Yesterday’s NY Times included this story: (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/27/health/policy/27medicaid.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=medicaid%20bonus&st=cse) which I think both affirms the strategic wisdom of Share Our Strength's approach to ending childhood hunger, and suggests a tactic we may want to adopt as an effective incentive.
“The Obama administration plans to announce Monday that it will make $206 million in bonus Medicaid payments to 15 states — with more than a fourth of the total going to Alabama — for signing up children who are eligible for public health insurance but had previously failed to enroll.”
The article explains that these payments are “aimed at one of the most persistent frustrations in government health care: the inability to enroll an estimated 4.7 million children who would be eligible for subsidized coverage if their families could be found and alerted. Two of every three uninsured children are thought to meet the income criteria for government insurance programs. … Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, has called the matter “a moral obligation” and has challenged health care providers, state and local governments and community groups to seek out eligible children.”
The parallels with the access issues we see around food and nutrition programs are pretty obvious. We will be eager to explore the feasibility of such an approach in addition to our current leguislative initiative proposing challenge grants to states to enroll more kids in exisiting anti-hunger programs.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
My list of Top Ten Lessons of 2010
It’s been an amazing year for Share Our Strength, and worth reflecting on any learning’s to be taken from our growth and experience. Here’s my list of the top 10 lessons learned in 2010 – based on nothing more than my own personal opinion. There aren’t many “aha” surprises, just some common sense that merits reinforcement. It is by no means all inclusive. But some of what we learned may be applicable to your favorite nonprofit! Feel free to add your own two cents!
1. Talent tops all. Our investment in ensuring that the right people are in the right positions has strengthened every facet of our work from strategy to development to communications, etc.
2. Surpluses are more fun than debt. After years of debilitating and distracting discussions about whether we would be able to make our budget, the discipline to deliver a surplus created a liberating result: our ability to focus on strategy and substance, rather than shifting around small pots of money to cover bets gone bad.
3. Speed makes up for size. Our early and decisive action on matters ranging from Haiti to support for the Child Nutrition Bill when others waivered, enabled us to “punch above our weight” and have disproportionate influence and impact on important issues.
4. Celebrity counts, and if authentic, counts a lot. The fact that Jeff Bridges had a 25 year record of activism on hunger issues, and really does care, made him an asset worth waiting for over all of these years that we have otherwise eschewed celebrity involvement.
5. Simplicity and accountability are an inspiring combination. The No Kid Hungry campaign and the state strategy offer a promise nearly unique in the social change world, which is a commitment to actually measure progress based on increases or decreased in participation among children who are eligible but not yet enrolled in food and nutrition programs.
6. Entrepreneurship and policy are a powerful combination. Most of the organizations started by social entrepreneurs – whether Teach For America, Venture Philanthropy Partners, City Year, College Summit, et al – have innovated in ways government never could, but also embraced a role in advocating for improved public policy to scale their innovations – just as we more recently have done.
7. Blue oceans offer smoother sailing that red oceans. Our state strategy is an affirmation of the business strategy book of 2005 called Blue Ocean Strategy which makes the case for “the high growth and profits an organization can generate by creating new demand in an uncontested marketplace.” We have found ourselves virtually along in focusing on the role of governors and state governments in ending childhood hunger.
8. Most failures are failures of imagination. I’ve beat this one to death – mostly via my new book, The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men, so enough for now but suffice it to say that I hope our culture remains one in which we always challenge the conventional wisdom, remain undeterred by the difficult and impractical, and committed to achieving the best possible version of ourselves. As Chuck Scofield shared with me over the weekend, from the HBO special on legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi "We are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because nothing is perfect. But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process we will catch excellence."
9. Capacity equals impact. Investing in building and strengthening internal capacity, while often mis-interpreted as increasing overhead, and disparaged by formula-based ratings systems, can be the most direct and effective way of increasing impact against mission.
10. Even our best year is not sufficient in an economy that keeps 44 million Americans below the poverty line. 2010 was a great year but we have to make 2011 an even better one. Too many Americans are hurting – especially kids. We probably can’t work much harder but we have to work smarter and continue to bring new allies, new resources, and new partners into the battle.
I consider myself extremely fortunate to get to do this work, and especially to do it with the amazing team at Share Our Strength. My best for the holidays and for a happy New Year.
Billy
1. Talent tops all. Our investment in ensuring that the right people are in the right positions has strengthened every facet of our work from strategy to development to communications, etc.
2. Surpluses are more fun than debt. After years of debilitating and distracting discussions about whether we would be able to make our budget, the discipline to deliver a surplus created a liberating result: our ability to focus on strategy and substance, rather than shifting around small pots of money to cover bets gone bad.
3. Speed makes up for size. Our early and decisive action on matters ranging from Haiti to support for the Child Nutrition Bill when others waivered, enabled us to “punch above our weight” and have disproportionate influence and impact on important issues.
