As I walk thru the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, where we live in DC, I cannot help but notice the virtually every business in our neighborhood is sporting signs that endorse a candidate for office. That is their right. It is also in their interest, as they no doubt want to encourage votes for the candidate whom they feel is most in touch with their neighborhood, or who has ideas that they believe would champion their cause, protect their interests or help their business to thrive.

This is the American way.

In turn, candidates seek them out, and provide detailed plans touting their vision to nurture the climate for businesses to grow because they want to be viewed as pro-business, or supportive of the community…and what better way is there to cement that image than to have the visible support of the local grocer, or restaurateur or dry cleaner. It sends a message—I see you, I understand your issues, and I want to be the Mayor, City Council Member, Congressional Representative, or Governor, etc to represent your interests.

This is the American way.

And so once again, during one of the most politically decisive election cycle of the decade, this time honored tableau is being played out across America, in just about every community….except “ours”.

Nonprofits “can’t” hang signs in our windows or speak about one candidates superior vision or even talk to our volunteers about which candidate would better address the issues we care about….because we aren’t allowed to be partisan.

Why?

Well, in theory, because don’t pay federal income taxes (because we don’t make profit—we reinvest over and over in our community) or property taxes (although businesses are routinely given–or they demand–tax abatement’s as incentives to expand or relocate).

But make no mistake—we do pay taxes; payroll taxes (probably one of the biggest sources of local revenue) and, of course, sales taxes.

So…..you have to ask yourself, at what point should nonprofits stand up and petition for equal access and fully participation in the democratic process?

Will it be after fees or property taxes are imposed?

Will it be after short-sighted budget cuts strip organizations of their ability to keep communities socially viable and economically competitive?  

Will it be after demagogues like Rush Limbaugh or point-seeking politicians trade on scurrilous antidotes about our collective work or the causes or constituents we serve to amp up voter anger and roll back social reforms?

Make no mistake, colleagues….these are serious times, and our continued silence in the face of significant economic challenges sets the stage for a long, l-o-n-g walk in the wilderness.

And given the grwoing lines at the local food banks, I suspect that the trail of crumbs we might leave behind us would be long since eaten by the time we woke up and tried to make our way back home.

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That’s why I was honored to be asked to kick-off a TED talk event at UVM, held in an ornate building adjacent to Morrill Hall.

Normally, TED talks last between 10-15 minutes. Mine clocked in at 3:40…and if I maybe so bold, I think it’s an ass-kicker of an idea. What do you think?

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Of course, like most of you, I leaned most of what I know about Durham from the Kevin Costner movie, Bull Durham—a point that I’m sure drives the locals mad (second only to getting second billing to Raleigh). Anyway…I went down there to speak at the annual training of student leaders from Nourish International, an amazing student driven hunger program (currently on 21 campuses), that is expanding nationwide at an exciting pace. While I was in the hood, I stopped by to hang with my old chum and former Mt Pleasant next door neighbor Chris Gergen.

Chris is leading Bull City Forward which is one of the country’s front-of-the-pack, red HOT efforts to drive local economies into the black by using the power of social enterprise. Chris has been a leading voice on this concept for a decade, but he found in his new hometown of Durham an entire community that was, front to back, up for getting down. The Mayor, the Chamber, the City Manager, Duke University…man, they are all on board, and you can feel the electricity in the air as you walk the streets of the city and marvel at its amazing transformation. They are nurturing and empowering an entire new breed of businesses down there and, most important, asking students of the universities that are clustered around the city to STAY, and be part of this amazing future.

Here’s a too short video clip, filmed by my new friend (and Bull City Badass), Liz Linzer, right outside of the TROSA Frame Shop, and down the street from the Scrap Exchange,  two of…oh, I’d sayyy, about 4,000,000 diverse, dynamic and double-barreled businesses that are part of what is making Durham a city of the future.

Bull City Forward is about to release their three-year strategic plan. If I was the Mayor or the Board of Trade Chair of ANY city in America that was itching to figure out what comes next (and avoid the trap of trying to build a mall or attract a factory)—I’d call my travel agent right now and say, “Durham, Please…STAT”.

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But one of the things I dig the most is the amazing Intervale Center, right in the center of town. Bold, Smart, Growing, Green and Loved by all, the Intervale is a take your breath away example of a communities vision come true. Led by Glenn McRae and a solid gold staff, they are always up for getting down. Check it OUT.

Post Script–While in Burlington, I did a presentation with Michael Shuman, the Co-Founder of Balle, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies. He is an amazing thinker, and the work they are doing to help communites and  elected officials GET the power of local business is right in sync with the goals of the V3 Campaign—help/elect people who are not burdened by the false, boring divide between .com and .org. The future is coming, and it lies in the middle.

