and education outcomes, and restore America's competitiveness in the world.

The National Conversation About New Priorities: Including Those Most Vulnerable

Posted: 06/26/11 05:39 PM ET

The nation's priorities are finally beginning to shift, as President Obama acknowledged last week in his televised address about reducing troops in Afghanistan: "America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home."

That same week the Conference of Mayors approved a resolution calling for an early end to our military role in Afghanistan and Iraq and asking Congress to redirect the $126 billion dollars spent annually there toward "urgent domestic needs," especially jobs. It was the group's first advocacy about the balance between foreign and domestic priorities since the Vietnam War.

Along with recent national public opinion polls, or perhaps because of them, these developments signal a distinct and long overdue change in the national conversation, one that began without the president's leadership but which he was savvy enough to recognize and at least give lip service, if not embrace.

The question now is what, beyond job creation, will make it onto the new list of domestic priorities? Will special interests see a new pool of billions of dollars in play and succeed in dominating the debate? Will politicians compete only to see who can appeal the most to the politically influential middle class? Will we let the greatest income gap between rich and poor in history continue to widen further? Or will those most vulnerable and voiceless -- the record number of Americans who are hungry and living in poverty -- finally be acknowledged and included in the national conversation?

This may be the best opportunity in decades to lay a moral foundation at the base of our public policy choices. Where to begin?

Notwithstanding the likelihood of many competing interests, there is one issue that politicians of all stripes should be able to agree upon because its redress is inextricably linked to solving so many other issues of import -- and that is the issue of childhood hunger. Aside from being unnecessary and just plain wrong in a nation of such abundance, allowing children to go hungry undermines our ability to achieve vital national goals.

Childhood hunger is a health care issue because the long-lasting consequences of hunger and poor nutrition manifest themselves in maternal and child health, diabetes, obesity, hyper-tension and an enormously expensive array of other health care costs borne by society at large.

Childhood hunger is also an education issue. Large majorities of public school teachers assert that hunger is an obstacle to kids in their classrooms learning at the level they should.

That means childhood hunger also directly impacts our ability to compete in the global economy and ensure our economic security.

And of course childhood hunger, which impacts those who are the most vulnerable to and least responsible for the suffering they endure, is unquestionably a moral issue.

Ironically, childhood hunger is probably the issue that is least expensive for our nation to address, especially because the resources to do so already exist in the form of programs with long track records of effectiveness and bipartisan support: school lunch and school breakfast, summer meals, SNAP (food stamps) and the Women, Infant and Children's Supplemental Nutrition program. The problem is that millions of kids who are eligible are not accessing and participating in these programs because of lack of awareness or because communities have not made it easy for them to do so. That's why simply elevating attention to the problem and the existing solutions could lead to powerful change. Some governors -- Democrats O'Malley in Maryland and Beebe in Arkansas, and Republican McDonnell in Virginia -- have begun to do just that and the results have been dramatic. A national focus could do even more.

The window that now exists to reshape our nation's agenda and priorities will not remain open long. There will be many voices competing to be heard. But if we are to reclaim moral leadership, and get to some of the root causes undermining education, health care and economic growth, then our national agenda must also reflect the needs and the rights of those whose voices are not heard. There's no better place to begin than by ending childhood hunger and addressing poverty in a more serious way than we've done in at least half a century.

Nonprofits connecting to public policy to reach a broader audience

2011-06-28T06:08:00.002-04:00

I’m sharing here a link to a piece published this week on Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/billy-shore/us-child-hunger_b_884753.html) that I hope helps more sharply frame Share Our Strength’s key issue of childhood hunger in the context of the emerging national conversation about domestic priorities.

But it may also be a useful example for a broader range of nonprofit organizations when it comes to:

(1) The importance of having a public policy component to advance their mission, if in fact they want to be part of systemic and transformative change; and

(2) creating or at least illustrating the connections between what they do and the most pressing issues that donors, activists, stakeholders and others are reading about in the news, discussing at the water cooler, etc.

Too often non-profit organizations work not only in silos but in a kind of isolation from “the real world”. They assume that everyone will be interested in the issues they are interested in, but in practice we compete for mindshare not just against other nonprofits but against the broad range of issues, problems and needs that dominate the news, the Net, and the ever changing national conversation. To be part of that we have to adapt our message to fit into that conversation. To reach beyond the usual suspects to a larger audience we must help people see the connections between what we care about and what they are being told they should care about. The HuffPost article is an effort to do that with childhood hunger.

A potentially seismic shift in the national political agenda

2011-06-23T07:46:00.000-04:00

We may be the verge of a potentially seismic shift in the national political agenda and conversation, best represented by President Obama’s remark last night in his speech about reducing troops in Afghanistan: “America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home.” The day before the NY Times had a related lead story and headline on “urgent domestic needs” and reported that the Conference of Mayors approved a resolution calling for an early end to our military role in Afghanistan and asking Congress to redirect billions toward domestic needs, especially jobs. It was the group’s first venture into foreign policy since the Vietnam war!

Obama’s remark signaled a vital shift in the national conversation, one that had already begun without him but which he was politically savvy enough to recognize and seize. The question now is what, beyond job creation, will make it onto the new list of domestic priorities. Will special interests see a pool of billions of dollars now in play? Will politicians see that largesse as a new way to appeal to the middle class? Or will those most vulnerable and voiceless finally be included in the national conversation?

This new political dynamic will likely be framed very quickly and once it is it will solidify in ways that are hard to change. I anticipate a frenzy of competition to influence the new agenda of domestic priorities. This window will not remain open long, but it is the first crack we’ve seen in more than two decades and we must think hard about how to leverage this opportunity on behalf of those most affected by hunger and poverty.

Upon accepting the Jefferson Award for public service

2011-06-22T06:56:00.000-04:00

For those who asked, here are excerpts from my remarks at the Jefferson Awards last night:
Thank you so much. I want to accept this award on behalf of my colleagues at Share Our Strength and Community Wealth Ventures, and on behalf of my wife Rosemary who is such a great partner and support, and my sister Debbie who started Share Our Strength with me. Share Our Strength would have been created with or without Debbie but it would not have lasted more than two weeks if not for the dedication and passion she has brought to it every day for 27 years.

This award is obviously a great honor, but it is also potentially a great inconvenience. I say that because I started Share Our Strength in 1984 with a $2000 cash advance on a credit card and we’ve raised $315 million since, helping to fund literally thousands of organizations fighting hunger. And so after 27 years I had fantasies of slacking off a bit, but now comes this award and with it the need to be faithful to the proud legacy of the Jefferson Awards, and to the spirit and legacy of Sam Beard, so it is inconvenient in that sense. It is also inconvenient because it is one of those awards that says that if you are dedicating your life to public service – and this is a notion that has unfortunately gone out of fashion in Washington a long time ago – you should be prepared to give more than you get. Kind of perverse for an award – and very inconvenient – but that’s the genius of founder Sam Beard and that’s the genius of the Jefferson Awards.

But this award is not just inconvenient, it is also insistent. This bright shiny medallion comes with an insistence that if you have a voice, you be willing to project that voice on behalf of those whose voices are not heard. It comes with an insistence that in a country with 48 million people living below the poverty line, and 44 million Americans on food stamps, half of them being kids, that we do better than having our children go to bed hungry, wake up hungry, go to school hungry, and become part of an economy and society weakened by such neglect.

This award comes with an insistence that we maintain the urgency that led us to this work in the beginning, and not be haunted by the words of Martin Luther King who once said: “In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood, it ebbs.

And finally, this award comes with the insistence that we embrace the words of the poet Gwendolyn Brooks who though not talking directly about public service certainly could have been when she wrote:

We are each other’s harvest.

We are each other’s business.

We are each other’s magnitude.

And bond.

It is in that spirit of inconvenience and insistence that I so proudly accept this award tonight.

What nonprofits can learn about donor development from Apple's remarkable success at retail

2011-06-15T08:10:00.000-04:00

Using J.C. Penney’s hiring of Apple’s top retail exec, Ron Johnson, as a hook, The Wall Street Journal today has a front page story on some of the secrets of Apple’s success at retail. Most of the credit of course goes to innovative, quality product, but the article’s focus is on Apple’s 326 stores which now have more visitors in a single quarter than Disney’s four biggest theme parks last year.

Much of their philosophy is very similar to how we at share Our Strength think about creating real value for customers. It suggests a valuable perspective for all nonprofits regarding donor development and corporate partnerships. “According to several employees and training manuals, sales associates are taught an unusual sales philosophy: not to sell but rather to help customers solve problems. ‘Your job is to understand all of your customers needs – some of which they may not even realize they have.’ One training manual says….”You were never trying to close a sale. It was about finding solutions for a customer and finding their pain points,’” said one former employee.

The article can be found @http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576364071955678908.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

Billy

Behind the scenes with Jeff Bridges during No Kid Hungry launch

2011-06-13T06:36:00.000-04:00

In response to several questions about spending time with Jeff Bridges I thought I’d share this glimpse of life behind the scenes with our favorite national spokesperson. He was in D.C. last Monday and Tuesday for the launch of our No Kid Hungry campaign in Virginia and a media tour that included CNN, FOX and Hardball on MSNBC.

The most telling time is probably when we are in the car together between stops. As you’d expect, there is the occasional reference to movies he’s made, or directors with whom he’s worked, and such Hollywood gossip is always fun to be around. But unlike some celebrities who withdraw until they are “on”, Jeff spends almost the entire time asking hard and thoughtful questions about our strategy and about the conditions of hungry kids in America: “How close to success are we in our best state? What other governors are likely to be influenced by Governor McDonnell’s example? Who has the most credible information on SNAP beneficiaries? What strategies do schools use to eliminate the stigma of getting a free breakfast?”

It’s one of those refreshingly rare examples of someone whose on-stage and back-stage persona are one and the same. It affirmed my own sense that as exciting as it is to be working with Jeff Bridges, or CBS’s Scott Pelley who spoke at our recent NY event, or Vermont Senator Leahy who spoke at our DC dinner, the real VIP’s are not the celebrities but those whose work has attracted the celebrities in the first place: the talented team at Share Our Strength. Jeff Bridges made the point himself at the National Press Club last November and again in a recent interview when he said: “Working to end childhood hunger is the most significant thing I’ve ever done.”

Peter Hotez's breakthrough on behalf of the most vulnerable and voiceless

2011-06-12T06:34:00.000-04:00

In the Imaginations of Unreasonable Men, one of the scientists I wrote about was Peter Hotez, dedicating much of his career to developing a vaccine for hookworm, because he was grappling with the issue of how to solve problems that affect people who are so vulnerable and voiceless that there are no markets for solving them. He’s done as much as any human being could possibly do to bring attention to what he calls neglected diseases of poverty. One part of his vision has been to create the first national school for tropical medicine in the U.S. Now that vision is coming to fruition.

As the Houston Chronicle reports, Hotez is relocating to Texas to assume posts at Texas Childrens Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine, and to be dean of the first national school of tropical medicine. See: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7601893.html

There are too few leaders today – in politics, business, science and many other fields - willing to raise their voice on behalf of those whose voices are not often heard. But Peter Hotez is one such leader and his move to Texas is a testament to what one person, with vision, commitment and authenticity can achieve.