4. Celebrity counts, and if authentic, counts a lot. The fact that Jeff Bridges had a 25 year record of activism on hunger issues, and really does care, made him an asset worth waiting for over all of these years that we have otherwise eschewed celebrity involvement.
5. Simplicity and accountability are an inspiring combination. The No Kid Hungry campaign and the state strategy offer a promise nearly unique in the social change world, which is a commitment to actually measure progress based on increases or decreased in participation among children who are eligible but not yet enrolled in food and nutrition programs.
6. Entrepreneurship and policy are a powerful combination. Most of the organizations started by social entrepreneurs – whether Teach For America, Venture Philanthropy Partners, City Year, College Summit, et al – have innovated in ways government never could, but also embraced a role in advocating for improved public policy to scale their innovations – just as we more recently have done.
7. Blue oceans offer smoother sailing that red oceans. Our state strategy is an affirmation of the business strategy book of 2005 called Blue Ocean Strategy which makes the case for “the high growth and profits an organization can generate by creating new demand in an uncontested marketplace.” We have found ourselves virtually along in focusing on the role of governors and state governments in ending childhood hunger.
8. Most failures are failures of imagination. I’ve beat this one to death – mostly via my new book, The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men, so enough for now but suffice it to say that I hope our culture remains one in which we always challenge the conventional wisdom, remain undeterred by the difficult and impractical, and committed to achieving the best possible version of ourselves. As Chuck Scofield shared with me over the weekend, from the HBO special on legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi "We are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because nothing is perfect. But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process we will catch excellence."
9. Capacity equals impact. Investing in building and strengthening internal capacity, while often mis-interpreted as increasing overhead, and disparaged by formula-based ratings systems, can be the most direct and effective way of increasing impact against mission.
10. Even our best year is not sufficient in an economy that keeps 44 million Americans below the poverty line. 2010 was a great year but we have to make 2011 an even better one. Too many Americans are hurting – especially kids. We probably can’t work much harder but we have to work smarter and continue to bring new allies, new resources, and new partners into the battle.
I consider myself extremely fortunate to get to do this work, and especially to do it with the amazing team at Share Our Strength. My best for the holidays and for a happy New Year.
Billy
Monday, December 20, 2010
The military's green revolution and the imaginations of unreasonable men
Tom Friedman’s recent column in the NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/opinion/19friedman.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage) about how the U.S. Navy is reducing its dependence on foreign oil by flying jets powered by a blend of conventional jet fuel and camelina aviation biofuel made from pressed mustard seeds is a great current example of “the imaginations of unreasonable men”.
When the Pentagon realized it was losing one of its military personnel for every fuel 24 convoys it runs in Afghanistan, what previously seemed impractical if not impossible, suddenly became imaginable. It’s a fascinating column about how a green revolution in our military can help us save energy, money lives, and possible help us win or avoid the next war. And it is another example of kind of thinking I try to convey in my new book (http://www.amazon.com/Imaginations-Unreasonable-Men-Inspiration-Purpose/dp/1586487647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1292267953&sr=8-1)
When the Pentagon realized it was losing one of its military personnel for every fuel 24 convoys it runs in Afghanistan, what previously seemed impractical if not impossible, suddenly became imaginable. It’s a fascinating column about how a green revolution in our military can help us save energy, money lives, and possible help us win or avoid the next war. And it is another example of kind of thinking I try to convey in my new book (http://www.amazon.com/Imaginations-Unreasonable-Men-Inspiration-Purpose/dp/1586487647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1292267953&sr=8-1)
Monday, November 29, 2010
Strategic Lessons for Nonprofits from Business Innovators and Entrepreneurs
While THE IMAGINATIONS OF UNREASONABLE MEN will, for obvious reasons, be thought of as a book about malaria, it is also about the lessons the social sector can learn from innovators and business entrepreneurs, like Steve Hoffman who started a Rockville, Maryland biotech company called Sanaria to tackle one of the toughest problems in the world – a problem affecting people so marginalized and voiceless that there are no traditional economic markets or political markets for solving it.
In Washington and the other centers of government that we look to for solutions to social problems, the battle over how to solve our toughest and most controversial problems usually revolves around spending more money or less money, government taking a bigger or smaller role, and the right and left poles of the culture wars. But from today’s unprecedented convergence of science, entrepreneurship and philanthropy there is emerging a set of problem solving strategies that until now have been widely overlooked.
The book, describes six strategic lessons learned, which I summarize below.
First: Invest in bringing existing solutions to scale rather than discovering new ones
Second: Most failures are not failures of planning, strategy, resources, organization or discipline, but failures of imagination.
Third: It is incumbent upon social entrepreneurs to not only develop solutions but to make them affordable, to explore the economic that will enable them to deliver their product or service for “a dollar a dose.”