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The first video is on the theory of change.

And another on the very concept of Social Enterprise.

And the final is about the V3 Campaign.

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I started out on this adventure a few days back, with a hop across the border to Toronto, a town I last visited (thanks to my sweet Momma) back in 78, when there was a first-time-in-long-time exhibit of Van Gogh’s works, which was making only one North American stop–up there.

Given my adoration for all things Vincent, my mom’s generosity and the fact that Keith Richards had also just been busted there (where he gave his infamous quote “I don’t have a drug problem, I have a police problem”) I figured that fate was calling, so I ventured out on one of those formative, first time on your own, trips that you remember all your life.

Anyway…this time up, I was being hosted by friends from MaRS, a marvelous collaborative effort that is really one of the most innovative and purposeful collections of social enterprise leaders, researchers, lawyers and do-ers north of Tierra Del Fuego, period.

I was there to speak about nonprofit unity, which (like here) is equally illusive up there. But, like us, they have a major national election coming up in 2012, so, like here, there is NO TIME like the present to begin to work, build and partner. It was a great crowd, and we really hit it off (I owe Beth Kanter props for tenderizing them, as only she can, with her keynote the day before).

Here’s a great blog post  from Super Joe that speaks to our dialogue (and a suprise drive-by by Warren B) as well as a video of my presentation (if you can spare 45 minutes or so).

Afterwards, the fine team at MaRS and I talked tactics and prizes—they have their eyes on a juicy one—a Social Bond like they are exploring in the UK, which would provide a “dividend” for people savvy enough to spot programs like, if I may be so bold, DCCK, which can show verifiable, cash money, return on investment.

The key, of course, if electing people (don’t forget, they have a Minister of the Third Sector in the UK, and ALL major parties openly vie for the votes of nonprofit employees with detailed plans for partnership) who understand the potential and work to bust through the dumbo .com/.org divide.

OK…so now I’m in Texas, at the invitation of my great colleagues at TANO, the Texas Association of Nonprofit Organizations, as well as the San Antonio Foundation, for a talk about similar opportunities for nonprofits in the Lone Star State, where they will be electing a Governor in a few months.

But, as soon as I landed, I took up an offer I received a few weeks back, when I was here to speak at the 25th anniversary celebration of Communities in Schools, to visit Haven for Hope, which, like MaRS is an truly triumphant collaboration between direct service homeless providers that have come together to try something truly unique—leaving their past, individual efforts behind to partner in a new, central location where they are working hard, everyday, to achieve better, consistent, measurable outcomes.

They’ve got in all, Man…..dig THIS.

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I serve on the board or advisory board for a bunch of great organizations (including Charity Navigator, The Alliance for Effective Social Investing, The Philanthropic Collaborative and Great Nonprofits) which have convened some of the best minds in the biz to see if we can use our collective brain power to help free the sector’s finances (and future) from the grip of what we ALL agree is the intellectual tar of “low administrative overhead”.

To that great goal, we have devoted numerous meetings to discussions revolving around which metrics can or should be measured, in what order, and most importantly, to what ends.

Naturally, this led us to genuflect to the need for outside evaluation—to the proxy of an unbiased third-party that would “certify” that groups actually do what they say they do.

I dig this direction, as this would help donors see that sometimes, things that look good, sound good and feel good can actually be astoundingly lame (For example: serving LOTS of meals sounds good, but it really isn’t, unless the meals being served are healthy. One clogs the arteries, the other frees the mind…ya dig?)

Which got me thinking….

Back in the day, when I was running nightclubs, there were really only a handful of “great” restaurants in America, and they were all French, period. Now, just about EVERY city in America boasts a bevy of great dining establishments. How did that happen?

I’ll tell you. Restaurant critics (often women writers who, in the 1960’s and 70’s, were relegated to the “women’s page” of the local paper) began to explore a new way of reviewing restaurants. This generation of writers began with a simple concept—diners had rights—and they crafted a whole new set of metrics that used “diner’s dollars” as the sharp point of their critical pens. They championed a new generation of American chefs by telling an escalating number of diners that they did not have to take what was served and like it—they could send it back. They could demand better. And demand they did. Soon, restaurant managers were training staff to be more accommodating and to talk to customers about the ingredients of the food. Open kitchens began to appear. Soon chefs began to come out of the kitchen to greet increasingly sophisticated diners and sit with them to talk about food theory, locally sourced products, green practices and giving back to community. And now, with the advent of the internet, comes technology that allows ANY customer to review a restaurant. And, it is because of that customer driven system that just about EVERY community in America now boasts numerous great restaurants that continue to push the boundries.

So rather than set out on a course that would have us hire expensive experts to verify what we do at DCCK….we did what we always do—look right in front of us—and we found close to 14,000 potential evaluators waiting on deck: the men and women, students and families who volunteer with us every year.

