The title of change agents has been bestowed on the likes of Michael Pollan, Alice Waters and Joel Salatin. This past weekend, I luckily embarked on meeting our next change agents or game changers, if you will. My brother, Brent, invited me to his Friends and Family weekend at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute where he is working towards a sustainable MBA.

Although my time at BGI was ever so brief, I left with hope and confidence that our future game changers are going to make a difference. The grad students are looking for more than a degree – they want to help you, your communities and our world be a better and more sustainable place. What’s even more exciting is they are learning the skills and knowledge it takes to make it happen.

Lately, I find the news is filled with negativity, hopelessness and despair. Well, personally, I need hope. There is positive news out there, game changers are everywhere if you take the time to look for them, and maybe now is the time we could share this information with each other. Whether you email me, post it on our Market’s Facebook page or tell the next person you see, share something positive, motivating and game changing. Maybe it is as simple as picking up trash in a parking lot or as big as starting your own sustainable business – whatever it is, share it because it helps!

These game changers have a real chance of success because first and foremost they believe and support each other, encouraging ideas and dreams into reality.

Couldn’t we all stand to be a bit more hopeful? To believe in our capacity to achieve and to help make our lives more successful. I was inspired by these future game changers because they are taking the chance and working hard to affect change. Who knows, with some serious hard work and a little luck, this writer might find her way to quenching this thirst and maybe, just maybe, finding my way back to BGI as a student.

Last, but not least, the “Rule #6″ was often referenced throughout our time at BGI. It was a helpful reality check for these over-worked, heavily caffeinated and committed grad students. The mysterious and profound “Rule #6″ was simple and has since lightened my step and heightened my smile.  “Rule #6″ means “Don’t take yourself too seriously.” What light, yet wise words of wisdom.

Dedicated to my brother who continues to challenge my way of thinking and ultimately makes me a better person.

Eat Well,
Lori Cochran-Dougall
Market Director

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Lori Cochran-Dougall is the sister of Brent Cochran. Brent is a current student in the Bainbridge Graduate Institute’s Sustainable MBA program. Lori is the Market Director for the Westport Farmers’ Market in Westport, Connecticut. The above article is from the Westport Farmers’ Market’s weekly newsletter.

Today is a great day to honor this example by choosing to interpret Valentine’s Day as an inclusive celebration of all loving relationships. Likewise, a Valentine’s Day present need not be material—why should the celebration of love be limited to those who have the financial means to indulge in a romantic getaway or purchase flowers and candy for their significant other? For values-driven businesses, Valentine’s Day is a great opportunity to creatively combine marketing and philanthropy. Advertise your brand by sponsoring a dinner for domestic violence survivors or enabling families of children with special needs to adopt a pet from an animal shelter.

Valentine’s Day is also a reminder that social justice starts at home. The National Child Abuse Hotline registers about 3 million reported incidents of child physical, sexual, and psychological abuse or neglect every year; UN statistics state that one in three women will be subjected to sexual or physical assault during her lifetime. Often this violence occurs within the context of intimate family or partnered relationships. Telling their story is a powerful way for trauma survivors to heal; you probably have a loved one who could use a good listener. Practicing love and compassion within your close relationships is what ultimately nurtures the world.

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Luisa Walmsley will graduate from the Bainbridge Graduate Institute in 2013 with an MBA in Sustainable Business. She and her family recently relocated to Sedro-Woolley, WA, where they have partnered with a BGI alum to operate a permaculture-based, organic farmstead that models sustainable living skills.

Ours is filled with items from my wife’s business life as a photographer; my run for Pierce County Council; our certificate for winning a kayaking championship; our certificates declaring us beekeeping apprentices; a receipt from our efforts to grow wheat, oats, and barley on our front yard; some of the beautiful party invitations my wife has created over the years; number bibs from races; and permits from mountain climbing.

It all fits—with room for many future displays of awesomeness—in a $3 photo box from the craft store.