Fourth: When markets don’t exist they must somehow be created; or at least proxies or substitutes for market forces must be employed as an alternative.
Fifth: Solving problems, not salving them, creates the most compelling return on investment.
Sixth: What is needed in the nonprofit sector even more than collaboration is a commitment to compete at every level and to not expect first rate outcomes with second rate inputs.
The link to THE IMAGINATIONS OF UNREASONABLE MEN at Amazon.com is http://www.amazon.com/Imaginations-Unreasonable-Men-Inspiration-Purpose/dp/1586487647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1286530652&sr=8-1-spell
In Washington and the other centers of government that we look to for solutions to social problems, the battle over how to solve our toughest and most controversial problems usually revolves around spending more money or less money, government taking a bigger or smaller role, and the right and left poles of the culture wars. But from today’s unprecedented convergence of science, entrepreneurship and philanthropy there is emerging a set of problem solving strategies that until now have been widely overlooked.
The book, describes six strategic lessons learned, which I summarize below.
First: Invest in bringing existing solutions to scale rather than discovering new ones
Second: Most failures are not failures of planning, strategy, resources, organization or discipline, but failures of imagination.
Third: It is incumbent upon social entrepreneurs to not only develop solutions but to make them affordable, to explore the economic that will enable them to deliver their product or service for “a dollar a dose.”
Fourth: When markets don’t exist they must somehow be created; or at least proxies or substitutes for market forces must be employed as an alternative.
Fifth: Solving problems, not salving them, creates the most compelling return on investment.
Sixth: What is needed in the nonprofit sector even more than collaboration is a commitment to compete at every level and to not expect first rate outcomes with second rate inputs.
The link to THE IMAGINATIONS OF UNREASONABLE MEN at Amazon.com is http://www.amazon.com/Imaginations-Unreasonable-Men-Inspiration-Purpose/dp/1586487647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1286530652&sr=8-1-spell
Sunday, November 28, 2010
The Dog that Didn't Bark and the Deficit Hawk That Didn't Swoop
With the newly elected Congress, anti-hunger champions have to take their good news where they can find it, or perhaps where they can imagine it, at least that’s what I did reading yesterday’s New York Times front page story on California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee. It can be read at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/us/politics/28oversight.html?_r=1&hpw
Issa is quoted as saying the government needs “to go on a diet” to erase the annual budget deficit of $1.4 trillion and states his goal of focusing on places where money can be saved. According to the Times he has drawn up this “list of big targets: $40 billion a year in fraud or waste in Medicare, tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to government controlled mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; $8.5 billion in losses by the Postal Service in the last fiscal year; tens of millions of dollars spent on redundant programs within federal agencies or squandered through corrupt contracting practices.”
But as was the case with Sherlock Holmes who was struck by the conspicuous silence of the dog that didn’t bark, I was struck by the lack of any reference to anti-hunger or anti-poverty programs, or even SNAP, often a favorite target. Perhaps Issa will prove to be the deficit hawk that does not indiscriminately swoop down on the voiceless and vulnerable, and also prove our thesis that such food and nutrition programs now have a solid track record and bipartisan support.
It was just one article about one member of the new House leadership, but for a moment I was surprised and just slightly, temporarily, encouraged.
Issa is quoted as saying the government needs “to go on a diet” to erase the annual budget deficit of $1.4 trillion and states his goal of focusing on places where money can be saved. According to the Times he has drawn up this “list of big targets: $40 billion a year in fraud or waste in Medicare, tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to government controlled mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; $8.5 billion in losses by the Postal Service in the last fiscal year; tens of millions of dollars spent on redundant programs within federal agencies or squandered through corrupt contracting practices.”
But as was the case with Sherlock Holmes who was struck by the conspicuous silence of the dog that didn’t bark, I was struck by the lack of any reference to anti-hunger or anti-poverty programs, or even SNAP, often a favorite target. Perhaps Issa will prove to be the deficit hawk that does not indiscriminately swoop down on the voiceless and vulnerable, and also prove our thesis that such food and nutrition programs now have a solid track record and bipartisan support.
It was just one article about one member of the new House leadership, but for a moment I was surprised and just slightly, temporarily, encouraged.
Monday, November 22, 2010
In the presidents cabinet - putting the most vulnerable and voiceless first
Last Thursday we hosted a breakfast at NY’s Regency Hotel in which Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack met with about 80 opinion leaders from business and philanthropic circles to share his perspective on the connection between childhood hunger and education, and to help Share Our Strength lay the foundation for bringing our No Kid Hungry campaign to New York City. As has been the case each time I’ve been with him, I came away with even greater respect and admiration.