Frankly, if DCCK volunteers, and America’s 60 million volunteers start asking…no, demanding that they be told, in detail, what they did and why its important to the community–what the investment of their time helped grow–THAT will drive innovation a whole lot faster than another “Y x Z x % of Pi = Good” formula.

So, as of tomorrow, the Volunteer Bill of Rights will be posted throughout ALL DCCK business locations (including the 26 amazing Campus Kitchens).  It gets right to the point—ALL volunteers have the right to:

• Work in a safe environment.
• Be treated with respect by all staff members.
• Be engaged in meaningful work and be actively included regardless of any physical limitations.
• Be told what impact your work made in the community.
• Ask any staff member questions about our work.
• Provide feedback about your experience.
• Receive a copy of our financial information or annual report upon request.

Some of these rights are, of course, pretty obvious….but by publicly committing to these standards, we hope that volunteers will see this list and will feel comfortable talking to ANY member of our team–that they will dig deep into our financial reports and they will ask us hard questions and push harder still for details, which we are, to a team member, double down ready to provide.

All of these rights are important….but the most purposeful of these is the one right in the middle—the right to “be told what impact your work made in the community”. THAT’S the kicker. We want, and think it’s critical, that every nonprofit in America be prepared to answer that question, in detail. No more fuzzy, feel good platitudes.  No more bromides, brothers and sisters—it’s about facts and figures. Verifiable, Hard Core, Detailed Deeds.

Look, like a whole bunch of you, we are really excited by how much we pack into our 24-7-365 programs, and we WANT volunteers to ask LOTS of questions. To that end, we were thrilled to be a lead partner with our colleague and friend, Perla Ni at Great Nonprofits when they recently launched their new volunteer review project, which empowers volunteers to rate their experiences at programs like DCCK. She and her partners at Guidestar are way out front on this and they deserve big props.

But, this isn’t a time for talk, or theory or more meeting….this is a time for movement. The wheat is being seperated from the chaffe, baby….and the winds are blowing harder and harder everyday.

So see the future. Be part of making something bigger happen. We are an open source organization, so feel free to use this Bill of Rights in your shop.  Add more rights if you see fit. If they rock, let us know so we can adapt our version. Call if you want and we’ll talk about how we trained our staff to translate talking to volunteers about these rights into opportunities to elevate the idea of what we are doing, together, so that folks can’t wait to come back—with friends, time and wallets in tow. 

This isn’t  about bucks…it’s about change….but we’re bucking the system to get us there.

Rights ON.

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I was just in Denver, where I was honored to be able to speak to the members of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network who had gathered in the Mile High City to talk taking it up a notch. 

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“A fast is first and foremost personal. It is a fast for the purification of my own body, mind, and soul. The fast is also a heartfelt prayer for purification and strengthening for all those who work beside me in the farm worker movement. The fast is also an act of penance for those in positions of moral authority and for all men and women activists who know what is right and just, who know that they could and should do more.”

Today is Cesar Chavez’s birthday. I’ve written and spoken of him many, many times over the last three years, as I see him, along with King and Gandhi, as one of the great liberators of the last century. When I say “great liberator”, I don’t mean it in the traditional, almost romantic way we view liberators. Too often we want to see them as lofty saints, versus clever tacticians, which I believe limits their legacy. I’m not interested in holding somebody up as somehow different or above it all. Chavez was a simple man, plain and simple, who stood up, used his head and worked hard-everyday-to fight for a better world. Nor do I use the term because he fought for the rights of migrant farmers (and won), or because he organized and built the United Farm Workers, or because he fasted numerous times to draw attention to the quest. No, I use it because he recognized, like King and Gandhi, that the liberation of the oppressed was linked with the liberation of the oppressor. He knew that both sides were afflicted, and each needed to be healed if true justice was ever to be achieved. In short—he sought to liberate all. Each of these leaders used “non-violent resistance” to challenge authority and build momentum behind their goals. But their goal was never to simply organize those at the bottom, but to challenge—intellectually and spiritually—the members of the larger society who often were unaware of their role in the system that kept farm workers poorly paid, uneducated and living in squalid conditions.

If I may….the fight so many of us wage should not be about organizing the poor, but helping the vast majority of Americana’s overcome the understandable fear they have of thinking about why there ARE poor. The average American is a just, caring, generous person who truly wants to see a world that is color blind, even and fair. BUT they are afraid of the hard work and, frankly, sacrifices they will have to be part of if we are to get there. Simply put…it’s easier to think that if you are poor, left out or uneducated—it’s because you are lazy, dumb or unwilling to work. That’s what King, Gandhi and Chavez understood….and they sought to find imaginative and evocative ways to guide folks into this larger conversation. THAT’S why they were liberators…because they disguised the liberation of one group as a way to engage the larger community in a dialogue that would liberate everyone.