Why This Time is Different in The Fight to End Childhood Hunger

2011-06-09T07:47:00.000-04:00

Per several requests for a copy of my remarks at the Share Our Strength dinner on June 6 at Charlie Palmer Steak in Washington DC, I didn't speak from a text, but have tried to transcribe what I said, as follows below:

Thank you so much for being with us for such a special evening. I’ve had the privilege of speaking to you from this podium more than 20 times now, during good times and bad, but never at a moment as pivotal as this. I’m grateful that Senator Leahy is here, a lifelong champion in the fight against hunger, and of course I’m grateful that Jeff Bridges was here tonight and grateful that you had a chance to meet and hear him. I’m sorry my young son Nate wasn’t here. He asked me the other day who was older, me or Jeff. I explained that Jeff was older. And he said “But that can’t be – he’s got so much more hair!

Nate, at the tender age of six, turns out to be this very interesting combination of idealistic yet pragmatic, and in ways that I think reflect exactly what Share Our Strength is all about and the reason we have grown so successfully. He spends a lot of the summer in Maine at a small cottage we have on the water.

Recently a neighbor came over and said “I had an interesting talk with your son. I was building a sand castle down by the water’s edge with my son”, he continued” and your son came over to us, hands on hips and said: “Just so you know, I’ve seen a lot of these and they’re always gone by morning.”

Well those of us who have been in Washington for some time might say the same about some of the causes and campaigns that we’ve seen come and go: the war on poverty, the war on drugs, climate change, even hunger. But I’m here tonight to tell you that this time is different. We’ve got a dream but it’s not built on sand. In fact it’s got a more solid foundation than anything I’ve seen before.

Here’s why it’s different. Hunger is a problem, but it is a problem with a solution. In fact the extent of the problem has never been greater. 48 million Americans live below the poverty line and 19 million of them live in deep poverty, families of four living on less than $11,500 a year. 44 million are on food stamps and half are kids. Secretary Vilsack told me that one of every two kids in this country will be on food assistance at some point in their lifetime. As you heard Scott Pelley say, today’s generation of children faces hard times worse than anything since the Great Depression. But as you also heard him say, there is a solution and it is Share Our Strength.

The solution has to do with two facts:

First, kids are not hungry because we lack food or food programs but because they lack access to those programs. 20 million kids get a free school lunch but only 9 million get breakfast and only 3 million get meals in the summer when the schools are closed. Even though all 20 million are eligible. The reason they lack access is that sometimes they aren’t aware of the program, but most times the state or city where they live hasn’t set the program up.

Second, and this may be Washington D.C.’s best kept billion dollar secret, the food in the programs these kids lack access to is already paid for, it’s costs are 100% federally reimbursed. It buys milk from local dairy farmers, break from local bakeries. But the money doesn’t flow until the kids actually participate.

Here’s the catch: These kids are not only vulnerable but voiceless. They don’t belong to organizations and they don’t have lobbyists. There is no greater testament to their voicelessness than the fact that $1 billion has been allocated for their needs and they are not getting it. These are federal entitlement programs but not the programs that have given entitlements a bad reputation. They are not drivers of the national debt. They represent the bipartisan wisdom of our predecessors, the wisdom that says kids are the most vulnerable and the least responsible for the situation in which they find themselves, and something as basic as whether or not they eat should not be subject to the prevailing political winds of the moment.

So what we do at Share Our Strength, in its very simplest terms, is work with governors and mayors, nonprofits and businesses, in public-private partnership, to identify the barriers to kids participating in programs like summer meals and school breakfast. And then we knock those barriers down. If it means working with community organizations to set up additional sites, that’s what we do. If it means putting ads on radio stations to make parents aware of where their kids can get food, we do that too.

• Maryland: In 2010, there has been a 45% increase in participation in summer meal programs over the previous year.

• Arkansas: They have nearly doubled the number of summer meals sites where families can access free summer meals.

• Colorado: There has been a 66% increase in the number of kids who are participating in school breakfast programs in the two years.

• Washington State: There has been a 64% increase in participation in SNAP in Washington State.

And tomorrow we will be joined by Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia in making this a truly bipartisan effort, and an important regional one, with Maryland Governor O’Malley, to end childhood hunger.

I hope what we are doing sounds good. But I also hope you will agree that good is not good enough. Why? Because Martin Luther King once said “In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood, it ebbs.” Despite our success there are still too many children for whom we are too late. The spectacular results we are getting in Arkansas have not found their way to Texas. The progress we’ve seen in Maryland, has not reached Mississippi.

If you came to Washington or have stayed in Washington because you wanted to change the world or some small piece of it, if that has something to do with why you are in this room tonight, I hope you will agree that there is no higher likelihood of accomplishing that than by helping us address this problem with the solution I’ve described.

We have worked too long and too hard and fought too many good fights to let our legacy be swept away like sand castles at the water’s edge by incoming tides of special interest and cynicism. We’ve worked too long and too hard and fought too many good fights to let our legacy be an America in which record numbers of kids go to bed hungry, wake up hungry, show up at school hungry, and become part of an economy and society weakened by such neglect.

So tonight I ask you to join me in ensuring that for my son Nate at the beach, and your own kids wherever they are, and for American children everywhere, that this time will be different, that this time what we build together will not be washed away like sand castles at high tide, that this time what we build together will be there in the morning, and will be there for the next generation, that this time what we build together will endure and inspire like the great cathedrals that have stood for hundreds of years.

This time what we build together will say to the world that we not only have a vision but a voice and that we have raised our voices together on behalf of those whose voices are not heard, and that rising together our voices finally changed the national conversation, that our voices unashamedly and finally made heard the idealism that brought us here in the first place, that our voices insisted that partisan politics should not only stop at the water’s edge but at the doorstep of any home where young children need a chance and are depending on us to give it to them, that our hopeful voices finally achieved an America in which there is No Kid Hungry.

A powerful, living, breathing reminder of what's at stake with our No Kid Hungry campaign

2011-06-08T06:35:00.000-04:00

As much fun as it is to be with Jeff Bridges and do Hardball and CNN interviews and see all of the great press from the Virginia launch of No Kid Hungry etc. I have to say that the most valuable part of yesterday for me was to sit on stage at Barcroft Elementary School in Arlington, Virginia while Jeff Bridges and Tom Vilsack and Governor McDonnell were talking and look out at those kids as a living, breathing reminder of what we’ve committed to do, and how much is at stake in our holding ourselves to the highest possible standard of accountability.

The kids were really beautiful in their diversity and energy and playfulness. But we all know that in just a few short years some of them will likely be compromised educationally and developmentally by one or another of the myriad consequences of growing up in a low income environment and being short-changed the social services they need and deserve. So in a strange way, instead of being tired after two long days, I was energized by the responsibility our team has had the courage to undertake – and the knowledge that we’ve developed the gift of pulling disparate interests and people together in ways few other organizations have. If we can keep up the pace we’ve set, and somehow increase it (as only the imaginations of unreasonable men and women would contemplate) we could change the trajectory these kids would otherwise be fated to follow – and set an example for others as well.

Women and Children First! (When it comes to short-sighted budget cuts)

2011-05-30T19:40:00.000-04:00

The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, led by Share Our Strength board member Bob Greenstein, has posted on their website an analysis of the impact of proposed cuts in the Women, Infant and Children supplemental nutrition program @ http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3499

The 2010 agriculture appropriations bill unveiled last week includes proposed cuts in WIC funding that would turn away between 325,000 and 475,000 eligible low income women and young children. Participation levels are likely to decrease as food prices increase.

It doesn’t require much imagination to realize that these are among the most vulnerable and voiceless of our fellow Americans. They belong to no organizations and have no lobbyists. It’s hardly a fair fight. And perhaps worst of all, there has long been a bipartisan consensus that the WIC program works and improves health and nutrition outcomes for women and children. So the legislation is not about cutting waste, fraud or abuse. Rather it’s about ideology prevailing over decency, and the expediency of short-term interests prevailing over the long-term needs of the next generation.

Excerpts from commencement speech at Mass Bay Community College

2011-05-30T06:20:00.000-04:00

Thanks for the many requests for my commencement speech at Mass May Community College. Excerpts follow below.

Bill Shore

Commencement Address

Mass May Community College

May 26, 2011

Thank you President Berotte Joseph and congratulations to each of you.

Because of the pressing business at hand, I will say only three things to you this morning about my experiences and your opportunities, and then sit down.

First, as much as I appreciated that generous introduction, you should know that while everything that president Berotte Joseph said is true, that is not who I am. At least it is not, and of course could not be, all of who I am. Yes it is true that I worked in government and started Share Our Strength and that we’ve raised more than $300 million and that I was included as one of America’s Best Leaders in U.S. News and World Report, but that is only part of who I am.

I am also the son of a loving mother who died from a drug overdose. I was a principal architect of three losing presidential campaigns, one of which spent more than four years paying off its debts. And after graduating law school I failed the bar exam. Twice. I tell you this not for sensationalism’s sake or to gain sympathy, or even to get and hold your attention, as desperately as I’d like to do that for the next ten minutes.

I tell you this to persuade you that no life, not even a successful life, perhaps especially not a successful life, is lived as an unbroken string of successes. And indeed the shortcomings, failures and even bad luck that are an inevitable part of being human need not hinder your success in the least if you know what to take from and do with them.

Second, as diverse as you are in your intellect, appetites, energies, appearance and ambition, you share in common these world-changing powers: to share your strength, to bear witness, and to be a voice for those whose voices are not heard.

Share Our Strength was built on the belief that everyone has a strength to share, sometimes a gift that you may take for granted but that can be deployed to benefit others. I’m talking about something more than writing a check once you are financially successful, or volunteering at a food bank or homeless shelter. I’m talking about giving of yourself, of your unique value added, as chefs have done by cooking at food and wine benefits or by teaching nutrition and food budgeting skills to low-income families. In the same way we have engaged authors, architects, public relations and marketing executives, and numerous others.

As a result we have helped to build the emergency food assistance network in the country, distribute 2.4 billion pounds of food, add millions of students to the school breakfast program, and made a life and death difference in places like Haiti and Ethiopia.

You also share the power to bear witness. Whether you graduated magna cum laude or by begging your professors to pass you, each and every one of you has this gift in equal measure. The power to bear witness is the power to go, see, feel, and share what you have felt.

I went to Ethiopia during a famine, to New Orleans right after Hurricane Katrina, to Haiti after the earthquake. What I really wanted to do was to go and see for myself what had happened and how the victims were coping. I wanted to go and see and allow myself to feel things about what I’d seen, and then share what I’d felt. I had less of a sense that I could effect change than that I would be changed by the emotions - sadness, sympathy, despair, anger, outrage, and ultimately hope - that are the inevitable response to such a situation.

That is what it means to bear witness. You “bear” witness because what you experience weighs on you. And one way to accommodate such a weight is to redistribute and share the load.

When something affects us powerfully we often say we have been moved. The literal implication is having started out in one place and ending up in another. In this way being moved means being transformed and personal transformation is what powers social change. It’s what Gandhi meant when he said “be the change you want to see in the world.”

Bearing witness has always been the essential prerequisite for changing society’s most grievous conditions, for righting injustice, for reaching out to those in need. In the 21st century bearing witness is destined to become an even more powerful tool for advancing social change.

