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What space should Public Broadcasting occupy in the community?
Guest Blogger, Brenda Barnes, President, KUSC, Los Angeles, CA
There are foundational documents which include statements of aspiration for public broadcasting (the first Carnegie Commission report for example) that are still relevant today, but which we do not yet meet because the initial aspirations were so high. The large, decentralized network of radio and television stations we have created is much better positioned now than in the 1960s to meet the aspirations of our founding mothers and fathers. Therefore, I think we need to review those aspirations and evaluate our own communities and stations and determine how best to chart a course for the present and future. We also need to be mindful that part of our agenda is local and distinct and part is common and national. We will work most efficiently and effectively if we know the difference between the local and the universal parts of the agenda and operate accordingly.
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Guest Blogger, Florence Rodgers, General Manager, KNPR Las Vegas
Public broadcasters are licensed to operate a national asset, the public airwaves, protected from commercial pressures. This gives us a particular obligation to serve the communities to which we are licensed. Faced with a proliferation of media choices the role of providing "alternative" or "not commercially viable" media content is diminished. The role that emerges is one that commercial broadcasters will not or cannot meet: that of reflecting the identity and issues of concern to the communities they serve.
The one renewable resource we have generated (particularly in the last two decades) is trust. We are the curators of: thoughtful news and discussion, fine arts programming and resources for children and for print-impaired with our radio reading sub channel services.
The trust our audience has in our organizations and our content provides us with an opportunity to orient ourselves more centrally in the role of community builder.
We can provide air-time and online resources to create content that reflects our community and its challenges. We can provide broadcast resources to others to raise awareness for the work they do in the community. We can partner with other organizations in awareness campaigns, host online discussions and resources and use the power of our broadcast signals to drive interested citizens to the web for interaction with each other. We can bring to the table our network of news resources, our listeners, donors and governing boards to convene and connect people together in the work of community building.
Public Broadcasting is uniquely placed for this role since we are trusted and we have a means to disseminate information. We have a culture of collaboration through our associations with educational licensees, volunteer activities and the model of listeners who voluntarily financially contribute to the success of the organizations.
In return for this trust we need to be transparent in our operations at every level. Be beyond reproach in our actions and expect the same from those with whom we partner.
This opportunity has the potential to successfully position public broadcasting in a new media environment. It also has the potential to positively impact the health of communities. The combination of our network collaborations in providing a independent news service and cultural expressions AND a role as community convener may prove to be the most accurate expression of the intent of public broadcasting in its history.
Let us begin!!!
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Guest Blogger, Elizabeth Ottinger, Vermont Public Television
Public broadcasting is in a unique position to strengthen communities by virtue of the fact that it is an already established and trusted and source of information. With trust already under the belt, I believe the space public broadcasting should occupy in communities is that of a convener. Already known as and relied upon for a balanced and full story, public broadcasting has the reputation and ability to bring communities and community members together to create positive change/impact.
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The spreading of Wall-Mart
In many communities a heated debate rages about whether to welcome a new Wal-Mart to town. But there’s another Wall-Mart we should be debating. It’s the marketing of Walls to keep people different from ourselves out. These Walls can be seen from Israel to the US-Mexican border to your nearest gated community to now Iraq. What is it about Walls? People have used them throughout history to keep others out. They can make us feel safe; they can even produce safety. Look at Israel’s Wall in the West Bank. Suicide bombings and other forms of attacks are reportedly way down since its construction. Just this morning I heard on National Public Radio that American soldiers have started building a Wall late at night in a besieged Sunni neighborhood. The Prime Minister of Iraq now says he wants the Americans to stop. According to NPR, people in the neighborhood don’t want to be “caged in.” During a recent speech a gentleman asked me whether the physical development of US communities is undermining our sense of connection to one another and to public life. It’s a question I hear more frequently nowadays. The answer: a lot. Many new US communities are now gated, and some older neighborhoods have retrofitted themselves with gates, Jersey barriers, and Walls. I must tell you that when I thought about writing this piece, I felt a tinge of built-in ambivalence about Walls myself. (Even though people tell me that effective bloggers should always take strong and clear positions.) It’s