Have You Spoken Truth To Power?

“We must never regard as ‘normal’ the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals,” he said. “We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country—the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have all been elected to serve. … They are not normal.”

Arizona Senator Jeff Flake

 

It’s not often that Congress is associated with exceptional political courage and moral clarity. That’s one reason why the evening newscasts led with the “profile in courage” moment of Arizona Senator Jeff Flake’s speech on the Senate floor yesterday.

“Reckless, outrageous, and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as ‘telling it like it is,’ when it is actually just reckless, outrageous, and undignified,” Flake said on the Senate floor. “And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else: It is dangerous to a democracy. Such behavior does not project strength—because our strength comes from our values. It instead projects a corruption of the spirit, and weakness.”

The speech was widely seen as a challenge to other Republicans to speak out against the excesses of the Trump White House. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/jeff-flake/543843/    But a political analysis of Flake’s speech is too narrow a lens. It is a challenge to all of us whether in the political arena, or in business, the nonprofit sector, philanthropy, the arts, or any other field.  One lesson of history that repeats over and over again it is that silence serves the powerful, but never the public interest. 

Have you spoken truth to power?

What it means to "get more political"?

             At our annual No Kid Hungry dinner in Boston last week a supporter who has attended many of our events, came up to me during the reception and said “I hope that in your remarks tonight you are going to get more political”.  Like many, he was exasperated by the dysfunction and divisiveness that prevail in our current national discourse.

            “Well thanks for giving me so much advance notice to think about it” I teased, knowing I probably wouldn’t deliver enough political red meat to satisfy his appetite.  As a nonprofit, Share Our Strength must remain nonpartisan. And that’s enabled us to get governors of both parties to enroll more kids in school meals programs.

 

But, the more I thought about my friend’s comment, the more I appreciated his plea. With so many fundamental American values and progressive policies under assault, a political response is warranted. But we can “get more political” without being partisan. Such politics, with a small “p”, means at least three things:

First, we make every effort to honor the philanthropic investments of generous supporters by ensuring that the efforts they invested in get to scale. That means educating politicians and policymakers about policies, like school meals and SNAP (food stamps) in our case, to do that.

Second, those who care about kids, and issues that affect them, must be their political proxy since kids can’t vote, lobby, or make campaign contributions. From school board to White House every election matters. Urging our stakeholders to be more involved – as volunteers, donors, on social media, etc. is essential to counter special interests that too often set the political agenda.

Third, we all have a role in demanding that our politics return to at least a modicum of civility. We can’t permit our leaders to demean others, tolerate racism, lie without consequence, or distract us from the real challenges at hand.

If politics means bashing a party or elected official with whom we disagree, then don’t look to us.  But, if getting more political means finding opportunities to engage people in their community, to help them to roll up their sleeves and share their strength, then yes we are getting more political. If getting more political means saying often and out loud that racism is wrong, that punishing the poor punishes all of us, that betraying the vulnerable and voiceless betrays those who fight to preserve our values of opportunity and equality, then yes, we are getting more political. 

In so doing we can not only end childhood hunger, we can prevent the next generation of kids from becoming hungry in the first place, and  ensure we have the strong kids needed for a strong America.

The "success paradox" and proving improvement is possible

Peggy Noonan’s recent Wall Street Journal column about the need for bipartisanship in health care policy, speaks to what we are witnessing and achieving in our own work:  “America is in trouble, with huge problems. The people are … desperate for a sense that improvement is actually possible.”  https://www.wsj.com/articles/partisanship-is-breaking-both-parties-1506640056

One of the most important things Share Our Strength is doing, in addition to relieving the terrible hardship suffered by hungry kids, is demonstrating, irrefutably, that improvement is actually possible.  Childhood hunger has been reduced by at least 30% since we began the No Kid Hungry campaign.  It is at its lowest level in many years.  Adding more than 3 million kids to school breakfast, high SNAP participation, low unemployment, and economic growth have all played a role. 

Last week the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities led by our board member Bob Greenstein reported that child poverty, now at 15.6 percent, is at a record low, half of what it was in 1967. And last month USDA reported that 17.5% of children (1 in 6) live in food insecure households, but only 8.8% of kids (less than 1 in 10) live in a household with at least one food insecure child. https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/84973/err-237.pdf?v=42979

That the American people are “desperate for a sense that improvement is actually possible” underscores the need to emphatically embrace and promote the anti-hunger community’s success.  Organizations like ours often experience a “success paradox” feeling tension between dramatizing the severity of the problem, and showing progress that tells stakeholders the severity has been diminished and they are getting a great return on their investment.  However that is a false choice akin to a winning NFL football team feeling they have to keep the score close or the fans will stop coming to cheer. Just the opposite is the case. Fans cheer victory. Investors invest in success. Besides, the truth is that even though there has been great progress, significant and compelling need remains. 

At a time when our nation, battered by tragedy, divided politically, is desperate for good news, we have some: childhood hunger and child poverty rates are dropping, lives are being saved and changed.  And having proven that we can feed kids in record numbers, we earn the opportunity and responsibility to help prevent the next generation from being hungry in the first place. 

A Passion for Creating Community

             I especially like the podcast we are releasing today because it conveys the pure passion that two experts have for my favorite of all foods: bread! 