You also have the power to be a voice for the voiceless. And the need has never been greater. We have 48 million Americans living below the poverty line for the first time in history, and 19 million of those are living in “deep poverty” below half the poverty line, meaning a family of four living under $11,500 a year and a family of three living under $7500 a year. 44 million Americans are on food stamps and 22 million of them are children.

You leave here today with a degree, and an education, and the support of a community, that gives you a voice. But you also leave with a choice. Will you raise that voice only on behalf of your own interests, or on behalf of others whose voices are not heard.

Third and finally, I hope you will leave here with a sense of urgency. Martin Luther King once said that “In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is the thief of time. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood, it ebbs.”

To me these have always been more than eloquent words. I went to Ethiopia during the onset of a terrible famine there in 2000 and 2002 and met a 13 year old girl at a school we were supporting, and where we were trying to build a hospital next door. Her name was Alima Dari and we stayed in touch for several years, exchanging letters, and pictures. But one day a colleague of mine went to Ethiopia on a trip I couldn’t make and I gave him a letter to give to Alima but then didn’t hear from him for many days. He finally wrote to say “ I hate to tell you this but Alima died of cerebral malaria. She’s been misdiagnosed with Tuberculosis and by the time they realized it was malaria and got her to Addis Ababa it was too late.” And there again were Martin Luther King’s words.

But you don’t have to go all the way to Ethiopia to find and meet your Alima. Alima is in Boston, and in Washington, and Denver and St Louis and wherever kids are at risk, vulnerable and voiceless.

No one spoke more eloquently about the need to share our strengths than the poet Gwendolyn Brooks who wrote:

We are others harvest

We are each others business

We are each others magnitude

And bond.

I have learned that these words are true. Whether you are a banker on Wall Street or a baker on Main Street we are each other’s harvest.

Whether you are an engineer, entrepreneur or an educator, we are each other’s harvest.

Whether you design video games for next year or cathedrals that last centuries we are each others harvest.

Thank you and congratulations.

Sharing Strengths to Support Community Colleges

2011-05-28T07:36:00.002-04:00

Last week I had the privilege of being the commencement speaker at Mass Bay Community College, one of 15 community colleges in the state. It gave me a new appreciation for the vital role of community colleges and how many are sharing the strength’s to help them succeed.

Mass Bay Community College is 50 years old. I met many faculty members who had taught there for three decades. Most have PhD’s and a lot of options in terms of where they could teach, but wanted to work with students who might not have the advantages and the opportunities of others who attend more elite schools. The board of course is all volunteer. And their extraordinary president, Carole Berotte Joseph, when inaugurated in 2005, was the first Haitian American college president in the country. She was born in Port au Prince, grew up in NY, and we met at a lunch hosted by the Haiti Fund of the Boston Foundation. This is her last year in Boston as she has been recruited by the City University of New York to become president of the Bronx Community College.

Some of the students are going on to four year colleges; others are heading to work in fields ranging from nursing to automotive maintenance. Some are single parents, and some of special education requirements. Many are of modest financial means and have overcome significant challenges to make it all the way to graduation. They have a refreshing sense of appreciation for what they’ve earned more than a sense of entitlement to it. For me it was an honor to be able to challenge them to share their own strength’s, to bear witness, to be a voice for those whose voices are rarely heard, and to have always seek to have the imaginations of unreasonable men and women.

Our Six Keys to Sustaining Success

2011-05-25T11:18:00.000-04:00

This month saw us in Los Angeles, New York, Omaha, and Seattle among many other places. Cooking Matters was awarded $1.7 million by the Colorado Health Foundation … CBS correspondent Scott Pelley, on the eve of being named anchor of the CBS Evening News, spoke at a record-breaking Share Our Strength dinner at the Four Seasons in New York … we presented the No Kid Hungry strategy to a meeting of First Ladies sponsored by the National Governors Association and hosted by ConAgra Foods, as we also did at Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles … Groupon became a new corporate sponsor… and successful Taste of the Nation events took place from Portland Oregon to New York.

Something is going right at Share Our Strength and as a result we are in a stronger position than ever before to lead powerfully in the effort to end childhood hunger. But we need to be sure that things continue to go right. And that of course won’t happen of its own accord but only if we are careful and purposeful in taking specific steps to sustain our growth.

In a previous posts I described the ingredients responsible for our success and growth over the past several years. The memo sets out six of the keys to sustaining that growth.

1. “Stuff that works, stuff that holds up” (courtesy of singer Guy Clark): An old friend with whom I once toiled in politics used to say that the hallmark of losing campaigns was a culture of “Try something, and if it works, try something else.” It is easy to get complacent or even bored with what is working, or to take it for granted and start to think about doing something else. But while we will always be a dynamic and entrepreneurial organization, we must have the discipline to stick with the philosophies and strategies that led to our success in the first place including: celebrating food, delivering measurable value back to corporate partners, designing creative ways for individuals to share their strength.

2. Embracing humility through the power to persuade. One additional lesson from my political days. The most important book I read in political science was Richard Neustadt’s classic called Presidential Power. Neustadt argues that presidential power is the power to persuade. Contrary to popular perception a president can’t just command and expect things to happen. The other institutions of government have their own constituencies and their own sources of power and the president needs their cooperation to get things done. To get that cooperation the president “must persuade others that what he wants is in their best interests as well.”

If that is true for presidents it is certainly true for us. No matter how big we get, how much money we raise, how many governors, Academy Award winners, or network news anchors come to our events, at the end of the day we are dependent on volunteer organizers, local partners, and others with whom we must be prepared to listen, compromise, accommodate, motivate, and ultimately inspire by virtue of our vision and strategy. All we have earned, and must continually re-earn, is the right to try to persuade them of our views. It is precisely the time that we need humility the most.

3. Working As One. Our board member Sid Abrams recently sent me a book co-authored by Deloitte’s global CEO, Jim Quigly. It is called As One and represents years of studying effective collaborations, identifying 8 archetypes of leadership that can be used to create such collaborations. Without getting into the books details though, you can get the main point from the two word title: how do we recognize the individual power in each of us to achieve collective goals.

As we become larger, as each of our departments become more robust, and under more pressure to be accountable for achieving its goals, it becomes more difficult but more important than ever that we each act to put the interests of the larger organization ahead of the interests of any one department, group or individual. There is no possibility of success except as part of a team that is committed to Share Our Strength first, and its own department’s needs second. Senior leaders and department directors need to model such behavior.

4. The Restorative Power of Bearing Witness: As organizations grow larger their own organizational imperatives absorb more and more time and energy – hiring and managing staff, reacting to external requests, crafting budgets and measuring outcomes. And while all of these serve our mission in indispensible ways, the time and energy devoted to them often comes at the expense of feeling close to and connected to the mission itself.

The most powerful remedy I have found is regularly reconnecting with the impulses that brought me to the work in the first place – and that is by having those impulses anew by going to see, first hand (and not always comfortably) the people and places that need us the most, whether it’s the food stamp registration program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital or the UNICEF in Haiti. You should too. There’s a ‘Get out of the office free” card waiting for anyone who desires to bear witness in this fashion, especially if you share with the rest of us. Your renewed energy and commitment will more than make up for a day away.

5. Doubling Down on Transparency: It also follows that the larger we get, the less our stakeholders can know as intimately as they once did. And as the number of stakeholders grows, they won’t be able to assess us based on our character or friendship, but rather on how efficient and effective we are. The disaster that has befallen THREE CUPS OF TEA author Greg Mortenson and his Central Asia Institute is a good example of a probably good man (I don’t know him) who left himself in the position of having no metrics but only good intentions with which to counter devastating accusations about the way in which donor dollars have been spent. Because we go to great pains to ensure that our financial reports are accurate and thorough, and because we are working hard to go farther than most organizations in measuring the outcomes we achieve, we should take the offense in conveying our transparency.

6. Longer Time Horizon: We need to plan farther ahead than we ever have before. We’re not an ocean liner yet, but we’re not a nimble sailboat either. We can no longer turn on a dime or expect our colleagues to do so. We need strategic planning that focuses at least three years out, more multi-year partner, and early identification of investments we will need to make in the future.

With each passing day and with each accumulated success, large or small, we raise expectations that much higher. That fuels the momentum behind the “flywheel” and brings us closer to achieving an end to childhood hunger. It also means we’ve got a greater obligation than ever before to be analytic, thoughtful and deliberate in how we sustain that success. If we are, we won’t have seen the last of months like this one.

Ingredients of Successful Growth: Learning to Collaborate and Compete

2011-05-15T18:51:00.000-04:00

Nonprofits need to be more intentional and purposeful about competing – understanding that to compete at any level you must compete at every level. We are not just competing with other organizations to deliver the best outcomes. We are competing to attract and retain the best people, to ensure that we work not with whatever left over resources may be available, but with the best resources available. This may mean foregoing pro bono services and instead contracting with marketing firms, law firms, etc. It will definitely mean paying competitive compensation so that you can recruit not only the best talent in the nonprofit sector, but the best talent wherever it is found.

Share Our Strength board supports capacity building

2011-05-15T18:07:00.002-04:00

The Share Our Strength board met in NY last week, hosted by Danny Meyer at the offices of the Union Square Hospitality Group the morning after they had won three James Beard awards, including for Best Restaurant for Eleven Madison Park. Needless to say, we enjoyed a terrific lunch. But there were other important highlights.

We began with our auditors presenting a clean and unqualified opinion about our 2010 audit and the board approving that as well as our IRS form 990. Everyone was encouraged by our significant financial growth, and how well our financial records and information are organized.

We also had an in-depth discussion about our child hunger strategy, led by Chief Strategy Officer Josh Wachs and board member Scott Schoen. It included discussion of how our grant-making fits into the strategy, how we intend to set targets and measure results, along with some preliminary ideas about measurement from Community Wealth Ventures’ Amy Celep.

Most important, the board pushed us to think ahead to how much capacity and infrastructure we need to support continued growth. The Share Our Strength board understands how capacity equals impact and rather than constraining management as some boards do, they wisely coax and coach us to invest in our enterprise, to “put our own oxygen masks on first” so we will be better able to assist those who depend on us.

A Real Dilemma for one sympathetic to The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men

2011-05-08T22:55:00.000-04:00

A health official in Nigeria says that more than 300,000 children die from malaria annually, in Nigeria alone, yet some advocates insist that we can reach near zero deaths from malaria by 2015. 63% of all hospital attendance and 70 percent of illness in children under five are due to malaria according to an article that can be found at @ http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5698117-146/story.csp

Some leading anti-malaria advocates insist that we can reach near zero deaths by 2015, which seems optimistic given these statistics in just one country, and the fact that 800,000 children died from malaria in 2009.

On the one hand such optimistic advocacy can rally and inspire. And those behind it surely and authentically believe it will come to pass, or perhaps believe that asserting it will help it come to pass. I understand that approach and at times, with other issues, have deployed it myself. But so many scientists who are deeply involved in malaria are doubtful – because of drug resistance, the limitations of bed nets, and the lack of vaccines, that it gives one pause and raises the specter of disillusionment and reversal if the law of unintended consequences comes tragically into play as a result of such optimistic assertions. It’s a real dilemma for one sympathetic to the Imaginations of Unreasonable Men, many of whom I profile in my new book of that name.