not hard to understand why some people may be so fearful that they see no alternative but to build a Wall. Indeed, a wall may be a short-term response to acute or festering problems that have no apparent remedy. But my concern is that we see the Wall as the remedy. I can think of no society in which a Wall brought about peace and stability – whether here or abroad. It denies people their most basic aspirations to be a part of something larger than themselves and their close-knit circles. It allows us to put our hands over our ears, to shut our eyes, to close off our hearts to others. It is a form of escapism that only comes back to bite us. Now, I do not intend to sound utopian here; I am no utopian. I believe we must be practical and pragmatic in these matters; I also believe that our pragmatism must be informed by a deep sense of ideals – that we have faith in ourselves that we can do better. This means being clear that it is much easier to build Walls than to tear them down. It means that we must not reach for “Walls” as a way to sidestep alternative solutions or to face up to our own missteps. Our efforts should be in trying to scale the Walls that others have built, not to build new Walls. Building a Wall gives rise to the stench of defeat. The Wall itself is the very symbol of defeat. It signals to everyone in concrete terms that we cannot find a way forward. It suggests that some lives are more valuable than others. It turns the people we are seeking to keep out into “the other,” a pawn, an objectified opponent. Maybe there are short-term reasons to build a protective wall. But the spreading of Walls should tell us something about our own society and where we find ourselves. The building of Walls should make us stop to consider what we are doing and whether our current approaches are working – whether they are pragmatically effective and true to our ideals. Is our plan to build Walls whenever we cannot solve a problem? -
Thoughts on Our Way Back - Dateline Youngstown
Last week I saw the face of America’s future, and it was a good one. Most of us know Youngstown, Ohio, for everything it has lost over the years; now, we can take a cue from something it has gained. Get to know the new mayor, Jay Williams.
In 1999, my colleagues and I wrote a report with the support of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation about Youngstown, entitled Waiting for the Future. Back then Youngstown was a community stuck in place, mired by parochialism and mistrust. One man there told me, “I don’t see much hope here.” Others said they were waiting for a knight in shining armor to ride into town and save them. Not exactly a recipe for progress.
Today, much work remains to be done. Just drive around town – as I did with my host Margaret Murphy, the courageous executive director of Wick Neighbors, Inc, a community development corporation – and you’ll still see a town in trouble.
When I recently returned to speak in Youngstown to give an update on the community’s progress, over 300 people turned out. The progress people have made there is a story of perseverance winning out over despair. There are lots of signs of progress, impressive signs. I look forward to telling you more about Youngstown’s promising journey in the future.
But, for now, allow me simply to extol the good news story of Jay Williams. Last November, the people of Youngstown, in yet another sign of grabbing hold of their own future, turned from establishment party politicians to elect Williams. Merely turning away from the power-holders would have been something to note. But, the people did something more than that: they elected a young man (Williams is his early thirties), the first ever African-American mayor in Youngstown, and the first independent in 80 years.
What other city in America can boast as much?
To hear Williams speak is to hear someone seamlessly combine inspiration and policy moxie. He belongs to a cadre of young African-American leaders – including Barak Obama, the U.S. senator from Illinois, and Cory Booker, the odds-on favorite to be the next mayor of Newark. But he is even more than that; he is a new breed of elected official in America who is putting politics as usual aside and offering authentic hope.
People in Youngstown – old and young, white and black, old-timer and new comer – described Williams to me as honest and hardworking. He is someone, they say, who exhibits a depth of sincerity. He is a roll-up-the-sleeves kind of guy. And he is someone who speaks from the heart and leaves the doublespeak behind.
In the local Business-Journal he was quoted as saying, “I never want to overpromise. I would rather underpromise and overdeliver.” The article went on to quote Williams as saying, “we must be realistic” about the pace and scope of what can be accomplished.
There is so much wrong in politics and public life today, and the people of Youngstown are as quick to point that out to me as folks in any town. But they were also quick to highlight Jay Williams. And yet, he’s not the knight in shining armor that people told me they were waiting for in 1999. He sees his own role as one of many leaders – indeed, as one of many people – who will steer Youngstown into its future.
I have said here many times that I believe each of us must stand by leaders who exhibit authentic hope in what they say and do. They need our support. I’m glad to support Jay Williams. -
Thoughts on Our Way Back – Dateline Atlanta
Earlier this week I had the good fortune of meeting an angel. Her name no less was Katrina. She brought a message about the poverty in our midst.
Katrina – or Miss Trina as local folks like to call her – is a slim African American woman who works in the tucked away, poverty-ridden Atlanta neighborhood of Pittsburgh. She makes her home just one neighborhood over.