In Cesar’s case, he used the Grape Boycott. In 1966, he launched “La Causa” a multi-year campaign, to highlight the plight of farm workers. By 1969, led in large part by students, millions had boycotted grapes at home and at school to show their solidarity with underpaid and undervalued farm workers. Finally, on July 29, 1970…the first union contracts were signed. Not only had he helped organize and unite farm workers, but he engaged the larger citizenry in the discussion and got them to see that they had a role to play.

Let me cut to the chase….and make two big points.

1. When we romanticize leaders like Chavez, or see them as merely fighters for the rights of the poor, we limit their real agenda—which was to uplift the entire population and initiate a broader dialogue. Issues like exclusion, poverty, hunger and the like will not go away unless we talk about them and reason together to find a way out—together. It will not be easy, as fear makes most resistant to the dialogue. We must meet people where they are and guide them to the table.
2. Cesar Chavez got this country to the table using grapes. Do not loose site of that. Gandhi used salt. Dr. King used the dimes it took to ride the buses of Montgomery. Liberators don’t brandish weapons, nor do they descend from on high—the great ones use simple ideas in profound ways to bring people together…..and they never give up.

Neither should we.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Chavez.

(This blog post was origionally posted on this day in 2006. I post it ever year on the day we honor the memory and work of Cesar Chavez)

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When I was a kid, running nightclubs in DC, I was intrigued by Herbert Haft, who was this Poppa Smurf looking business leader in town (he had a magnificent white pompadour). Pre-Peoples Drug Store days, this dude had cornered the regional drug store market (he owned Dart Drugs), with a business mantra that revealed his strategy. “When I open a store, I want it to be at the corner of Main and Main” he said…indicating his belief that location was the key to success.

Now many young leaders look around and think to themselves…if I want to make an impact, then I need to work at the big city nonprofit…a famous one…a rich one. That’s understandable. As a culture, we equate big with good–famous with success–rich with power and influence.

But…I ask you to consider lessons from two of our country’s most respected black figures.

The first is George Washington Carver.

In 1938, one of the most impressive and unexpected things happened. One of the richest and most powerful white men in America, Henry Ford, took what had to have been numerous train and automobile rides to get to Tuskegee Alabama, the home of Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute, to offer a job to a black man–Professor Carver.

I don’t know how many of you have had the pleasure of visiting this historic college, but trust me….it’s country. You KNOW you’re going there, because it’s still way, way out there.

So imagine that….Henry Ford, a man who routinely had people of power come to him, traveled allllll that way, to offer Professor Carver a FAT salary, a new lab, a house and unlimited resources to conduct experiments on their shared passion for bio-fuel and renewable energy.

Carver thought about it…and demurred.

Let that sink in. Professor Carver was offered things far beyond what just about any black man in America could have dreamed of…the least of which was personal and professional respect….and he stayed put and continued to explore the world from a small, underfunded college in rural Alabama…where, I might remind you, men were called “boy”, where they could not vote, and where they were routinely lynched.

Simply put…he stayed because he believed in Tuskegee, and was willing to forgo the amazing opportunities that Ford was offering in favor of loyalty to his community and his unwavering faith that good ideas would rise, no matter the point of origin. He was right.

The second lesson comes from one of my personal favorite Americans–Harriet Tubman–and it’s just a fascinating tid-bit about her that I found out about a few years back, which continues to amaze me.

As you know, Harriet escaped slavery in Maryland as a young woman and found her way north. In NY, she lived in close proximity to some of the leading suffrage/abolitionist speakers of the day. John Brown, Frederick Douglas, Susan B Anthony and Sojourner Truth routinely electrified crowds with speeches that spoke to the inherent evil of subjugation and slavery.

Still…as powerful as their words were, somebody had to take action. Harriet was that person. She ventured 19 times into the deep south, rescuing hundreds and leading them on the treacherous trail known as the Underground Railroad

(Side bar—I love that the secret password of the UR was “ a friend with friends”)

But you know what…Harriet Tubman was less than 5 ft tall and didn’t even crack 100 pounds.

Do you KNOW how small that is. That’s like your 11 year old sister. Seriously…at the next family reunion, ask around to find somebody with those dimensions, and then MARVEL at how tiny she was. Her gun probably weighed half as much as she did.

In short—her bravery wasn’t about size and her power wasn’t derived from stamina. It was driven by spirit.

SO…young leaders. It ain’t about size. It ain’t about location. It’s about you. It’s about the power of your ideas. It’s about sticking with it, and carving out a name for yourself through the work you do. Don’t be tempted by the old metrics of power and influence. Make your own…and own your life.

Rock on.

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