Serendipity or the power of bearing witness?

2011-05-08T17:06:00.002-04:00

On Friday I had the privilege of keynoting the 13th Alexandria Business and Philanthropy Summit It’s a community with impressive philanthropic leadership – and sets an example for many to follow. While there I observed some acknowledgements of the City Manager’s last day. His name is Jim Hartmann.

During my talk I referenced Scott Pelley’s recent 60 Minutes piece on homeless children in Seminole County, and the opportunity we’d had to have dinner with Pelley, and hear him speak, just a few days before. As soon as I finished Jim Hartmann walked over and introduced himself. He’d just taken the position of County Manager in Seminole County, was starting in 3 weeks, had seen the 60 Minutes segment and wanted to make a difference for those kids.

In a follow-up e-mail Hartmann said “How serendipitous that you were speaking to community leaders in Alexandria on my last day as their city manager and you spoke of the problems in Seminole County where I was appointed County Manager a week earlier. What are the odds of that happening?

I know Jim asked it rhetorically, but when I thought about it I realized that actually the odds were pretty good. Dedicated public servants like Jim Hartmann go where the need is. They accept the tough challenges not the easy ones. And when someone like Scott Pelley bears witness, or even beforehand in this case, someone like Jim Hartmann acts.

Newly named CBS Evening News Anchor Scott Pelley, Bearing Witness with Share Our Strength

2011-05-04T17:03:00.000-04:00

In New York on Monday night at a Share Our Strength dinner at the Four Seasons Restaurant, and on the eve of being named the new anchor of the CBS evening news, Scott Pelley spoke movingly of the 60 Minutes piece he did on hungry and homeless children in Florida. “When we shot that story in November, there were 1,000 homeless kids in Seminole County Schools. Today, there are 1,750 homeless kids, an increase of 70 percent. On the positive side of the ledger, so many thousands of people called us the Monday after we broadcast the story and said, ‘How can we help?’ We know the answer to that question: it is Share Our Strength.”

Pelley demonstrated for all of us yet again the power of bearing witness. We raised a record amount of funds to help bring our No Kid Hungry campaign to New York – and he told of his hope to do some follow-up stories which could help childhood hunger assume its necessary place on the national agenda. Look for a link to his talk here in the near future.

Billy

Dan Pallotta's inspiring vision of nonprofits achieving Apollo-like aspirations

2011-04-28T17:19:00.000-04:00

At Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership my guest presenter on Wednesday was Dan Pallotta, author of UNCHARITABLE and founder of Pallotta Team Works that created the multi-day AIDS rides and the 3 day breast cancer walks. His talk was about “why can’t nonprofits achieve Apollo like aspirations?”

As part of his presentation about the various factors that hold back nonprofits, Dan cited as evidence, that since 1970 there have been 46,136 businesses that have crossed the $50 million annual revenue barrier, but only 144 nonprofits that have done so.
Dan argues that there were two distinct rulebooks: one for nonprofits and one for the rest of the economic world and he used vivid examples to make his provocative points about how the nonprofit sector is discriminated against in the following ways:

- Compensation: If you re CEO of a $50 million a year business that sells violent video games to kids, you are deemed worthy of making $1 million a year. If you work to feed hungry kids and are paid $500,000 a year you are considered a parasite. Talented people who want to have a nice lifestyle feel like they have to go into the for-profit world and make their difference by contributing money once they are wealthy, rather than by contributing their talent.

- Advertising and marketing: Charitable giving has remained stuck at 2% of GDP, not because human beings are wired to give only 2% but because nonprofits can’t build demand and take market share. Budweiser can buy Superbowl ads in a business culture that believes you can spend down to the last dollar that yields value, but AIDS and Darfur are left with no way to build retail demand for their needs. In the business world it would be malfeasance to build a great product or service but not then invest in a great advertising and marketing campaign, as Apple does for example, to create desire and demand for it

- Risk taking for new donors: Hollywood execs almost always have a mix of hits and flops, and the risk taking makes them better over time, but launch a big event in the nonprofit sector and losing a lot of money on it, and you’re finished.

- Time horizons: Nonprofits are judged on an annual basis, thanks to tradition and the IRS form 990. Amazon.com lost money for six years, before becoming wildly profitable, because it understood the need to invest in capacity for long-term return. A nonprofit that began with six years of projected losses would find little donor or foundation support. And so nonprofits keep making only incremental gains.

Dan founded Pallotta Team Works and created the AIDS rides and breast cancer walks after bicycling across country as a Harvard student to raise money for hunger relief. He really gets the power of asking people to share their strength. And in an era of activism in the form of on-line petitions and clicks, etc. he believes “people are tired of being asked to do the least that they can do, people want to be asked and challenged to do the most they can do.”

On World Malaria Day: A Fatal Case of Political Laryngitis

2011-04-25T09:39:00.002-04:00

In the run-up to the fourth annual World Malaria Day there are have been a flurry of new reports documenting scientific breakthroughs, progress, and the on-going need. In the past few days for example The Institute for One World Health announced that it is ready to enter the production and distribution phase of developing a semi-synthetic form of artemisinin, the most effective anti-malarial drug.

The problem is that while the focus will be on scientific developments, the obstacles to eradicating malaria are as much political as they are scientific.

Malaria is both preventable and curable, and it is has essentially been eliminated from the developed world. But 300-500 million people continue to get infected with malaria around the globe each year and there are more than 800,000 deaths, mostly of children whose less mature immune systems make them the most vulnerable.

Of course they are not only vulnerable, they are so poor and marginalized that they are also voiceless – and therefore there are literally no economic or political incentives and therefore no markets for serving them. They might as easily be considered victims of a fatal case of political laryngitis.

This is true for more than just those who are victims of malaria. There are other so-called neglected diseases, often parasitic, like schistosomiasis lesihmaniasis and Chagas disease. And there is also hunger, malnutrition,

This would be an equally proper focus for World Malaria Day - with special attention to those who are working to create alternative market mechanisms to compensate for the lack of economic and political markets.

As I’ve tried to chronicle in The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men, some of the most unlikely but most promising entrepreneurship and innovations are coming out of labs like those of Steve Hoffman, Jay Keasling, and Stephan Kappe.

But some of the most promising innovations are also coming from outside of science: from economists, activists, and advocates. These include organizations like Nothing but Nets, Imagine No Malaria, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which are also trying to build political will.

Five pieces worth reading before World Malaria Day on Monday

2011-04-22T10:15:00.000-04:00

Top five pieces to read this World Malaria Day

Ray Chambers and Dr. Tachi Yamada have an column in the Financial Times: Our resolve must not waver as resurgence can be swift and devastating. The link is @ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cd9c94ec-69aa-11e0-826b-00144feab49a.html#axzz1K9cBn8g0

Sonia Shaw’s book The Fever: How Malaria Has Rules Mankind for 500,000 Years, @ http://www.amazon.com/Fever-Malaria-Ruled-Humankind-Years/dp/0374230013/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303481062&sr=8-1

The magazine of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health provides this panel of six experts and six answers @ http://magazine.jhsph.edu/2011/malaria/departments/six_experts_six_answers/page_1/index.html

Jay Winston and Wendy Woods have this piece in the FT on Resetting the Roll Back Malaria campaign has had powerful lessons and results @ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ca2ab162-6753-11e0-9bb8-00144feab49a.html#axzz1K9cBn8g0

My Tumblr page provides links to a variety of interviews and article about my new book: The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men @ http://imaginationsbybillyshore.tumblr.com/

What Americans may be telling us about our values

2011-04-22T09:56:00.000-04:00

In today’s NY Times two journalists implicitly poses a question on the front page and another, on the op-ed page answers it. The Times lead story is headlined “New Poll Shows Darkening Mood Across America”. It is about the number of Americans who believe things are getting worse – a jump of 13% in just one month, but posed against the encouraging signs of renewed growth since last fall. The question implicit is: why such gloom amid signs of improvement.

In an op-ed about health care that is not intentionally related, but I think may be directly so, Paul Krugman writes about “How did it become normal, or for that matter acceptable, to refer to medical patients as “consumers”? In his concluding paragraph he writes: “The idea that all this can be reduced to money — that doctors are just “providers” selling services to health care “consumers” — is, well, sickening. And the prevalence of this kind of language is a sign that something has gone very wrong not just with this discussion, but with our society’s values.”

So maybe that’s what’s behind the depressing poll numbers. Voters are often smarter and ahead of the politicians trying to figure them out. Maybe they are responding to the pollsters as they are not based just on economic statistics but on a gut feeling about how our values have gone astray.

"We Know the Solutions, But How Do We Deliver Them"

2011-04-20T12:35:00.000-04:00

I came across this TED Talk via a Gates Foundation tweet that read: “Saving newborn lives in India: We know the solutions, but how do we deliver them? @http://bit.ly/hSC3pl”

It’s a theme very similar to the first thing I learned about malaria, a curable and preventable disease, from vaccine developer Steve Hoffman in researching The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men. We know the solutions. We don’t know how to make them affordable and how to distribute them to all who need them. The challenges are as much political as they are scientific, for the problems affect those who are so voiceless that there are no markets for solving them.

In this talk Vishwajeet Kumar explains the interventions that reduced neonatal mortality and laif the foundation for other spheres of community development.

When "everything is on the table" in budget battles, does that include the truth? Or our principles?

2011-04-18T07:40:00.001-04:00

Massachusetts has long had a reputation for being one of the most liberal states in the nation. So over the weekend, when I posted the Boston Globe’s front page story about Democratic Governor Duval Patrick’s proposal to cut 20% of state funding from the Women, Infants and Children’s program of supplemental nutritional assistance, the response on my Facebook page was swift and biting: “disgusting, disgraceful”, “sickening”, “is there any humanity left among politicians?” (The Globe story is @ http://articles.boston.com/2011-04-16/news/29425689_1_wic-cuts-budget-gap

State officials made the usual excuses about having no choice but to make the cuts because of the state’s budget cuts – an argument consistent with the prevailing national view that when it comes to eliminating deficits everything should be on the table. But fortunately facts are stubborn things and they are finally beginning to emerge. Because it turns out that not everything is on the table in budget debates that have been mostly one-dimensional. As the New York Times explains in its lead editorial this morning about last week’s House passage of Budget Committee Chairman Ryan’s budget cutting proposal: “Fully two thirds of his $4.3 trillion in budget cuts would come from low-income programs.”

Here are some additional facts courtesy of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

 The House-passed budget would cut SNAP funding by $127 billion or 20%. This could cut as many as 8 million people from the program. It is an amount equal to the funding projected to go to the 30 smallest states over a ten year period.

 Three-quarters of SNAP participants are in families with children; one-third are in households that include senior citizens or people with disabilities.

 Eighty-six percent of SNAP households have incomes below the poverty line (about $22,350 for a family of four in 2011). Such households receive 93 percent of SNAP benefits. Two of every five SNAP households have incomes below half the poverty line.

 SNAP lifted 4.6 million Americans above the poverty line in 2009, including 2.1 million children and 200,000 seniors. No benefit program kept more children from falling below half the poverty line in 2009 than SNAP — 1.1 million

The House budget cuts spending by an amount almost identical to the amount needed to pay for its proposed tax cuts (as opposed to deficit reduction). So when politicians say that everything must “be on the table” when it comes to balancing the budget, one might ask: Even the truth? Even our principles?