After my talk on Tuesday night, Katrina showed me and two of my colleagues around Pittsburgh. As you travel the streets you see abandoned homes are everywhere. Trash and wrecked cars dot the landscape. Street corners are filled with young men with no place to go. Amid this despair, there are signs of rebuilding. In fact, as we drove around and talked, Katrina’s voice grew with anticipation as she led us, ultimately, to a house on a dark corner. It was the house that she had built, as a single mother, with her own sweat equity.
She told us that when she lived in the house she couldn’t sleep most nights due to the noise generated by two crack houses on either side. She would sit on her front porch in her rocking chair, keeping watch and calling the cops whenever things got out of hand.
She and her husband eventually moved their two boys – now 16 and 9 – out of the neighborhood to what she called a “middle class area,” only to move back in recent times. “Why?” I wondered aloud, “What about her boys?” She turned to me, and, in a quiet but firm way, said that she wanted to make a difference. Indeed, she had found that in her new middle class neighborhood she couldn’t sleep either. She didn’t have a crack house next door, but she couldn’t live with herself knowing that she was only taking care of our own kids and leaving so many others behind.
And yet, after she returned to the neighborhood, her car was stolen from right in front of her home. The people who stole the car that night had paid neighbors out on the street the princely sum of $10 each to look the other way. Katrina told me that some people are just mixed up (and wrong) and that she and her husband are committed to staying put.
Katrina started a new job this week, extending her now 5-year career with the Salvation Army, and will lead the effort to build a new community center in the neighborhood. She once taught in Atlanta’s inner city schools before starting her work with the Army. Only after much conversation did we ever learn that she had once been named Fulton County Teacher of the Year.
As we wound our way through Pittsburgh and its adjacent neighborhoods, we came out onto a larger boulevard – only to look up and find the beautiful and imposing Turner Field, home of the Atlanta Braves baseball team. I had only seen the stadium on TV or from its other side when I drove from the Atlanta airport to downtown. Honestly, I never knew there was a neighborhood behind the stadium.
But now the beautiful stadium, built of deep red bricks, bright signs, and clean lines hovered over us. The new bridge that leads from the other side of town to the stadium had fancy street lights and huge Olympic Circles, commemorating the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, stretching across its lanes.
You must imagine this scene – and its jolting effect. Miss Trina had just showed me her small, one story home that she had built with her own hands; we saw the porch where she kept watch at night -- the view of that small home was clear in my mind as I gazed upon the stadium’s imposing grandness. Emerging from the neighborhood with so few street lights was this glistening bridge that extended only so far as the front gates of the stadium – and no farther. The neighborhood was lost in the darkness.
Sitting in the front seat of Katrina’s car, these questions came over me:- How is it that a single mother can find
the wisdom and wherewithal to build her own
home, and yet a bridge is built that stops at
the door of a new stadium and fails to reach
into her community and connect one world with
the other?
- How is it that I saw both President Bush
and Senator Kerry – the election warriors of
2004 – speak on television this week, after I
met Katrina, and both seemed to be speaking a
language that bore little if any relevance to
Katrina’s world?
- How is it that within our society – in
political and civic debates, on television, and
in our communities – so many of us seem to
believe that people who live in the Atlanta
neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and in other areas
rocked by poverty, hold fundamentally different
hopes and aspirations and concerns from other
Americans for themselves, their children, and
their community?
- How is it that after Hurricane Katrina we entertained a debate on poverty in our country, only to revert to politics as usual? What happened to that needed debate?
What’s also important to know is that we cannot tackle poverty simply through our periodic charitable acts of compassion and generosity. Such charity is necessary and inspiring; but when you visit places like Pittsburgh you know deep in your heart that it is not sufficient. What we need is not simply charity but change: in our schools, in our neighborhoods, in our acts of prejudice, and in our community development programs. It must come as well – as Katrina would tell you and as she repeatedly told me – through people assuming personal responsibility.
There is no easy fix to poverty. Keeping a struggling neighborhood hidden behind a glistening new stadium is no answer either. We must find ways to see and feel and hear that which so often remains hidden from us in our daily lives.
There will be little progress if the bridge does not extend to all our people. - How is it that a single mother can find
the wisdom and wherewithal to build her own
home, and yet a bridge is built that stops at
the door of a new stadium and fails to reach
into her community and connect one world with
the other?
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Thoughts on Our Way Back – Dateline Newark
Yesterday, the headline of USA Today’s top story read, “Katrina inspires record charity.” That’s great – but as I sit in Newark, NJ, I know it’s not enough. We are a society that is awfully good at charity, but not nearly good enough at change.
