I wish our political leaders would spend a weekend at Goose Rocks Beach, not for the sun and surf, but for the moral education.
The Maine coastline shows how nature has evolved to protect those least able to protect themselves. The lowly moon snail builds a “sand collar” made of mucus and sand, almost identical to the color of the ocean floor, to cover and camouflage its eggs. When a Piping Plover senses a predator threatening her chicks, she walks away dragging one wing on the ground, feigning it is broken, to divert interest and tempt the predator to follow her instead. A mother and father duck bob watchfully in front of and behind their dozen ducklings learning to swim.
Generational protectiveness is nature’s oldest and most fundamental law. Somehow our political and economic society has evolved to violate it. We aggressively protect the strong, but fail to acknowledge the vulnerable that need protection the most.
Last week the Children’s Defense Fund released their State of America’s Children report. It explains “there are 16.4 million poor children in rich America, 7.4 million living in extreme poverty. Children under five are the poorest age group in America and one in four infants, toddlers and preschoolers are poor during the years of greatest brain development.” The report’s sobering statistics include: more than 1 in 4 children in the U.S. are on SNAP; 39.1 percent of black children were born poor in 2010. Only 3% of eligible infants and toddlers secure spots in Head Start due to funding constraints.
What’s more shocking than the statistics (the full report is @ http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/soac-2012-handbook.pdf) is how little attention the report received. Scanning the web for reaction or response, what I found instead were examples of how protective society can be, just not of vulnerable kids:
Financial regulators in Washington responded immediately when errors at Knight Capital undermined confidence in the stock market.
Apple spent $647 million in advertising to protect its investment in the iPhone.
The Obama campaign has spent more cash more quickly - $400 million so far – than any incumbent in recent history to protect his lead, and SuperPacs for both parties will spend hundreds of millions of dollars more.
There is of course a rational for each of these actions. But what’s the rationale for only acting on behalf of the strong but not the weak?
In the forward to the Children’s Defense Fund report Marian Wright Edelman wrote:
“Millions of children are living hopeless, poverty and violence stricken lives in the war zones of our cities; in the educational deserts of our rural areas; in the moral deserts of our corrosive culture that saturates them with violent, materialistic, and individualistic messages; and in the leadership deserts of our political and economic life where greed and self interest trump the common good over and over. … child hunger and child suffering have become normalized in the richest nation on earth. It’s time to reset our moral compass and redefine how we measure success.” ….
Her prescription for change pointed to the kind of work we do at Share Our Strength: “A transforming nonviolent movement is needed to create a just America. It must start in our homes, communities, parent and civic associations, and faith congregations across the nation. It will not come from Washington or state capitols or with politicians. Every single person can and must make a difference if our voiceless, voteless children are to be prepared to lead America forward. Now is the time to close our action and courage gaps, reclaim our nation’s ideals of freedom and justice, and ensure every child the chance to survive and thrive.”
At Goose Rocks Beach one can bear witness to nature’s extraordinary efforts to protect those who need protection the most. In doing so you realize it is not just tragic that we allow 20% of America’s children to struggle with poverty and hunger, it’s unnatural. Moral leadership might be enhanced if our nation’s leaders spent a day at the beach.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Using Entrepreneurship to Address Extreme Poverty
Our quiet little corner of Maine seems an unlikely place to be learning about one of the most inspiring and revolutionary ideas to tackle extreme poverty around the world, but that was the opportunity it afforded recently when Bob and Dottie King spoke at the small Methodist Church in Cape Porpoise, built in 1857 by and for local fisherman, and known as “the church on the Cape”. Bob and Dottie, who have been married 54 years and spend their summers at Goose Rocks Beach, recently donated $150 million to Stanford, one of the largest gifts in Stanford University history, to establish the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies, nicknamed SEED. You can read more about it @ http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/bmag/sbsm1201/seed.html
The goal of the Institute, whose work will begin in Ghana and Kenya, is to provide management, entrepreneurial and educational support to advance that kind of economic growth that can alleviate poverty. As a Silicon Valley investor who had been involved in the growth of start-ups ranging from Intel to Oracle, Bob had for more than 50 years been hosting international students in their home, at the urging of Dottie. They developed a passion for the developing world, but especially for people, seeing each and every one as good, talented, and worthy, though perhaps not as lucky as they themselves had been. And as a businessman, Bob has a passion for results, strategy, and return on investment. “To be a good steward, you’ve got to have results.”