Countdown to World Malaria Day, April 25: failure to imagine or failure to care?

2011-04-12T08:43:00.000-04:00

One of the insights at Share Our Strength that has fueled our growth is that most failures are failures of imagination, more so than the excuses we tend to latch onto regarding failures of financial support or planning or execution. Indeed this is a central point of my new book The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men which is about those who have made the leap to embrace the possibility of not just treating malaria but eradicating it.

In the Washington Post last week, Michael Gerson who worked in the White House for President George W. Bush writes compelling about a different kind of failure of imagination – the failure to imagine the very real life or death consequences from budget decisions, like those reflected in the proposed cuts in global health programs that could lead to 70,000 African children dying from malaria and other preventable maladies.

As Gerson explains: Fiscal conservatives tend to justify these reductions as shared sacrifice. But not all sacrifices are shared equally. Some get a pay freeze. Some get a benefit adjustment. Others get a fever and a small coffin. This is not fiscal prudence. It is the prioritization of the most problematic spending cuts — a disproportionate emphasis on the least justifiable reductions. One can be a budget cutter and still take exception to cuts at the expense of the most vulnerable people on earth. In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron is pursuing even greater austerity while increasing funding for development. The full column can be found at http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the_real_world_effects_of_budget_cuts/2011/04/06/AFpEFXxC_story.html?nav=emailpage

Moral imagination is supposed to be what differentiates us from other species. But our boast is bigger than our bite. We remain only partially evolved, a work in progress to be both admired and resisted. As proposed cuts in the most effective global health programs show, we are at times as Bruce Springsteen sings “halfway to heaven and just a mile outta hell.”

Countdown to World Malaria Day: at the intersection of imagination and malaria

2011-04-11T10:57:00.000-04:00

There’s been another fascinating development at the intersection of imagination and malaria – and it goes right to the heart of trying to solve problems that affect those so poor that there are no markets for solving them. A group of students from UC Davis, Harvard, UCLA and several other schools have developed an application that enables a smart phone to diagnose malaria by taking a picture of a blood sample and then process the data to detect malaria parasites.

The students are participating in the annual Imagine Cup contest sponsored by Microsoft, which this year has as its theme: “imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems.” Their application is called LifeLens and uses a microscope attachment on a Samsung Smart Phone. You can read about it at http://thelifelensproject.com/learn.html

This overcomes the obstacle of needing to have an expensive laboratory in remote areas that are malaria endemic. It would enable a doctor or nurse working, for example, in an African village lacking Internet access to make a diagnosis without having to upload data for processing elsewhere. The same diagnostic technology may work for Sickle Cell and other diseases.

What the students have really done is use imagination and technology to find a way to address a market failure. Those affected the most by malaria are so poor and economically marginalized that there simply is no market to serve them. There are no financial incentives or rewards for creating the diagnostic labs or tools necessary. So instead the students have found a way around that market failure with an application that could reduce the complexity and cost of diagnosis.

I begin The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men (http://ow.ly/4xAOA) recounting the death of my thirteen year old Ethiopian friend Alima Dari, who was misdiagnosed with tuberculosis but actually had cerebral malaria. By the time they got her to a hospital hours away it was too late. Her death might have been prevented by LifeLens. And the deaths of nearly 800,000 children from malaria each year will only be prevented when global health entrepreneurs better understand and adapt to both the constraints and the potential that market forces offer.

My pathetic effort to fast in protest of budget cuts

2011-04-10T16:56:00.000-04:00

Like many of our colleagues in the anti-hunger community I committed to participate last week in the “rolling fast” being organized to protest budget cuts that would affect those most dependent on public food and nutrition programs. Two of my all time heroes are Gandhi and Cesar Chavez, both of whom used fasting to powerfully advance social change. So you can imagine how disappointed I was to discover how bad I am at fasting.

First of all I had trouble finding a time to do it. I was supposed to fast on Wednesday but my older son Zach and his girlfriend Daniela, decided to get married that morning in a civil ceremony at the Rockville Court House. A celebratory lunch followed and it would obviously have been bad form not to partake in such an important and joyful event.

Since I hadn’t realized I would need Thursday as a back-up I’d already packed it with a breakfast meeting at the Mayflower Hotel, a lunch with a Community Wealth Ventures alum, and dinner with my father-in-law. Since he’s 82 we eat early to take advantage of blue plate specials and so by 6:30 on Thursday evening, I was ready to commence my fast. By 9:00 p.m. I was already irritable because I always have a few cookies with tea as I try to do some evening writing and I have convinced myself that the better the cookies the better I write.

The next morning was chaotic because I was up by 5:00 a.m. responding to emails, then taking Nate to school, then busy and distracted with meetings in Boston until noon. By lunchtime, even having so far only missed one meal and the previous evening’s snack, I was feeling sufficiently unfocused and unproductive to be questioning the wisdom of my participation in the fast. After lunch I hurried to a 1:00 meeting at which I kept looking at my watch and contributed nothing. It’s always amazed me that evolution has not changed the fact that our species needs to munch on something as frequently as every few hours.

Needless to say I made it through the 24 hours, but not with confidence that I could have gone much farther. As a result, I took away a few observations I thought might be worth sharing:

First, from the trouble I had finding the time to fast, I realized that aside from the obvious fact that most of our lives are so privileged that we never have to worry about where our next meal is coming from, our lives are actually so privileged that it can be hard to find a time when food is not literally being pushed at us! I’m not even sure what to call that level of disparity.

Second, as closely as I follow the budget deliberations on Capitol Hill, I followed even more closely during this period while fasting, which kept reminding me of the plight of those who will feel the cuts the most. The weekend’s press coverage of the averted government shutdown was astonishing in its focus on who was hurt politically (Boehner? Obama?) but with virtually no mention of who would be hurt in terms of the impact of devastating budget cuts on their bodies and lives: women, children, the elderly.

Third, the political climate is as dangerous as it could be to those who are hungry or poor, and with both parties and the President agreeing to a record $38 billion in cuts it is difficult to find many influential policymakers with the requisite fight in them to protect those most voiceless and vulnerable. As fasting symbolizes, we will truly have to put ourselves on the line in the months ahead, take risks, be willing to sacrifice, and use every strategy at our disposal, if we are to restore some sense of sanity and humanity to the effort to ensure that we achieve the goal of No Kid Hungry.

Countdown to World Malaria Day: Who is using market forces to scale their work?

2011-04-04T17:29:00.000-04:00

With World Malaria Day only a few weeks away, it merits asking who in the malaria community is committed to utilizing market forces to scale and sustain their work?

At the beginning of 2011 The Scientist magazine wrote about entrepreneurs who are “breaching the barrier between profit and nonprofit” and using as a prime example the story of Victoria Hale who I wrote about in The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men. Hale imagined and created The Institute for One World Health, and more recently Medicines360, because “Big Pharma makes drugs for Westerners. She, on the other hand, wanted to make drugs for all of humanity—drugs that don’t necessarily pull a profit.” See http://f1000scientist.com/article/display/57891/

The article explores new ventures ranging from the Acumen Fund’s investments in Tanzania to the Pacific Northwest Diabetes Research Institute in Seattle. But the common theme is nonprofits leveraging their assets, and using market forces to get their proven ideas to scale.

It’s a concept very much at the heart of our work at Community Wealth Ventures. And I’ve also had the opportunity to witness firsthand how it is aligned with the strategy of the for-profit biotech company Sanaria which is developing a vaccine to eradicate malaria. Let’s hope other entrepreneurs embrace it as well.

Share Our Strength's unprecedented growth: secrets of success, lesson #10

2011-04-03T21:33:00.000-04:00

Countdown to World Malaria Day: "Mission Accomplished"? (Why I cringe at the words)

2011-04-03T08:00:00.001-04:00

On April 1 the New York Times reported that “A few nonprofit groups have recently announced plans to wind down, not over financial problems but because their missions are nearly finished. Most notable, perhaps, is Malaria No More, a popular nonprofit that supplies bed nets in malaria zones. Its goal is to end deaths from malaria, a target it sees fast approaching.”

The article was published under the headline “Mission Accomplished” which for me immediately evoked unfortunate associations with President George W. Bush’s now infamously premature press conference on an aircraft carrier announcing the end of major combat operations in Iraq. I wonder how whether the intent of the headline writers was that mischievous.

Indeed on the same day Scientific American ran this bold headline: “Malaria on the Rise as East African Climate Heats Up: In East Africa, warming as a result of climate change is paving the way for the spread of malaria.”

Malaria No More is a first-rate organization that has helped to both showcase and inspire incredible progress in reducing malaria deaths in Africa. But both science and history offer compelling evidence that we need to steel ourselves for a longer fight to succeed in eradicating malaria’s deadly toll.

The organization’s vice chairman Scott Case is quoted as saying: “We never planned to be around forever. We have thought of this more as a project than as an institution-building exercise, and the project is nearing its completion.” But one might argue that against a foe as formidable as the malaria parasite, long-term institution building is exactly what is needed most.

One of the lessons I took away from researching THE IMAGINATIONS OF UNREASONABLE MEN , http://ow.ly/4s3w3 , was to aim high, but to bring as cold-eyed and realistic assessment as possible to the talk of battling malaria. As we approach World Malaria Day a debate about how to strike the right balance could be of great value.

Looking Beyond the Conventional Wisdom on Unemployment

2011-04-03T05:51:00.001-04:00

Bob Greenstein, the president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, is a long time member of the Share Our Strength board and can always be counted on to dig deep beyond the conventional wisdom to explain economic developments impacting the most vulnerable and voiceless. And so I turned to the Center’s website after the release of the March statistics on the drop in unemployment. Sure enough, their analysis, by chief economist Chad Stone, provides a more sober view, including these points taken verbatim from his statement:

 We have to create over 7.2 million jobs just to get payroll employment back to its level at the start of the recession in December 2007. At March’s rate of 216,000 jobs a month, that would take almost three years.

 Unfortunately, the economy seems to be losing momentum, not gaining it. We need economic growth of 3½ to 4 percent a year to close the jobs deficit in any reasonable amount of time. The economy grew at a 3.1 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter and likely grew less than that in the first quarter of this year.

 The recession and lack of job opportunities drove many people out of the labor force, and we have yet to see the return to labor force participation (working or actively looking for work) that marks a strong jobs recovery. The labor force participation rate (the share of the population aged 16 and over working or looking for work) remained depressed at 64.2 percent, the lowest it has been since 1984. Recent declines in the unemployment rate would be more encouraging if they were accompanied by a rising labor force participation rate.

 The share of the population with a job, which plummeted in the recession to levels last seen in the mid-1980s, was 58.5 percent in March. Prior to the current slump, the last time it was lower was October 1983.

 It remains very difficult to find a job. The Labor Department’s most comprehensive alternative unemployment rate measure — which includes people who want to work but are discouraged from looking and people working part time because they can’t find full-time jobs — was 15.7 percent in March, not much below its all-time high of 17.4 percent in October 2009 in data that go back to 1994. By that measure, more than 24 million people are unemployed or underemployed.