Vilsack made the economic competitiveness, education, and national security arguments for ensuring that our kids are not hungry, as well as making the moral case. He argued that in today’s interconnected global economy, our kids are no longer competing with classmates in their school or in nearby schools but against all children everywhere.
He also emphasized that of the 42 million Americans receiving SNAP benefits, only 10% were getting cash welfare assistance, meaning that 90% were working Americans. He warned that unless this was better understood, these Americans would be stereotyped and stigmatized, unfairly as they have in the past.
Several times Vilsack used the word “outrageous” to describe the failure of communities to ensure that more kids were being enrolled in programs for which they were eligible. In a job that is usually associated with Agri-business, policy pronouncements and regulatory strategies, Secretary Vilsack has never forgotten that there are kids in our country who are left out and left behind and that we must find a way to ensure their well being regardless of current political and economic conditions. Not all of our colleagues in the anti-hunger community stood by this good man when he asked for help supporting the Child Nutrition Reauthorization bill. Last week made me even more proud that we at Share Our Strength never wavered.
Billy
Vilsack made the economic competitiveness, education, and national security arguments for ensuring that our kids are not hungry, as well as making the moral case. He argued that in today’s interconnected global economy, our kids are no longer competing with classmates in their school or in nearby schools but against all children everywhere.
He also emphasized that of the 42 million Americans receiving SNAP benefits, only 10% were getting cash welfare assistance, meaning that 90% were working Americans. He warned that unless this was better understood, these Americans would be stereotyped and stigmatized, unfairly as they have in the past.
Several times Vilsack used the word “outrageous” to describe the failure of communities to ensure that more kids were being enrolled in programs for which they were eligible. In a job that is usually associated with Agri-business, policy pronouncements and regulatory strategies, Secretary Vilsack has never forgotten that there are kids in our country who are left out and left behind and that we must find a way to ensure their well being regardless of current political and economic conditions. Not all of our colleagues in the anti-hunger community stood by this good man when he asked for help supporting the Child Nutrition Reauthorization bill. Last week made me even more proud that we at Share Our Strength never wavered.
Billy
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Grateful Response to the Wall Street Journal's Review of THE IMAGINATIONS OF UNREASONABLE MEN
This weekend the Wall Street Journal devoted an entire page to malaria, the “Scourge of Humankind”, using my new book THE IMAGINATIONS OF UNREASONABLE MEN and Sonia Shaw’s THE FEVER as the reviewer’s bookends to capture the different points of view about how best to address this terrible disease. The reviewer was W.F. Bynum, professor emeritus of the history of medicine at University College London and his piece can be found at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703326204575616452789851046.html
Though Professor Bynum didn’t quite buy my point of view, or perhaps didn’t fully get it, that seems like a mere quibble. After five years researching and writing IMAGINATIONS in a way designed to reach a more popular audience, it was incredibly fulfilling to see it given the serious consideration one would hope for by a distinguished expert such as Professor Bynum, and to see it trigger greater discussion and awareness of the toll taken by malaria on some of the world’s poorest children.
The review did an especially good job of making the link between malaria and poverty. In the book I write about the challenges of solving problems that impact those so voiceless and marginalized that there are no markets for solving them. I’ve been concerned about the Catch-22 of the same being true regarding a book about such matters – would there be a market among readers who have little connection to such realities? Gratefully, the Wall Street Journal and Professor Bynum suggest that there may be.
The review states that given the history of efforts to fight malaria “it is optimistic to think the disease can easily be stamped out.” Certainly no one I’ve written about, especially malaria vaccine developer Steve Hoffman, would disagree with that. THE IMAGINATIONS OF UNREASONABLE MEN is more about hope than optimism, hope in the sense that Vaclav Havel meant when he said “Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” That’s what drives those featured in my book.
Though Professor Bynum didn’t quite buy my point of view, or perhaps didn’t fully get it, that seems like a mere quibble. After five years researching and writing IMAGINATIONS in a way designed to reach a more popular audience, it was incredibly fulfilling to see it given the serious consideration one would hope for by a distinguished expert such as Professor Bynum, and to see it trigger greater discussion and awareness of the toll taken by malaria on some of the world’s poorest children.
The review did an especially good job of making the link between malaria and poverty. In the book I write about the challenges of solving problems that impact those so voiceless and marginalized that there are no markets for solving them. I’ve been concerned about the Catch-22 of the same being true regarding a book about such matters – would there be a market among readers who have little connection to such realities? Gratefully, the Wall Street Journal and Professor Bynum suggest that there may be.
The review states that given the history of efforts to fight malaria “it is optimistic to think the disease can easily be stamped out.” Certainly no one I’ve written about, especially malaria vaccine developer Steve Hoffman, would disagree with that. THE IMAGINATIONS OF UNREASONABLE MEN is more about hope than optimism, hope in the sense that Vaclav Havel meant when he said “Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” That’s what drives those featured in my book.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)