What I found most inspirational and hopeful was not the amount of the gift, or the scale of Bob and Dottie’s expansive vision of reaching 200 million people, but something even more rare and precious: the humility they bring to it. Both are people of deep faith. Bob made a point of saying that they didn’t need to be thanked for their gift because it was the NGO’s that “do what we can’t do, so we should be the ones thanking them.” And while Bob and Dottie host CEO’s, prime ministers, university presidents, and other world leaders when in Palo Alto, they were happy to give up an evening to speak to a small group of about 70 of us in Maine because they really believe that every person counts.
Given the entrepreneurial spirit and philosophy that has always been core to Share Our Strength, and our focus on partnerships with business to create new kinds of “community wealth” I’m sure there will be much we can learn from the new Institute’s work, and perhaps some learnings of our own that we can share as well. In any case, keep your eye on it and on Bob and Dottie. There aren’t many like ‘em in Goose Rocks, or anywhere for that matter.
The goal of the Institute, whose work will begin in Ghana and Kenya, is to provide management, entrepreneurial and educational support to advance that kind of economic growth that can alleviate poverty. As a Silicon Valley investor who had been involved in the growth of start-ups ranging from Intel to Oracle, Bob had for more than 50 years been hosting international students in their home, at the urging of Dottie. They developed a passion for the developing world, but especially for people, seeing each and every one as good, talented, and worthy, though perhaps not as lucky as they themselves had been. And as a businessman, Bob has a passion for results, strategy, and return on investment. “To be a good steward, you’ve got to have results.”
What I found most inspirational and hopeful was not the amount of the gift, or the scale of Bob and Dottie’s expansive vision of reaching 200 million people, but something even more rare and precious: the humility they bring to it. Both are people of deep faith. Bob made a point of saying that they didn’t need to be thanked for their gift because it was the NGO’s that “do what we can’t do, so we should be the ones thanking them.” And while Bob and Dottie host CEO’s, prime ministers, university presidents, and other world leaders when in Palo Alto, they were happy to give up an evening to speak to a small group of about 70 of us in Maine because they really believe that every person counts.
Given the entrepreneurial spirit and philosophy that has always been core to Share Our Strength, and our focus on partnerships with business to create new kinds of “community wealth” I’m sure there will be much we can learn from the new Institute’s work, and perhaps some learnings of our own that we can share as well. In any case, keep your eye on it and on Bob and Dottie. There aren’t many like ‘em in Goose Rocks, or anywhere for that matter.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Woody Guthrie and the power of bearing witness
You may have seen some of the references in the press over the weekend to the 100th birthday on July 14 of folk singer and songwriter Woody Guthrie. I thought you might find interesting this brief video essay from Bill Moyers @ http://billmoyers.com/2012/07/12/woody-guthrie-what-he-still-teaches-us/ that calls out a lesser known stanza from Guthrie’s best known song, This Land is Your Land:
“In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office, I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?”
Guthrie, born in Oklahoma, had lived in the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression and for the rest of his life wrote and sang bearing witness to poverty, inequality, and those who were the most vulnerable and voiceless. His words gave unforgettable voice to these issues. And while those words were sharply political at times, by tying them to music he was able to reach a larger audience than many political statements are able to reach. It’s a testament to their power, and to how much work we have yet to do, that his words still resonate today.
“In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office, I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?”
Guthrie, born in Oklahoma, had lived in the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression and for the rest of his life wrote and sang bearing witness to poverty, inequality, and those who were the most vulnerable and voiceless. His words gave unforgettable voice to these issues. And while those words were sharply political at times, by tying them to music he was able to reach a larger audience than many political statements are able to reach. It’s a testament to their power, and to how much work we have yet to do, that his words still resonate today.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Supposed to inspire them, but they inspired me instead
My morning at Bronx Community College as commencement speaker last Friday was filled with surprises. (speech @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/billy-shore/college-commencement-address_b_1564143.html ) Beginning with the size of the place. It is spread across 26 buildings on 52 acres of the South Bronx. It was NYU’s Bronx campus until 1973.