I have long believed that Americans are a generous and compassionate lot. Our response to 9/11 was heart-warming. Now, after the Asian Tsunami and then Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, as well as other tragedies, we have demonstrated that we will step forward and provide relief to people in acute need.
Indeed, Americans are apt to respond when they see a concrete problem, when there is something they can do, and when they believe the problem is relevant to their lives.
But I have a concern – a burning one. Just last night I did an event here in Newark, and just last week I was in the Twin Cities. No matter where I go, I hear people lament that we cannot generate meaningful change in our communities.
Too many substandard public schools still fail our children; too many people remain in poverty; too many communities are unable to figure out how to mange their burgeoning growth. New Orleans is fast becoming the symbol of our inability to come together and address our common concerns. We can do better – in the Gulf Coast and throughout the nation.
But to do better will require that we not confuse charity with change. Again, charity is both necessary and good. But we must see that in order to generate change we need to build the capacity of our communities to bring people together, focus on strategic levers for change, and marshal our collective will and resources. And we must be able to do this work over time, not just episodically.
You see, too often charity asks us simply to write to check or to enter the public square for just a moment in time. Change requires that we bring our full selves to the public square and that we give the challenge at hand our full attention; that we stay committed even as the work becomes difficult; that we work together. Even if we are not on the front line of change, we must be willing to face the challenges at hand, to support those who are at work, and to think about the public good and not just our own good.
In too many communities that I visit, there is thin capacity for change among non-profits, faith-based groups, and other organizations; there are too few leaders whom people trust and who will work together; there are norms of acrimony and divisiveness that pull people down and make them stay home rather than engage; there are narratives that suggest that “change can’t happen here” and thus oppress people’s sense of hope.
No doubt, charity can help us see a new path for our work together; but, alone, it will not enable us to go down that path. For that, we will need to develop the capacity required for change and tap the courage required to engage in such work.
Everywhere I go, people are proud of our collective charity; now, they want us to focus on change. -
Thoughts on Our Way Back – Dateline Pittsburgh /Portland
I want to return to a topic I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, and which keeps coming up in my travels across the country: the trap of becoming mechanistic in our public work.
Last week, I was in Pittsburgh to talk with state directors and senior staff of the national organization Communities in Schools; this is an incredibly dedicated group of people working to make sure that all kids are prepared for their futures. For the last two days I have been in Portland.
CIS, like so many groups, is wrestling with how to scale up their ideas (thought not necessarily their organization) in order to expand and deepen their positive impact in the lives of children. And the pursuit of their dreams requires them to make a host of very difficult decisions and trade-offs.
In the past two weeks I have found myself talking about the need for those of us working in public life to understand just how mechanistic we have become in our efforts. Part of this dilemma is that the more we undertake, for instance, “strategic planning” exercises, the more removed we become from our work. We can get lost in going through the motions to produce the plan. Oftentimes we must embrace a new language of planning. We end up talking more about our plan than we do about the very essence of our work. This is never the intent of such planning, just the unintended consequence at times.
Indeed, at the end of such planning, we can feel comforted by our lists and charts and Power Point presentations; yet somehow we can miss the forest for the trees. We can miss truly figuring out the small number of actual levers that are necessary to bring about change; instead we target various activities, but just how strategic they are remains an open question. We can pretend to see our future targets for our work, but never really articulate any kind of rigorous notion of change. We can fail to hold a clear sense of the kinds of catalysts that are necessary to get change going and then to sustain it over time; instead, we have a collection of things we “DO.”.
What’s more, when it comes to taking action, our instincts can be to gather up “best practices,” “replicable” approaches, and various kinds of easy “plug and play” programs that can be used. On its own, there is nothing inherently wrong with such efforts; we need to determine how best to diffuse our work and produce positive results.
But what can happen along the way, often without us even taking notice, is that these initiatives come to exist outside the context of particular communities in which we live and/or do our work: We fail to understand the stage of a community’s development, its readiness for action, and its capacity to support action. We do not always understand how people in a community define their concerns, as opposed to how we or various experts define them. We do not adequately take into account a community’s norms and culture and how they shape the community, the narrative it tells about itself, the meaning and implications and possibilities for change, and the time frame in which that chance is to occur.