Hopeful news can play an important role in economic recovery and the most recent unemployment stats provide some. But the clear-eyed view provided by the Center shows how far we still have to go.

Are "neglected infections of poverty" taking their toll on Washington DC?

2011-04-02T06:41:00.001-04:00

The approach of our annual Taste of the Nation event in Washington DC on Monday, April 4 seems like a particularly relevant time to look in on Peter Hotez, who in a just published editorial writes powerfully about the healthy disparities between rich and poor in our society, and especially right here in our hometown of Washington: “Washington, D.C., rivals Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama as among the worst in terms of life expectancy and health index [2]; with respect to poverty indices, a recent report entitled “DC’s Two Economies” revealed that in terms of employment status, income, and poverty levels, Washington, D.C., currently exhibits some of the greatest disparities between whites and blacks of any city in the US”

As Share Our Strength’s national footprint continues to rapidly expand with the support of governors, corporate partners and celebrities, it never hurts to have a reminder of just how much our efforts are needed right here, on behalf of our own neighbors, just a few minutes away and in some cases living in hardship as great as anything our nation knows.

Hotez is a George Washington University professor and researcher who has devoted much of his career to developing a vaccine for hookworm and was featured prominently in THE IMAGINATIONS OF UNREASONABLE MEN. (http://www.amazon.com/Imaginations-Unreasonable-Men-Inspiration-Purpose/dp/1586487647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1292267953&sr=8-1)

The editorial was published in the Public Library of Science Journal NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES, and focused on what Hotez calls “neglected infections of poverty”. He explains that “In previous papers I have noted high rates of parasitic and related neglected infections among the poorest Americans living in distressed areas, but especially in inner cities, the American South, the border with Mexico, and Appalachia [3]–[5]. Indeed, the rates of some of these neglected infections of poverty among African Americans are comparable to the rates found in Nigeria”

About Washington DC specifically, he writes: “Although the District of Columbia does not have statehood, as a unique federal district it is often treated as an autonomous region and compared in rankings with the 50 US states. Today, Washington, D.C., rivals Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama as among the worst in terms of life expectancy and health index [2]; with respect to poverty indices, a recent report entitled “DC’s Two Economies” revealed that in terms of employment status, income, and poverty levels, Washington, D.C., currently exhibits some of the greatest disparities between whites and blacks of any city in the US [29]. An astonishing 6.5% of African American males in the District of Columbia are also HIV positive [30] (Table 1). Data for neglected infections of poverty in Washington, D.C., are practically non-existent, although some information from neighboring Baltimore indicates that trichomoniasis is extremely common [31]. Thus, we urgently need a program for active surveillance for the most common neglected infections of poverty in the District of Columbia.”

The entire editorial can be found at http://www.plosntds.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pntd.0000843

"Neglected Diseases Are Perpetuated By Poverty"

2011-03-28T07:09:00.000-04:00

The Institute for One World Health, the world’s first nonprofit pharmaceutical has announced a new breakthrough in the fight against cholera and diarrheal disease which combine to kill 1.5 million children a year. The drug they are developing could be the first synthetic drug to reduce fluid loss and work in combination with oral rehydration therapy. The ABC News coverage of the story can be found at http://saveone.net/filter/Cholera#1202193/Curing-the-disease-of-poverty-Non-profit-drug-development-org

Death from cholera is preventable but as the iOWH's Elena Pantjushenko points out, “neglected diseases are perpetuated by poverty. Those most affected are the poorest populations often living in remote, rural areas, urban slums or in conflict zones. With little political voice, neglected tropical diseases have a low profile and status in public health priorities. “

As a result there are no economic incentives and therefore no markets for solving such problems. Which is why a nonprofit pharmaceutical, that can serve as a proxy for market forces, is such a critical innovation. It took the classic “unreasonable” person to come up such an idea, which is one reason that founder Victoria Hale figures prominently in my new book, THE IMAGINATIONS OF UNREASONABLE MEN, @ http://www.amazon.com/Imaginations-Unreasonable-Men-Inspiration-Purpose/dp/1586487647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1292267953&sr=8-1

A government already shut down for too many

2011-03-28T05:56:00.000-04:00

No matter how many times Congressional budget stalemates lead to the threat of a government shutdown, it is always front page news. It was again on this past weekend. A New York Times page 1 story warned that “with time running short … Congressional leaders are increasingly pessimistic about reaching a bipartisan budget deal that would avert a government shutdown in early April.” The Washington Post chronicled the impact of budget indecision on Navy shipbuilding and the space program.

The drama of such stand-offs, and the dire consequences that follow, are the bread and butter of journalism. But for millions of Americans – the most vulnerable and voiceless among us - the government has been effectively shut down for so long it is not even news.

Consider that of the 47 million Americans who live below the poverty line, 19 million (up from 12.5 million in 2000) live in extreme poverty – below half of the poverty line: $7500 a year for a family of three or $11,500 a year for a family of four. It is hard to imagine a more dire set of circumstances, and a more compelling reason for bold government action.

But for these fellow citizens the government has already been shut down to their needs. There has been no serious effort to create jobs for them. There is no national commitment to allocating the resources that would ensure a quality education for their kids. The national conversation is focused relentlessly elsewhere. Unlike wealthy Americans or corporate lobbyists, the poorest Americans have virtually no opportunity to speak with their Senators or members of Congress about their plight. They don’t belong to influential national organizations with offices on K Street. And unlike those from industries such as energy, banking, insurance, housing, etc. they have no national champion who can be counted on to be their voice.

Peter Edelman, a law professor at Georgetown University who was the top legislative assistant to Bobby Kennedy remembers when Kennedy played that role, visiting Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta and insisting that poverty be at the top of the national agenda. Interviewed in the March 22 issue of The Nation he asks: “I really do wonder why we don’t have people who hold elected office who speak more clearly? Where is the Robert Kennedy of this generation?”

“Something has to happen to get people off their tail”, Edelman continues “to get people back to the level of commitment and enthusiasm that they had—it turns out ever so briefly when they elected Obama to be president. And to get out into the streets—both literally and metaphorically. We had Madison, which we might say was our Cairo. And we need people all over the country to stand up in the same way and say, “I’m opposed to the direction that these things are going.” There has to be some sense of outrage about that and the only way that’s going to be is if people will stand up and speak up for themselves. Any sort of sustained change from the progressive side has got to come from the grassroots. We’re the side that depends on people power.” (The entire interview with Edelman can be found at http://www.thenation.com/article/159381/us-poverty-past-present-and-future)

Even the prospect of a government shutdown represents a profound failure of our political markets. It comes on top of the failure of economic markets to produce jobs to replace those that once existed in manufacturing. This is why the efforts of Share Our Strength and CWV to respond to such market failures, to at bridge the gap with innovative and entrepreneurial solutions, are so critical.

Even when the government is officially shut down there are always a few “essential personnel” required to show up at work to help avoid the most catastrophic consequences. For those for whom the government already seems to be shutdown to their needs – those who are hungry, homeless, unemployed - we are and have always been the essential personnel. One of our greatest responsibilities is to remember that even when, especially when, the news forgets.

"Cost to Society Incalculable" says Hartford Courant op-ed endorsement of No Kid Hungry

2011-03-27T16:28:00.001-04:00

While I was on vacation last week during my son’s spring break (so I take no credit for what follows) our team did an excellent job of launching No Kid Hungry in yet another state; this time Connecticut with newly elected Governor Dan Malloy. The Hartford Courant ran an important editorial focusing on an angle that rarely gets the attention it deserves, which is the long-term economic consequences and costs to society of letting children go hungry. I thought you’d find it of interest and include the link below.

The editorial concludes: “The cost of having children go hungry — or feeding them overly processed, filling-but-not-healthy meals — is nearly incalculable. How do you measure a generation's lifelong loss of income due to a lack of mental development brought on by a lack of good food? How do you measure what that lost generation could have contributed to the greater society? Either way, there's always a bill coming due. We can pay now, or we can pay much, much more later.”

We are pleased with the success so far in bringing childhood hunger into the national conversation, and in redefining why it is in the interest of policymakers and average citizens (and taxpayers) alike to get behind our No Kid Hungry strategy.

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/hc-campbell-hungry-kid-0327-20110327,0,4544896.column

Share Our Strength's unprecedented growth: secrets of success, lesson #9

2011-03-24T06:56:00.000-04:00

I recently used a Community Wealth Ventures convening of leading nonprofits in Cincinnati, and then a lecture at the Kennedy School in Boston, as an opportunity to discuss Share Our Strength’s unprecedented growth over the past two years. Specifically I sought to tease out and understand the key ingredients of that growth, almost as if presenting a case study. This is a unique moment in our 25 year history. And our recent experience is all but unique across the broader nonprofit sector. That makes it a valuable learning opportunity that could help others, whether within or outside the hunger field.

At Share Our Strength our revenues hovered around $13 million annually in the years between 2004-2008. We were a classic case of the nonprofit whose growth had reached a plateau. We were stuck. Then we sharpened our strategy and made investments in capacity – including a few we could not afford. Our revenues grew to about $19 million in 2009, $26 million in 2010 and they will be $34 million this year. We added 30 staff to a base of 65 in 2010 and we are hiring for 20 more now. Though improbable it was not accidental or coincidental. The specific reasons follow below.

Lesson # 9 Margaret Mead Was Wrong.

Randomly visit the headquarters of any ten nonprofits and you’ll find that at least nine have a poster somewhere on their wall with the iconic and reassuring words of Margaret Mead to “never doubt that a small group of people can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” The words are reassuring and inspiring but would be more accurate if amended to read “can begin to change the world.” Actually changing the world takes a lot more than a small group. In fact it takes more people than you can know, speak with, meet with, and a commitment to reaching out to circle after circle of potential allies in ways that are accessible to them and empowering them.

Whenever we stopped to think about what it would really take to leverage (as opposed to raise) the billions of dollars necessary to change the lives of millions kids across thousands of miles and numerous cultures, it became obvious that no matter how committed our staff of 50 or 100 or 150 might be, that was just a fraction of the people that would be necessary.

One of the critical operating principles of an organization should be to relentlessly increase the number of shareholders that has genuine ownership for creating change. This not only means collaborating, partnering, forging coalitions, etc., but also giving real ownership to others so that they are working with you or even independently of you, toward a shared objective. Whenever you think your ambitious mission is the sole province of your own small dedicated team, you are thinking too small and destined to fall short.

Tomorrow: Lesson #10 Pay Attention to What Matter Most, Not to What Others Think Matters Most

MArian Wright Edelman bearing witness to child poverty

2011-03-24T06:42:00.002-04:00

There is probably no one who has thought longer and more passionately about children in poverty than Marian Wright Edelman, the legendary founder of the Children’s Defense Fund. This week she had an article in the Huffington Post describing their recent report “Held Captive: Child Poverty in America” whose title comes from looking at the issue through the eyes of a 13 year old girl in rural Mississippi. I found Marian’s effort to “capture a particular truth about poor children’s lives” to be provocative reading and thought you might too. Her article can be found at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marian-wright-edelman/poor-children-stranded-at_b_837792.html

Billy

Share Our Strength's unprecedented growth: secrets of success, lesson #8

2011-03-23T09:29:00.000-04:00

Share Our Strength's unprecedented growth: secrets of success, lesson #7

2011-03-21T07:56:00.002-04:00

lessons from Los Angeles launch of No Kid Hungry campaign

2011-03-21T07:43:00.000-04:00

Last week we launched our No Kid Hungry campaign in Los Angeles, first at a fundraising event generously hosted by Ron Burkle and then at a press conference with Mayor Villaraigosa at an L.A. elementary school. These are some of the valuable lessons either learned or reinforced:

First, when pressure tested, our strategy holds up. The logic of leveraging existing federal dollars to increase participation in programs like school breakfast, summer feeding, and child care was well received in Los Angeles as it has been elsewhere. In the course of a week we’ve had the tires kicked by our board colleague Scott Schoen, who as a private equity investor has significant experience in testing the strategies of organizations in which he invests, to Jeff Skoll, E-Bay’s first president who knows a thing or two about taking entrepreneurial ideas to scale.