There were also more dignitaries than I expected. Former Mayor David Dinkins, and current New York Senator Chuck Schumer also both spoke. As did the Chancellor of the City University of New York Matt Goldstein. As we were waiting to begin someone told of a favorite commencement speech by a children’s book author who told a ghost story which “was terrific because after all no one really ever remembers a word of the commencement speech.”
On a glorious sun drenched morning we looked out on 900 graduates and more than 5000 members of their families. The graduating class was about 60% Latino and 35% African American. Many if not most are the first in their families to attend college. Several spoke of eloquently of the steep challenges they’d faced as a result of poverty, single parent homes, poor health care, lack of quality education, and sometimes their own bad choices.
As is custom at such ceremonies, my job as commencement speaker was to impart wisdom and provide inspiration. But the challenge I faced was to not be redundant. There was nothing I could say as inspirational as the lives they’d lived, the obstacles they’d overcome, and the achievements represented by their diploma. Unlike students at more elite colleges, they don’t necessarily have new jobs waiting for them as a reward for all of their hard work. But still they could not have been more excited or proud.
I don’t know if they left inspired. But I did.
There were also more dignitaries than I expected. Former Mayor David Dinkins, and current New York Senator Chuck Schumer also both spoke. As did the Chancellor of the City University of New York Matt Goldstein. As we were waiting to begin someone told of a favorite commencement speech by a children’s book author who told a ghost story which “was terrific because after all no one really ever remembers a word of the commencement speech.”
On a glorious sun drenched morning we looked out on 900 graduates and more than 5000 members of their families. The graduating class was about 60% Latino and 35% African American. Many if not most are the first in their families to attend college. Several spoke of eloquently of the steep challenges they’d faced as a result of poverty, single parent homes, poor health care, lack of quality education, and sometimes their own bad choices.
As is custom at such ceremonies, my job as commencement speaker was to impart wisdom and provide inspiration. But the challenge I faced was to not be redundant. There was nothing I could say as inspirational as the lives they’d lived, the obstacles they’d overcome, and the achievements represented by their diploma. Unlike students at more elite colleges, they don’t necessarily have new jobs waiting for them as a reward for all of their hard work. But still they could not have been more excited or proud.
I don’t know if they left inspired. But I did.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Memorial Day Weekend at Goose Rocks Beach
This weekend we returned to Goose Rocks Beach in Maine for our tenth summer and as always, almost nothing had changed. Our neighbor’s two red kayaks are on the same patch of sand, tethered to the same rock. The general store stocks the same candy and magazines. The tides deposit sand dollars and moon snails on the same stretches of sand.
But we did arrive to one wonderful surprise. Each year the game warden cordons off a few spots by the nearby river to protect the eggs of an endangered species of small birds called Piping Plovers. This year, for the first time, a round circular fenced enclosure had also been put up in front of our house. In the middle, in a small depression scraped in the sand, sit four speckled small eggs; perfectly round, and breathtakingly beautiful.
The eggs had been discovered by a neighbor whose call to the Fish and Wildlife Department set the machinery of protection in motion. The fencing, to keep out predators like foxes and gulls, will be up for a month before the eggs hatch and then another 28 days until the chicks can fly. Warning signs are posted, and a leaflet was hand delivered to surrounding homes with instructions about not disturbing the eggs. The enclosures are numbered and the birds monitored. The community, oblivious to and undeterred by the diversity of political views within, pulls out all the stops to ensure the future of these birds through this investment in the earliest possible intervention.