You can put anything into your Box of Awesomeness that you are proud of. Maybe you went to a foreign country and kept a postcard to remember your trip. Maybe you wrote a letter to the editor and tore out the page from the newspaper. Or maybe you baked the best pie ever and took a photo of it to remember it.

This is about reminding yourself that you reached goals; that you tried new things and that some of them worked, and that the ones that didn’t, didn’t kill you.

Whatever it is that you have done, or will do, anything that you are proud of should go into your “Box of Awesomeness”. We all deserve to really celebrate our achievements, big or small, and not pass them by in a fit of well-mannered self-deprecation.

I recommend you make yourself a “Box of Awesomeness” (or a bag, or a drawer, or a hollowed-out book) and take a moment now and then to remind yourself of how cool you can be.

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Erich Sachs will graduate from the Bainbridge Graduate Institute in June 2012 with an MBA in Sustainable Business. He currently works for Pierce County Parks and Recreation, where he incorporates his sustainable business education. This article was adapted from Erich’s blog, The Dream of the Week.

At the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, we focus on self-development in nearly every class. Each student aims toward a deeper level of individual awareness and authenticity. We combine the direct correlation between leadership, innovation and performance with knowing who we are, what we believe in and what we value. Whitney was sharing this message with the world over 20 years ago, “Learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all.”

Graduation is approaching for my fellow cohorts, and I can already imagine a post-MBA world filled with a busy career, family, achievements and possibly some failures. Cohorts will need to navigate business cycles, employee relations and new markets…all of which are critical to creating companies that create economic and social impact. Yet, within our daily lives it is so important to take a moment everyday to be aware of our values and right livelihood to avoid being distracted from the very reason we started our journeys at BGI–to change business for good. The resiliency to remain committed to a lifetime of living out triple bottom line values starts with self-awareness.

Thanks for all the memories, Whitney, and for sharing the profound message that loving ourselves is the first step in being the change we want to see. Your message is needed now more than ever in our challenged world, and I hope you find some comfort in knowing not all was in vain. May you rest in peace.

Jen Martinez will graduate from the Bainbridge Graduate Institute in 2012 with an MBA in Sustainable Business with a Concentration in the Outdoors Industry. She is changing business for good as the Strategic Initiatives Manager, Economic Development at Bexar County in San Antonio Texas. You can follow Jen on Twitter at @jen_martinez.

You can find the rest of the report on the Hartman Group’s website.

Consider the community: Last week, students and staff hosted a social gathering at BGI’s Seattle site. It attracted a capacity crowd of 90; participants were able to learn, network and socialize with students, alumni, faculty, neighbors, newcomers and the curious.

Consider the program: BGI is exploring the concept of expanding our educational offerings to include not only an MBA, but also our new certificates deep into “verticals”. This would explore a new program focused on the creativity of the inventor as well as the entrepreneur. BGI would offer courses, workshops and seminars on an a la carte basis – and we will always invite the community in to explore.

Consider the place: We’ve discovered our vision, but we share it with so many others. We’re a member of a larger neighborhood including start-ups, young firms and investors who also intend to change business for good. A group of investors is currently exploring making this “neighborhood” happen, which could include tenants like us, Social Venture Partners, Hub Seattle…just to name a few. Imagine the energy, the idea flow—and the incredible networking we currently feel at BGI’s Hybrid Intensives at IslandWood—expanded to a neighborhood in Seattle on a daily basis. Our impact and influence would grow.

Keep an eye out for more information, invitations to events and a general dialog about these opportunities and other exciting possibilities happening within BGI’s Metro Seattle program. We hope you’ll get involved.

Regards,

John Gardner
Dean of Academic Affairs

That’s why it’s so exciting to see companies like Microsoft, Starbucks, Google, and Nike throwing their support behind legislation in Washington State to legalize same-sex partnerships as equal with heterosexual partnerships. Every business understands that people (employees, customers, and clients) are the most important tool for success. Companies like Microsoft and Google—that is, companies trying to revolutionize the way we do business all together—recognize that they must do everything possible to take care of the stakeholders that help their business succeed.