Second, we must sell our strategy retail and wholesale. As important as is the press in reaching a larger audience, the real opinion makers and influences need to see us in their living rooms and offices, up close and personal. Strip away the trappings of Hollywood and this event was in the genre of road shows we’ve done in many communities, and we need to keep doing them, combining targeted sales with broadcast messaging. Such events are an investment of time and money but relationships are not built or maintained any other way.

Third, we must continue to relentlessly champion innovation and imagination, and help others imagine a future that may not yet exist but is within our grasp to achieve. Visiting Rosecranz Elementary School in Compton on the morning of the launch we witnessed their success in removing the two of the biggest obstacles to breakfast in the classroom. By having one student leader from each classroom come to the school’s kitchen and wheel the breakfast cart to their class, and another wheel the trash barrel, they eliminated additional labor costs and imposing on teachers who did not want to be turned into lunch ladies. It’s a small point but part of a growing collection of best practices we are amassing and able to help spread.

Fourth, great chefs create great community. Even with a crowd as accomplished and as celebrated as this, our chefs made them feel event more special. Given all of the culinary activities in which we engage, it would be easy to take for granted the role of chefs and food. But it is has been at the very core of Share Our Strength for all of these years, because it is core to creating the community we aspire to build. The chefs themselves personify everything we want to convey about our work and brand: innovation, passion, caring, feeding, and community.

Finally, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack stole the show at the launch press conference, reducing the messaging to its most basic and most powerful. He asked two young students, Eddie and Debbie, to help him out, and he asked each one what they’d like to be when they grow up. Eddie hoped to be a painter. I didn’t quite hear what Debbie said. But after each spoke Vilsack turned to the audience and said “Each of these students has a dream. But kids can’t achieve their dreams if they are hungry. That’s what No Kid Hungry is all about.

Share Our Strength's unprecedented growth: secrets of success, lesson #6

2011-03-18T08:25:00.000-04:00

I recently used a Community Wealth Ventures convening of leading nonprofits in Cincinnati, and then a lecture at the Kennedy School in Boston, as an opportunity to discuss Share Our Strength’s unprecedented growth over the past two years. Specifically I sought to tease out and understand the key ingredients of that growth, almost as if presenting a case study. This is a unique moment in our 25 year history. And our recent experience is all but unique across the broader nonprofit sector. That makes it a valuable learning opportunity that could help others, whether within or outside the hunger field.

At Share Our Strength our revenues hovered around $13 million annually in the years between 2004-2008. We were a classic case of the nonprofit whose growth had reached a plateau. We were stuck. Then we sharpened our strategy and made investments in capacity – including a few we could not afford. Our revenues grew to about $19 million in 2009, $26 million in 2010 and they will be $34 million this year. We added 30 staff to a base of 65 in 2010 and we are hiring for 20 more now. Though improbable it was not accidental or coincidental. The specific reasons follow below.

Lesson #7 Accountability is a powerful differentiator in a crowded, competitive marketplace.

Accountability is a powerful differentiator in a crowded, competitive marketplace. Good intentions have long been the Achilles heel of the nonprofit universe because they are often the rationale for not being rigorous about measurement. But as the philanthropic marketplace gradually becomes more responsive and begins to reward high performance and superior strategy and execution and penalize low performance, stakeholders look for accountability.

Support for rigorous accountability is found in inverse proximity to geography. Those inside and closest to you will be the least comfortable with it. When we first gathered about 60 of our closest allies in the anti-hunger community to share our vision for ending childhood hunger, about 59 of them were against it, for a variety of predictable reasons: “How would we measure? What if we failed?” Mostly the culture of our sector was one of discomfort with accountability. When we presented the same notion to our business partners their response was the mirror image opposite: “If you are telling us that you have a goal line, and you know how far you are from it, and what it takes to get across, we are in.”

For most donors and partners in the nonprofit sector, there are no apples-to-apples measurement for return on investment. How do you know if you get more impact putting your dollars into Share Our Strength or Feeding America? In Teach For America or College Summit? In City Year or Experience Corps? But if one of the choices holds itself accountable to specific outcomes and the others only to aspirations, that is at least a clear and powerful differentiator.
But accountability doesn’t come cheap. It costs money to measure and to communicate what you’ve measured. That is money that might have gone instead into providing even more service or benefits to the population you serve. In the short-term. But the bet is that in the longer term accountability will eventually yield ever more resources so that you can serve more than you otherwise would have.
Tomorrow: lesson #7 Social Entrepreneurship and Public Policy

Share Our Strength's unprecedented growth: secrets of success, lesson #5

2011-03-14T06:53:00.000-04:00

The power of bearing witness, as seen at Lincoln's Summer Cottage

2011-03-13T20:42:00.000-04:00

It’s probably the most profound example of the power of bearing witness that I’ve seen yet. And it’s 150 years old and only beginning to be understood.

This weekend Rosemary had the great idea to take Nate and Sofie to see Lincoln’s Summer Cottage which had recently been renovated by the National Trust For Historic Preservation, and since 2008 has been available for tour in small groups with advance reservations. The cottage sits three miles from the White House on 250 acres of land, on the third highest elevation in DC, with the Soldiers Home that had been established in 1851 and a national cemetery that predates Arlington (but is administered by Arlington Cemetery). It’s a 15 minute ride from our office (details can be found at http://www.lincolncottage.org/ ) Dick Moe, who led the National Trust for many years, remembers seeing the cottage for the first time and thinking “this is a treasure hiding in plain sight.”

President Lincoln spent a quarter of his presidency at his Summer Cottage, especially every May through October during the critical Civil War years of 1862-1864. It was cooler there and with less swamp-like humidity and odor than the rest of DC during the mid 19th century. For Lincoln it offered some respite from the pressures of the White House. Kind of a precursor to the way modern presidents have used Camp David. The Summer Cottage was where Lincoln did some of his deepest reflection on matters ranging from the Emancipation Proclamation to his re-election in 1864. While there he commuted to the White House each day on horseback. He was on the grounds of the Summer Cottage the day before he was assassinated at Ford’s Theater.

The tour of the Cottage takes less than an hour. It is mostly unfurnished, with a few furniture reproductions to which they will likely add as funding permits. There are better records of who visited there than of what was inside. But it’s not what’s inside the Cottage that is as important as what Lincoln was able to see right outside his window or during his frequent strolls on the grounds.

The Soldiers Home had originally been established as a hospital and retirement center for invalid and disabled soldiers. The administrators invited President Lincoln (as well as his predecessor James Buchanan, and several successors) to stay on the grounds as a way of trying protect themselves from budget cuts. One result of Lincoln accepting the invitation is that he was surrounded by recovering Civil War soldiers and sometimes witnessed 30-40 burials a day at the cemetery not 200 yards from his cottage.

His words and the recollections of those who spent time with him are testimony to just how much what he saw weighed on him. And how much it drove him to put the national interest ahead of all other interests. How could it not? Imagine if our leaders today had any such direct and constant exposure to the impact of their decisions. Imagine the sense of urgency they might have if they came face to face with millions of children suffering from hunger – and saw them not at an occasional media event with cameras rolling, but every day right by their own home. Imagine whether they would dare to put politics ahead of principle if they looked into the eyes of those who suffered so grievously as a consequence of their decisions.

With Lincoln’s Summer Cottage only recently restored and opened to the public, historians are just beginning to assess, and reassess, the impact of this place on Lincoln and the decisions he made. A visit to the Summer Cottage at the Soldiers Home makes clear that of Lincoln’s many extraordinary qualities, one such quality was not only a capacity to bear witness, but almost an insistence on making it part of his daily routine. And that insistence on bearing witness translated into a power, perhaps more so than for any other figure in our history, to advance equality and hold our nation together.

Share Our Strength's unprecedented growth: secrets of success, lesson #4

2011-03-11T13:58:00.000-05:00

I recently used a Community Wealth Ventures convening of leading nonprofits in Cincinnati, and then a lecture at the Kennedy School in Boston, as an opportunity to discuss Share Our Strength’s unprecedented growth over the past two years. Specifically I sought to tease out and understand the key ingredients of that growth, almost as if presenting a case study. This is a unique moment in our 25 year history. And our recent experience is all but unique across the broader nonprofit sector. That makes it a valuable learning opportunity that could help others, whether within or outside the hunger field.

At Share Our Strength our revenues hovered around $13 million annually in the years between 2004-2008. We were a classic case of the nonprofit whose growth had reached a plateau. We were stuck. Then we sharpened our strategy and made investments in capacity – including a few we could not afford. Our revenues grew to about $19 million in 2009, $26 million in 2010 and they will be $34 million this year. We added 30 staff to a base of 65 in 2010 and we are hiring for 20 more now. Though improbable it was not accidental or coincidental. The specific reasons follow below.
Lesson #4 Surplus (playing offense) is better than debt (playing defense)
Financial instability and/or peril is distracting, demoralizing and debilitating. If all of your energy is absorbed on the issue of how to make your payroll and your budget you will not have enough left over to devote to strategy, growth, and mission. Every unanticipated expenditure – and there will always be some - becomes a crisis. There were periods at Share Our Strength where we had so little margin for error that we spent countless hours debating $3000 decisions that felt like they were make-or-break, and that may well have been. But the opportunity costs of spending our time that way were both high and corrosive. For many organizations this is so ingrained as the norm that it is almost accepted without question. But there is another way.

Ultimately it is like the difference between playing offense and defense in football. Think of the football as financial stability. When you have possession you define the game, set the terms, and call your own shots. When you lose possession you find yourself in a defensive crouch, not playing to win, not playing to move things forward, simply playing not to lose, and to continue to survive. A good defense can keep you in the game for a long, long time. But it cannot win it for you. If you want to score big points against your mission, if there is a goal line you want to cross, you must put financial crisis and financial instability behind you and play an offensive game.

Obviously this is easier said than done. There are never sufficient revenues for doing all you want and need to do. And you can’t print money. But you can slow expenditures. Defer and cut expenses, stretch plans and corresponding spending out over a longer time frame. But whatever tough decisions have to be made, make ‘em now. The odds are that they are inevitable anyway, so get on with it and to the other side. The challenge for an organization’s leadership is to keep everyone’s eyes on the prize and ensure that they see financial discipline not as a frustrating or bureaucratic hindrance to achieving mission, but as a tool for pursuing that achievement more effectively.