It’s good to be feathered I guess. There are children within the same region of the Fish and Wildlife Service whose struggle to survive and thrive is almost as great as the Plovers. Their predators will be hunger and poverty. These kids are endangered but because their species is not, we don’t marshal resources on their behalf in the same way. Instead we wait, and debate, or make excuses until the damage is done, sometimes irreversibly. One legacy of No Kid Hungry for which we must strive, is not just increased enrollment in programs like summer meals and school breakfast, or even the end to childhood hunger, but creating a culture of nurture and protection that rallies the entire community around each and every child.
But we did arrive to one wonderful surprise. Each year the game warden cordons off a few spots by the nearby river to protect the eggs of an endangered species of small birds called Piping Plovers. This year, for the first time, a round circular fenced enclosure had also been put up in front of our house. In the middle, in a small depression scraped in the sand, sit four speckled small eggs; perfectly round, and breathtakingly beautiful.
The eggs had been discovered by a neighbor whose call to the Fish and Wildlife Department set the machinery of protection in motion. The fencing, to keep out predators like foxes and gulls, will be up for a month before the eggs hatch and then another 28 days until the chicks can fly. Warning signs are posted, and a leaflet was hand delivered to surrounding homes with instructions about not disturbing the eggs. The enclosures are numbered and the birds monitored. The community, oblivious to and undeterred by the diversity of political views within, pulls out all the stops to ensure the future of these birds through this investment in the earliest possible intervention.
It’s good to be feathered I guess. There are children within the same region of the Fish and Wildlife Service whose struggle to survive and thrive is almost as great as the Plovers. Their predators will be hunger and poverty. These kids are endangered but because their species is not, we don’t marshal resources on their behalf in the same way. Instead we wait, and debate, or make excuses until the damage is done, sometimes irreversibly. One legacy of No Kid Hungry for which we must strive, is not just increased enrollment in programs like summer meals and school breakfast, or even the end to childhood hunger, but creating a culture of nurture and protection that rallies the entire community around each and every child.
Monday, May 21, 2012
"So Rich, So Poor" Important New Book on Poverty in America
May 29 is the official publication date for an important new book called So Rich, So Poor: Why It’s So Hard to End Poverty In America. It was written by Peter Edelman and its hard won accumulated wisdom represents the rare blend of practitioner, academic, and politically savvy idealism that has been Peter’ s career over more than 40 years of American history.
Edelman’s formative experience was working for Bobby Kennedy in the 1960’s and developing many of the anti-hunger and anti-poverty policies that Kennedy promoted. He went on to work in the Clinton Administration, from which he resigned in protest over welfare reform, and is now a Georgetown Law Professor. His unique vantage point enables him to make valuable distinctions between genuine innovations in social policy and mere re-inventions of the wheel.
I was able to read the book over the weekend. In it Peter reflects on his time with Bobby Kennedy in the Mississippi Delta, and the legislative remedies to hunger it inspired. He describes RFK as “a man who – arguably unlike anybody at that level since- was deeply committed to doing something very serious about poverty in this country and the intersection of poverty and race.” Most of the book is a well documented analysis of the ups and downs in the fight against poverty. It employs compelling facts and statistics to balance sobering realism with hope, optimism, and keen political insight.
His key points include:
“The idea that ‘nothing works’ in the fight against poverty is a canard. The policy gains outweigh the policy losses… The problem is that the policy gains have been nullified by economic trends.”
The 21st century began with the nation in the best position in poverty in 30 years, 11.3% at end of Clinton Administration, just above the 1973 low point of 11.1%. 15 million were added to ranks of the poor between 2000-2010, now equaling 15.1% of the population.
Three forces – all unforeseen in large measure in 1968 – account for the course of American poverty over the past 40 years. (1) good-paying, low-skill jobs went overseas and gave way to automation, and low-wage work became ubiquitous; (2) the substantial increase in the number of families headed by a single parent, usually a woman; (3) the fact that race and gender still matter a good deal as to who is poor and who is not.
An astonishing 20.5 million people lived in extreme poverty (less than $9000 for a family of three) in 2010, up by nearly 8 million in just ten years. 6 million had no income other than food stamps.
Half the jobs in America pay less than $34,000 a year and almost a quarter pay below the poverty line for a family of four ($22,000 a year).