Mark Furstenburg is the James Beard award winning owner of Bread Furst on Connecticut Avenue (and before that, Marvelous Market)  His career spans working in John Kennedy’s administration on poverty issues – to feeding Washingtonians at his bakeries. He’s 78 years old, first turned to baking at 50 and opened Bread Furst at the age of 76. It is never too late!  Corby Kummer is a brilliant writer and restaurant critic who takes us behind the scenes for a fascinating look at how restaurant reviewers write their reviews.   As you will hear, their passion for food also translates into a passion for creating community.

You can find the podcast at http://addpassionandstir.com/the-disappearance-of-poor/  and as always, if you enjoy it, please share.

 

Billy

Aligning Strategy to Values - from Houston to Syria

Dear Share Our Strength and Community Wealth Partners colleagues:

            I want to piggyback this brief note onto Chuck’s email yesterday (about our $50,000 grant to the Houston Food Bank in the wake of Hurricane Harvey's devastastion)  because I am so proud he and his team acted quickly in response to the need in Houston and because it was not only the right thing to do but also represents an often overlooked dimension of strategy.

            An event like Hurricane Harvey often poses a dilemma about whether we can respond without distracting or diverting ourselves from our strategy.  But that can be a false choice and a misunderstanding of where strategy’s power lies. Strategy should allocate and align an organization’s resources against its top priorities – in our case, our No Kid Hungry campaign.  But strategy should also reflect and reinforce the values of an organization and its team. Those two definitions can be at tension if you let them be, but for great organizations strategy is both. It always will be for us, and that’s why we responded and will continue to respond to the unfolding situation in Texas and Louisiana.

 

 

            Effective strategy can’t be formulaic. It must adapt to changing circumstances while remaining on course toward goal. And it must reflect and express the values of those implementing it – values of compassion, community and generosity.   So it is incumbent on each of us to not only stay focused on our priorities but to look up from what we are doing and connect it to what is going on in the world.

We’ve had an incredibly positive response to our grant to the Houston Food Bank from some of our most valued stakeholders.  And it comes shortly after grants we made to Save The Children and others to save lives in Syria and Somalia and deliver school meals in Haiti.  Such grants are only a small fraction of our budget, but a large part of the values we embody.  That makes them strategic too.

Billy

a letter to my colleagues about Charlottesville

Dear Share Our Strength and Community Wealth Partners colleagues:

            When I went to Charlottesville for Share Our Strength at the end of April, having lunch outdoors on the pedestrian mall dotted with bookstores, restaurants and shops, I couldn’t help but think how civilized and gentle a community it was. It will be again someday soon but in the near term our memory of it will be marred by the ugliness we witnessed Saturday.

Our work at Share Our Strength focuses on ensuring that kids grow up healthy, strong and ready and able to contribute to society.  Implicit in that is that the society they will be joining is worth getting them ready for in the first place. When racism, bigotry, hate and discrimination encroach on that society, the focus of our efforts must expand to address it. Otherwise, really, what’s the point?

It doesn’t erode our commitment to nonpartisanship and bipartisanship to assert that the President’s failure to condemn racism for what it is, is a deeply disappointing affront to every American who loves our country and the values it represents. Thankfully many Republican and Democratic leaders were united yesterday in their explicit denunciation of the white supremacists who converged on Charlottesville and who in no way represent the good people who live there.

In circumstances like these, the question is always “what can I do?” My friend Jonathan Greenblatt, who led the Social Innovation Fund in the Obama White House and is now CEO of the Anti-Defamation League has made a number of suggestions over the past 24 hours about what government officials should do, but has also written: “We should not wait for government: businesses and nonprofits, CEO’s, clergy and citizens.  It’s up to all of us to take a stand against hate. You can tweet, march, donate, mobilize, vote. Action can take many forms,. It isn’t bounded by politics. Only limit is your creativity. Ultimately this is not about political resistance. It’s about moral renewal and recommitting to the American idea.” You can follow him at @JGreenblattADL 

My only advice for now: don’t be silent.

Billy

When All Else Fails, Give Bipartisanship A Try

The collapse of the Republican effort to repeal and replace Obama care has led to speculation in many quarters that as a last resort Congress might give bipartisanship another try. Many consider that wishful thinking if not hopelessly naive. But Share Our Strength’s experience with it’s No Kid Hungry campaign suggests that there are times when such bipartisanship can not only work but produce concrete results that measurably improve lives.

 

            Granted that feeding hungry kids is more popular and less complicated than tackling health care. But it’s still dependent on legislation, government funding, and the commitment of state and local officials to executive efficiently and effectively.  For the past 10 years we have won the support of Democrats and Republicans alike making arguments that have bipartisan appeal:

-          That childhood hunger is a solvable problem

-          That children are the most vulnerable and least responsible for the situation they are in

-          That the return on investing in children pays dividends and saves taxpayers money in the long run.

Most important of all, we have resisted the temptation to attack those with whom we disagree. And the battles we’ve fought have been for the purpose of feeding kids, not for the purpose of strengthening our own political prospects.

As I said, that can sound naïve in today’s political culture. But the results speak for themselves: 3 million kids added to the school breakfast program, a majority of eligible kids participating in school meals rather than a minority, and childhood hunger at its lowest level in more than a decade.

It’s a sad commentary that in the health care debate, bipartisanship is considered only as a last resort. But at this point there is no other option.  And as we’ve seen in the effort to achieve No Kid Hungry, that can a be a good thing.