Tomorrow: Lesson #5: Capacity Equals Impact

Where politics and science meet

2011-03-10T09:58:00.000-05:00

For thousands of years the malaria parasite has adapted to resist every attempt to combat it, and today infects a staggering 300-500 million people a year, mostly in Africa and Asia. There has never been a vaccine to prevent it. The reasons are both scientific and political. The parasite is complex and evolutionarily evasive. But malaria is also a classic case of a problem affecting people so economically marginalized and voiceless that there are no market incentives or political incentives for solving it. Now, with almost a million children a year dying from the disease, the person who may be closest to ridding the world of malaria is the one most experts had once not only dismissed but even ridicule.

A decade ago Dr. Steve Hoffman left the security of a distinguished 21 year career in the Navy, where he helped coordinate malaria vaccine development, and turned instead to the high risk, high reward uncertainties of his own bio-tech start-up.

His entire enterprise is built on a slender but tantalizing experiment to test the 1967 research of a New York University doctor named Ruth Nussenzweig, by convincing 14 volunteers to allow themselves to be bitten by irradiated mosquitoes about 1000 times to simulate a natural immunity.

When later challenged by being exposed to and bitten by regularly infected mosquitoes, 13 of the 14 were protected from malaria infection. From this Hoffman parleyed his passion and power of persuasion into millions of dollars of grants and ultimately FDA approval for clinical trials using weakened parasites as a vaccine.
The problem is that it has always been considered clinically and logistically impractical to immunize large numbers of people with a vaccine comprised of irradiated parasites extracted by hand from the salivary gland of a mosquito and preserved for intravenous injection. Other experts scoffed at such a cumbersome approach. But Hoffman saw an opening between impractical and impossible, and drove a truck through it. He saw the challenge not as scientific discovery but biotech engineering to scale something proven to work. His lab invented the necessary techniques.

Today Hoffman is up against the giant pharmaceutical Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK) which has its own malaria vaccine candidate, effective only about half the time, now in the third phase of clinical trials. Many observers believe GSK’s vaccine will be first, but that in the long-run Hoffman’s will be best.

Hoffman’s personal qualities can be summarized in three words: imagination, entrepreneurship, and leadership. His hard earned technical successes transformed the perception of his vaccine from preposterous to miraculous. More important, he had the imagination and vision to see each scientific and technological breakthrough not as an end in itself but as a means to a larger end. The time he devoted to science was more than matched by the time he spent coaxing the scientific community up and over Mount Improbable, that Everest-like mountain of skepticism that had prevented them from seeing a solution lying long dormant, but nevertheless in front of them all along. He demonstrated persistence bordering on stubbornness, confidence bordering on arrogance, and a boxer’s willingness to take a punch and come up off the canvas, affirming George Bernard Shaw’s observation that all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Share Our Strength's unprecedented growth: secrets of success, lesson #3

2011-03-10T08:19:00.000-05:00

Share Our Strength's unprecedented growth: secrets of success, lesson #2

2011-03-09T07:01:00.000-05:00

At Share Our Strength our revenues hovered around $13 million annually in the years between 2004-2008. We were a classic case of the nonprofit whose growth had reached a plateau. We were stuck. Then we sharpened our strategy and made investments in capacity – including a few we could not afford. Our revenues grew to about $19 million in 2009, $26 million in 2010 and they will be $34 million this year. We added 30 staff to a base of 65 in 2010 and we are hiring for 20 more now. Though improbable it was not accidental or coincidental. The specific reasons follow below.

LESSON #2

The most importance audience for your new strategy is sitting next to you. You will likely identify many potential external stakeholders whose support is essential to your success, but those who will be most important are those you sit next to. This is often taken for granted or overlooked but it is absolutely indispensible. Organizations invest great effort in trying to persuade external stakeholders like donors, press, corporate partners, etc. of the merits of their idea, usually more than they invest in persuading their most important constituency: each other!

Don’t expect that this can be accomplished by e-mail. Serious strategies to solve previously unsolved problems are almost by definition likely to be complex. As the physicist Richard Feyman said to reporters who asked him to explain his Nobel Prize for quantum electrodynamics in ways they average person could understand: “If I could explain it to the average person, it probably would not have won a Nobel Prize.”

After all of the hard work that goes into developing a strategy, it is often assumed that everyone understands and agrees with it, or more important, understands it the same way. But that is rarely the case.

Such unity and alignment does not just happen by itself. We invested a tremendous amount of time in ensuring that the same words meant the same things to our executive leadership team and then to other layers of our staff. Did we all mean the same thing when using the words “end”, and “childhood” and “hunger”. It turns out that we didn’t. And how were we going to measure our success? By government statistics, our own field reports, internal or independent evaluators? Turns out we all had different ideas about that too. How would we resource and pay for our efforts?

How can you convince others of the credibility and criticality of your strategy – others who will not spend a fraction of the time on it that you have spent - if you haven’t convinced each other? No one is more invested in your success than the colleagues who sit alongside you.

Tomorrow: Lesson #3: Talent Trumps All Else

Share Our Strength's Growth: secrets of success, lesson #1

2011-03-08T07:55:00.000-05:00

I recently used a Community Wealth Ventures convening of leading nonprofits in Cincinnati, and then a lecture at the Kennedy School in Boston, as an opportunity to discuss Share Our Strength’s unprecedented growth over the past two years. Specifically I sought to tease out and understand the key ingredients of that growth, almost as if presenting a case study. This is a unique moment in our 25 year history. And our recent experience is all but unique across the broader nonprofit sector. That makes it a valuable learning opportunity that could help others, whether within or outside the hunger field.

At Share Our Strength our revenues hovered around $13 million annually in the years between 2004-2008. We were a classic case of the nonprofit whose growth had reached a plateau. We were stuck. Then we sharpened our strategy and made investments in capacity – including a few we could not afford. Our revenues grew to about $19 million in 2009, $26 million in 2010 and they will be $34 million this year. We added 30 staff to a base of 65 in 2010 and we are hiring for 20 more now. Though improbable it was not accidental or coincidental. Lesson number one follows.

1. Go Big or Go Home. The linchpin of our growth was a commitment to shift away from short-term incremental progress in favor of long-term transformational change. The former is easy and comfortable. It is the norm, the natural order of things. You know how to get there. But so does everyone else. The latter is risky and hard to achieve. But it provides the inspiration that generates motivation, resources and a new sense of what is possible. Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, who designed Washington D.C.’s Union Station once said “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Think big.” Establishing the bold goal of ending childhood hunger – not reducing, reversing, or redressing, but ending it – represented transformational change and more than any other factor has been responsible for our growth.

This was a complete departure from the way we’d done business for two decades. It required a different strategy as well as different staff, skills and experience than we possessed at the time. We already had a highly skilled staff but they weren’t necessarily skilled in some of the new directions in which we were moving. We had been a grant maker to other organizations, an intermediary, whose dollars were doing good things, but not necessarily moving the needle in a measurable way, or getting to the root causes of why children were hungry. We had priorities; we had well defined buckets of activities, but not a vision for ending hunger or a plan for achieving it.

Our strategy was premised on the fact that kids in America are not hungry because of lack of food or because of lack of food and nutrition programs, but because they lack access to those programs. Programs like school breakfast and summer feeding and food stamps, whose funds have been already authorized and appropriated with bipartisan support. So our strategy was to coordinate and resource the community organizing needed at the local level to knock down whatever barriers were preventing kids from enrolling in these programs. It meant leveraging OPM (other people’s money, mostly federal funds) and so naturally it yielded a great return on investment.

Devising a more compelling strategy is the nonprofit equivalent of product development. As any successful business leader will tell you, getting the product right is first among equals. Les Wexner, the founder of The Limited (Victoria’s Secret, Bath and Body Works) says: “Until you get the product right, nothing else matters. Once you get the product right, everything else matters.” In the nonprofit world your product is your strategy or “theory of change: or more simply, the outcomes you promise to deliver. Until you get it right, nothing else matters.

Tomorrow: Lesson # 2: The Most Important Audience for Your Strategy is Sitting Next to You.

Washington's Best Kept Billion Dollar Secret

2011-03-08T07:44:00.001-05:00

Last week No Kid Hungry National Spokesperson Jeff Bridges e-mailed to ask why our website didn’t highlight the fact that of all the money that is spent on hunger in the U.S. there is still at least a billion dollars that is available for public food and nutrition programs, but going untapped at a time when more Americans, and especially children, are struggling with hunger than at any other period on record. Bridges rightfully believes it is one of the most compelling aspects of our strategy and his question underscores one of the great anomalies of the economic and political climate in which we find ourselves.

Of the 20 million school children in America who get a free or reduced price school lunch, only 9.5 million get a free school breakfast even though all 20 million qualify, and only close to 3 million get the meals they are eligible for in the summer when the schools are closed. The irony is that while most governors are forced by economic realities to keep cutting social services, the federal government has committed to expand this critical social service without states having to spend their own scarce dollars. Increasing school breakfast from the 47% participation rate it is at now to 60% would drive more than $610 million to the states. And that is money that buys milk from local dairy farmers, bread from local bakers, having the same impact as stimulus dollars.

Most secrets require a conspiracy to keep them, and this best kept billion dollar secret is no exception. It is not a conspiracy of silence so much as a conspiracy of indifference, special interest, and neglect. The most common response of state and local elected officials upon learning of the availability of this money is one of shock and surprise. The main reason for their lack of awareness is that hungry children don’t belong to advocacy organizations that advance their cause and they don’t hire lobbyists to represent them in the corridors of state capitols. It’s not that governors don’t want to help hungry kids, it’s just that there are so many other special interests in front of them, that they rarely see the most vulnerable and most voiceless at the back of the line. That is finally beginning to change thanks to Maryland’s Governor Martin O’Malley championing this and the impressive results that are inspiring other governors of both parties to follow suit.

Yesterday's Extraordinary Opportunity with the Nation's Governors

2011-03-01T07:40:00.001-05:00

For the second year in a row the Democratic Governor’s Association invited Share Our Strength to update them on the progress of our strategy to end childhood hunger. So yesterday morning at the J.W. Marriott, Josh Wachs and Melissa Roy and I spent about 20 minutes with the Democratic Governors before they went into their private session.

Governor O’Malley introduced me to describe our strategy, and Arkansas Governor Beebe followed my remarks with comments about the progress of No Kid Hungry in Arkansas. West Virginia’s newly elected Governor Tomblin asked to be recognized and shared some ideas about school based efforts in his state. Governor Nixon of Missouri who was inspired by our team over the weekend signaled his support, and the chief of staff for a southern governor followed Josh and Melissa and me out into the hall after and said they want to help.

As you may have seen from the substantial Washington Post coverage of the governors meeting, they have been embroiled in controversial issues ranging from potential Medicaid cuts to education reform and cyber-security. The fact that they would put childhood hunger on their agenda and invite us to lead off their private session is an extraordinary testament to the credibility of Share Our Strength and our strategy – a credibility that has been built by every action of every member of our team these past few years.

Thanks to our many Share Our Strength supporters for helping us make and seize this opportunity to advance No Kid Hungry on the national policy agenda – and especially where it matters most: in the states where kids live and where these critical food and nutrition services are delivered. And special thanks to Governor Martin O'Malley for his continued leadership and commitment to our nation's children.

Billy