One estimate is that we are losing at least $500 billion per year just due to the costs of child poverty.
“The unwillingness of our national leadership to engage the nation in a straightforward discussion of American poverty is corrosive.”
Edelman concludes with a call to action that should resonate with all of us in nonprofit or advocacy work: “We have to be at it steadily all the time. This means both electoral politics and outside advocacy and organizing. We tend to lurch back and forth. My take on the Obama election in 2008 is that we put all our eggs in the electoral basket and then figured he would do it all and we could go about our business. There were two problems with that. One, he needed our help to get things done, and two, he needed to hear our voice about what he was not doing that he should have been doing and what he was doing that was wrong. You can’t just vote and then disappear for four years. … one lesson, which we seem to learn and then forget over and over again, is that we have to work both the inside and the outside – in the electoral world and from the outside to keep elected officials honest and make them better than they would otherwise appear to be.”
Book events are Politics and Prose on June 9 at 6, Center For American Progress on June 11 at 10:30, National Women's Democratic Club on June 12 at noon, and Busboys and Poets on June 21 at 6:30.
Edelman’s formative experience was working for Bobby Kennedy in the 1960’s and developing many of the anti-hunger and anti-poverty policies that Kennedy promoted. He went on to work in the Clinton Administration, from which he resigned in protest over welfare reform, and is now a Georgetown Law Professor. His unique vantage point enables him to make valuable distinctions between genuine innovations in social policy and mere re-inventions of the wheel.
I was able to read the book over the weekend. In it Peter reflects on his time with Bobby Kennedy in the Mississippi Delta, and the legislative remedies to hunger it inspired. He describes RFK as “a man who – arguably unlike anybody at that level since- was deeply committed to doing something very serious about poverty in this country and the intersection of poverty and race.” Most of the book is a well documented analysis of the ups and downs in the fight against poverty. It employs compelling facts and statistics to balance sobering realism with hope, optimism, and keen political insight.
His key points include:
“The idea that ‘nothing works’ in the fight against poverty is a canard. The policy gains outweigh the policy losses… The problem is that the policy gains have been nullified by economic trends.”
The 21st century began with the nation in the best position in poverty in 30 years, 11.3% at end of Clinton Administration, just above the 1973 low point of 11.1%. 15 million were added to ranks of the poor between 2000-2010, now equaling 15.1% of the population.
Three forces – all unforeseen in large measure in 1968 – account for the course of American poverty over the past 40 years. (1) good-paying, low-skill jobs went overseas and gave way to automation, and low-wage work became ubiquitous; (2) the substantial increase in the number of families headed by a single parent, usually a woman; (3) the fact that race and gender still matter a good deal as to who is poor and who is not.
An astonishing 20.5 million people lived in extreme poverty (less than $9000 for a family of three) in 2010, up by nearly 8 million in just ten years. 6 million had no income other than food stamps.
Half the jobs in America pay less than $34,000 a year and almost a quarter pay below the poverty line for a family of four ($22,000 a year).
One estimate is that we are losing at least $500 billion per year just due to the costs of child poverty.
“The unwillingness of our national leadership to engage the nation in a straightforward discussion of American poverty is corrosive.”
Edelman concludes with a call to action that should resonate with all of us in nonprofit or advocacy work: “We have to be at it steadily all the time. This means both electoral politics and outside advocacy and organizing. We tend to lurch back and forth. My take on the Obama election in 2008 is that we put all our eggs in the electoral basket and then figured he would do it all and we could go about our business. There were two problems with that. One, he needed our help to get things done, and two, he needed to hear our voice about what he was not doing that he should have been doing and what he was doing that was wrong. You can’t just vote and then disappear for four years. … one lesson, which we seem to learn and then forget over and over again, is that we have to work both the inside and the outside – in the electoral world and from the outside to keep elected officials honest and make them better than they would otherwise appear to be.”
Book events are Politics and Prose on June 9 at 6, Center For American Progress on June 11 at 10:30, National Women's Democratic Club on June 12 at noon, and Busboys and Poets on June 21 at 6:30.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Sounds of Silence: Are Nonprofits Too Passive About Public Policy?