I wish to repeat here what I have been saying across the country: I believe we have become too “mechanistic” in our civic work – forging strategies and actions that may sound good, but may not make the difference we seek; instead, I believe we must move in two seemingly opposite directions at once.- First, we must become more ruthlessly strategic. We must develop the sensibilities and practices that lead us to consider the types of points I mentioned in the paragraphs above. Otherwise we become activity happy and action deprived.
- Second, while we are being ruthlessly strategic, we must also work to engender authentic hope in ourselves, in our communities, and in our larger society. Without hope, people will not step forward or engage or even believe that change is possible. I cover this topic in-depth in my new book, Hope Unraveled: The People’s Retreat and Our Way Back, which I urge you to take a look at. I believe we risk spending a great deal of time dreaming up new programs, or replicating old ones, without paying adequate attention to what it means and takes to generate authentic hope through the work we do – and to spread such hope.
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Thoughts on Our Way Back - Dateline Las Vegas
During one of my book events this week in Las Vegas, a person asked me about how I see race playing into the issues surrounding the people’s retreat from public life and politics. I believe it plays a big role, and it is an issue we must squarely address in our society. The person asking the question meant race in terms of blacks and whites. I recognize that there are larger issues at work in terms of race and ethnicity other than the separation of blacks and whites, but today I want to limit my response to this framing because it was the context of the initial question. The very fact that so many Americans have retreated from public life and politics makes dealing with race more difficult in our current times. We are cloistered in our close-knit circles of families and friends, among people who look and sound and think much like ourselves. Whites and blacks may be more separated today than at any point in time I have been doing this work. Then there is the issue of how one defines the challenge before us. In all of my work, I have come to believe that white Americans define the problem as “race relations” – that is, how can whites and blacks get along better. African-Americans, on the other hand, more often define the challenge as “racism” – that is, a problem rooted in prejudice, bigotry and privilege. So, one of the key challenges we must bridge is what to talk about. Another challenge is how to talk about race. My experience is that most people – both whites and blacks – are afraid to talk to one another about this issue. Different words are loaded with different meanings for different people; most of us are fearful of the emotions that are felt and get expressed along the way; and there is little room for giving people the benefit of the doubt – we are looking to confirm our worst assumptions about each other. Many of the points I have made in this entry, could be said about many issues that confront our communities and nation today. We simply have squeezed the necessary room out of public life and politics for any real and genuine discussions and debates that are needed in order to make progress on tough challenges. But I am especially concerned about race – its meaning, the challenges before us, our inability to talk about what we can and should do, and what is says about who we are today. For instance, race (and class and power) is one the main subtexts of rebuilding the Gulf Coast. And yet, my suspicion is that we will sweep that challenge under the rug by simply deluging the region with federal rebuilding dollars, acting as if money can remedy the race challenges we face. They won’t; indeed, they will even exacerbate the problem if we seek to pretend there are no underlying issues at work here. I often say in speeches that we can do better in America and one area I discuss is the need to rid ourselves of prejudice, hatred and bigotry in our society. Of course, we can’t completely rid ourselves of such beliefs and actions; but we can and should work much harder. Why? As someone asked me just the other day, “There’s nothing new here; haven’t we always faced this issue?” My answer was, “Yes, but we are becoming a nation that is more diverse not less. We are becoming a nation where the gap between the haves and the have-not is expanding, not narrowing. And we are becoming a nation where people are retreating from one another, where the distance between us is only growing.” The very nature of the problem and the conditions surrounding it are changing -- and not for the better. In our retreat from public life and politics we have turned away from one another. The very first step we must take is to find our way back to the public square so we can see each other again and begin a genuine conversation that money cannot buy. -
Thoughts on Our Way Back - Dateline Las Vegas
As I travel the country talking about Hope Unraveled and the conditions of American public life and politics, inevitably someone asks, “It’s all so overwhelming, what could I ever do to make a difference?”
The negative conditions we face, and the sheer magnitude of the challenge, can be overwhelming. I remember a woman from Richmond, VA., one of the people I interviewed for the book in 1998, turning to me and saying, “If you look at the whole picture of everything that is wrong, it is so overwhelming you just retreat back.” Many people share her feelings and sense of frustration.
But my response to the question about what each of us can do is this: none of us alone can “solve” the negative conditions in public life and politics; there is too much work to be done. But each us can do our part. And it is only through our collective actions that change will emerge. For different people, such actions will take different forms. For instance:- Foundation officers and heads of non-profit groups can conduct their work in ways that both address core social needs and build community at the same time. This will require moving away from “mechanistic responses” and engaging in a new level of being “ruthlessly strategic” and spreading a sense of hope (This was the subject of the previous entry).