And while most businesses still have a ton of work ahead of them to succeed on the environmental side of sustainable business, this advancement of marriage equality is an absolute step in the right direction for the social component of responsible business.

Congratulations to the companies allied with the gay community to realize the value of marriage equality. You’re one step closer to truly sustainable business.

Gerod Rody is an alumnus of the Bainbridge Graduate Institute’s Sustainable MBA, and he is currently the Marketing Project Manager for BGI. He is also co-founder and board president of OUT for Sustainability, a non-profit organization that engages and mobilizes the LGBTQ community to advance social and environmental sustainability.

“Sustainability” was a fuzzy concept for me when my nephew came to visit me in Portland in the fall of 2010. Ben follows energy companies for Thomson Reuters – fossil fuels and alternative energy. He is personally interested in wind and spends vacation time visiting wind farms in Texas and the southwest. Ben and I talked about his concerns for the environment, something I had not considered important.

After his visit, I saw environmental problems everywhere I looked, even in Portland, Oregon. I was also recovering emotionally from the 2008 financial meltdown. I am an accountant and I saw so clearly what caused the problems. I felt irrational responsibility for the debacle and fell the need to do something. A friend mentioned BGI and I explored the web site. I visited one of the “Sustainable Saturday” events to find out more.

BGI was so interesting – an independent business school, not aligned with a “prestigious university”, monthly intensives at a nature preserve, the rest of the time online, no tenured faculty and no bricks and mortar. I was intrigued with the BGI business model. The current model for higher education is not sustainable, and I am amazed that academia has chosen to ignore the problem.

BGI is breaking new ground not just in the new curriculum, but also in the method of teaching. Positive feedback creates respect and joy in learning. The new curriculum makes so much sense, particularly in a systems thinking world where everything is connected.

One of my mental models is that learning has to be hard. So many things that we did were playful and fun – certainly not hard – and I learned so much. And I learned emotionally, not just intellectually. Intellectual learning can only analyze problems; emotional learning can change the world.

Diane Freaney is a Sustainable MBA candidate at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute. This post was adapted from her original post on her personal blog. You can also follow Diane on Twitter at @Dfreaney.

BRAC Community Meeting, Bangladesh. Creative Commons 2.0: Mark Knobil, 2/11/05.

As Martin Luther King Jr day 2012 comes to a close, I’m reminded to think of this “holiday” as a day on, not a day off. Dr. King’s message to all of us resonates in how we come together over community issues and recognize our part. Inequality is toxic; the more we act to keep differences divided, the further we remove ourselves from the possibilities of true growth. One student in my MBA program said this past weekend that America is not a melting pot. Rather, it is a salad of rich colors and textures. We all belong in this salad of diversity, and we all have a role to play.

Community activism spokesperson, Paul Rogat Loeb writes in Soul of a Citizen about Rosa Parks’ story:

Parks’s story also reminds us that as we do tackle common problems, we can discover and develop strengths and passions we never knew we had.  We can begin to reconnect with our fellow human beings, with our wisest and most humane instincts, and with the core of who we are, which we call our soul. – p. 3

How true. To push away diversity is to eliminate the soul of a community. In my travels, the tightest and strongest communities, the ones with a palpable heartbeat, are the ones that recognize life as a messy business. To be alive is to be filled with wonder at the awesome spectrum of fellow citizens we see everyday.

To serve others as a citizen is to have a soul.

To serve only one’s own interests is to discard the web of life and to be dreamless.

I have a dream that everyone digs deep to find their inner citizen who serves, and by serving, everyone plays their part in the resurrection of a community’s soul.

Happy MLK day, with much love and peace.

Michael Greenberg is an affordable housing developer and technical assistance provider and will graduate in 2012 with an MBA in Sustainable Business from the Bainbridge Graduate Institute. This article was originally posted on his blog at http://cultivatingbridges.wordpress.com/.