Last week the House of Representatives passed the budget proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan on a party line vote. In one of the greatest legislative assaults on low income Americans in decades, the legislation would cut more than $5 trillion dollars in spending over ten years. 62% of these savings would come from the low income programs we think of as the essential safety net for vulnerable fellow citizens. Yet most of those in the nonprofit and philanthropic community, who work closely with the families and children sure to be impacted if not devastated, have been all but silent on the issue.
Ironically most nonprofits working in human services, health care, education, hunger and poverty will be expected, but unable to pick up the slack if cutbacks in SNAP, housing assistance, Pell grants for tuition assistance, and Medicaid go into effect.
The Ryan budget represents a radical restructuring of government and the responsibilities we share as a society. If philanthropic leaders aren’t speaking out on this, what are they speaking out on? In fairness, they make themselves heard often by releasing reports, conducting research, and sharing best practices. But they tend not to weigh in on, or intersect with, the on-going national conversation, thus self-marginalizing at just the time they most need to be heard.
While the House considered the Ryan bill, most nonprofits large and small went about business as usual, focusing on the “trees” - writing grants, holding fundraising events, preparing for board meetings – and utterly failing to see the forest. Because the House passed budget, though unlikely to go very far in the Senate, is anything but business as usual. For antiquated reasons this is just what the public wants and expects. We like our nonprofits to be seen but not heard.
But that doesn’t mean they can’t take specific steps to better prepare themselves. Every organization has both a right and an obligation to let its stakeholders know how their work will be affected by changes in public policy.
There is an alternative to silence, neither partisan nor political. It begins with four questions every nonprofit should ask:
Have we prepared and shared an analysis of the impact of such budget cuts on the issues on which our mission is focused?
Have we prepared contingencies for generating alternative revenues sufficient to enable us to meet increased demand?
Have we built a capacity to inform and/or shape public policy to the extent consistent with our mission and permitted by law?
Have we sought to collaborate with others to ensure the collective impact necessary to mitigate impact?
Speaking in a very different context recently, about the impact of SuperPacs, the President’s strategist David Axelrod said “you can’t play touch if they play tackle.” The same could be said for nonprofits today when it comes to potentially radical shifts in public policy. It’s not too late to speak out. But when will they?
Ironically most nonprofits working in human services, health care, education, hunger and poverty will be expected, but unable to pick up the slack if cutbacks in SNAP, housing assistance, Pell grants for tuition assistance, and Medicaid go into effect.
The Ryan budget represents a radical restructuring of government and the responsibilities we share as a society. If philanthropic leaders aren’t speaking out on this, what are they speaking out on? In fairness, they make themselves heard often by releasing reports, conducting research, and sharing best practices. But they tend not to weigh in on, or intersect with, the on-going national conversation, thus self-marginalizing at just the time they most need to be heard.
While the House considered the Ryan bill, most nonprofits large and small went about business as usual, focusing on the “trees” - writing grants, holding fundraising events, preparing for board meetings – and utterly failing to see the forest. Because the House passed budget, though unlikely to go very far in the Senate, is anything but business as usual. For antiquated reasons this is just what the public wants and expects. We like our nonprofits to be seen but not heard.
But that doesn’t mean they can’t take specific steps to better prepare themselves. Every organization has both a right and an obligation to let its stakeholders know how their work will be affected by changes in public policy.
There is an alternative to silence, neither partisan nor political. It begins with four questions every nonprofit should ask:
Have we prepared and shared an analysis of the impact of such budget cuts on the issues on which our mission is focused?
Have we prepared contingencies for generating alternative revenues sufficient to enable us to meet increased demand?
Have we built a capacity to inform and/or shape public policy to the extent consistent with our mission and permitted by law?
Have we sought to collaborate with others to ensure the collective impact necessary to mitigate impact?
Speaking in a very different context recently, about the impact of SuperPacs, the President’s strategist David Axelrod said “you can’t play touch if they play tackle.” The same could be said for nonprofits today when it comes to potentially radical shifts in public policy. It’s not too late to speak out. But when will they?
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