- Private sector leaders can engage in their development work and community leadership in ways that reflect the values and aspirations of their communities – to view their work as part of the community rather separate from the community.
- Journalists can more accurately reflect the realities of people’s lives and move away from sensationalism, hype, and conflict-driven stories.
- Each of us as individuals can think about our relationship to our local schools, to children, and to our neighbors. There are small everyday actions we can take to reweave the fabric of our communities – and to be citizens again, not just consumers.
During a discussion last night here in Las Vegas, one person asked me if I thought such change could ever come about. I do. If you look back over the course of American history, moments of great change were always preceded by a collection of smaller actions that set the conditions – the right environment – to galvanize larger change. I believe, for instance, the reason that our pledges for change after 9/11 did not stick was that we did have enough of a foundation upon which to build a more robust, vibrant public life and politics. We fell back into our old, prevailing habits.
Each of us can help to set the new conditions we so desperately need and want through out daily words and actions. No one will swoop down upon public life and politics like a knight on a white horse to “save” us. We must do the work, each of us, and the time is now to move ahead.
Let’s go.
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Thoughts on Our Way Back - Dateline Seattle
I’m writing from Seattle where I released my new book, Hope Unraveled: The People’s Retreat and Our Way Back. What strikes me most in my conversations with people is the extent to which we have become mechanistic in our response to a fundamentally human condition. Here’s what I mean.
Over the last four days, I have been attending the national Conference on Foundations Community Foundation annual conference. I have spent 15-hour days talking with community foundation executives about the condition of the country, what we need to do to pursue an alternate path in public life and politics, and the role community foundations can play. There are incredible people here, individuals who care deeply about their communities and the effectiveness of their programs.
But as I talked with folks here, and think about some of my conversations with people before arriving here, I am struck by how mechanistic we have become in response to trying to engage people in public life and politics and to generate meaningful change in communities; my thoughts even extend to how people are increasingly talking about “rebuilding” New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.- The mechanistic response is to reach out for so-called “best practices” and replicate them without thinking deeply enough about our purpose in acting.
- We go out and underwrite programs in our communities that sound good and even make us look good, but for which we neither have a plan nor the capacity within the community to drive it out and sustain it over time.
- Another example of the mechanistic response is to embrace new “civic engagement” tools or program or processes that we implement step-by-step, almost like a civic recipe, and yet the program has no meaningful connection to people’s lives, and organizations within a community often fail to take the results and use them to rethink their own initiatives. It becomes an exercise to nowhere.
- Or, as one community foundation president said to me last night, we have done all this “great” research, but it has no relevance to taking action.
All of this often occurs in a kind of civic vacuum – a void of thinking about the real conditions that exist in a community that must be addressed; a failure to see what levers for change actually exist; a missing sense of what will truly engage people to step forward and find their way back to public life and politics.
The mechanistic response is a kind of milquetoast, middle of the road, make-few-waves approach to the deep challenges we face in our society, which I talk about in Hope Unraveled. I believe that we must discard this mechanistic approach and embrace an alternative which has two big components:- First, those of us pursuing civic-oriented
initiatives must become what I call
“ruthlessly strategic.” We must be clear on
the conditions we face, what it takes for
communities to actually change, what the right
levers are at the right time to spark such
change, and the capacity that is needed in the
community to bring about change. We all have
limited resources; that will never change. So,
my concern is how we determine the best set of
actions that will generate the kinds of civic
conditions that will increase our likelihood
for real progress. I often say in speeches that
we have become “activity happy and action
deprived.” We must be much more strategic in
our efforts.
- Second, I also believe that we must focus much more on the so-called soft side of the equation – what I would call “hope” or “civic faith” or people’s aspirations… different people will use different terms. But the point is that when all is said and done, we are in the business of people, of human nature, of generating a sense of possibility and hope, After all, this is the most basic element of life that enables people to keep going, keep trying, keep aspiring to fulfill their needs and their dreams. Too often we discard this piece precisely because we want to appear strategic.
The mechanistic approach robs us of these two components. It puts us on automatic pilot just when we need to make choices about what it means to be truly strategic and what will give people hope.
So, here I am Seattle and the good news is that many of the community foundation executives here want to figure out how to take an alternate path in public life and politics. I’m ready to get going.
For information on how to order your copy of Hope Unraveled please click here.