Blog
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What we can learn from Las Vegas
Last
week I was in Las Vegas where I discovered a
community once on top of the world fighting to
come back in the wake of the Great Recession.
What people in Las Vegas are doing offers a
vision of what it will take for communities
across the country to rebound from this tough
economic and social time. It’s not a mere
roll of the dice that’s bringing Vegas back,
but intentional actions to create real change
and community. The Harwood Institute worked in Las Vegas earlier this decade with the support of the Omidyar Network. In 2004 we produced a report entitled, On the American Frontier. It captured the incredible “can-do spirit, confidence, proven track record of growth, and innate sense of vibrancy” of Southern Nevada. For many people, Vegas was the best, last chance to pursue a customized version of the American Dream. But even then people were starting to wonder if they had too much of a good thing.
Today things are different in Vegas. For starters, the area ranks near the top in the nation in home foreclosures, school dropouts, unemployment and lost jobs, while philanthropic dollars have dried up. And yet, something genuinely hopeful is happening there, something worth paying attention to.
My speech last week was to about 100 political and civic leaders, including heads of major organizations, funders, the state senate majority leader, and public broadcasters. In 2004, it might have been hard to gather such leaders for a similar event, and especially one where they so openly engaged one another. But now, despite the Great Recession – or maybe because of it – folks are creating new groups and relationships to get things done.
Many people came up to me during my time there to say that our work some 5-10 years ago had helped to seed the growth of new groups and strengthen existing ones. They told me we had helped them to see why it is so critical to turn outward and to think about change differently. One person even asked how I felt being back in town given that so much current activity can be traced back to our work. What I told her is that the real credit goes to people in Vegas – those individuals and groups that chose to step forward and use our work to innovate, experiment, and are now connecting their efforts to others. And it is an amazing collection of groups, which includes:
- Three Square, a national model for collecting donated and rescued food that is distributed by more than 260 partners in the community; the group is not only fighting hunger, but helping their partners build networks among themselves to work on other concerns;
- Community We Will, an initiative that focuses on vulnerable children and families, and which was sparked by an effort to fight homelessness, which also used our work to get going;
- Southern Regional Nevada Planning Coalition, which, doesn’t run any programs, but serves as a space for those who do to come together, learn from one another, join forces, and leverage each others’ efforts;
- KNPR and Vegas PBS, the local public broadcasters, who have rooted their work deeply in the community, and whose greatest impact may be in the things they do off air;
- Nevada
Gives, a group that is helping to
cultivate an ethos of giving in the region,
and which brings people to together to figure
out how they can have a true impact.
What’s so promising in Vegas is that public innovators are creating a new civic foundation. Each group has its own promising story, and together they represent a major shift in the community. Now, all this movement is still just emerging, but the trajectory is clear.
These groups are boundary spanners, network builders, engagers of the community, and most importantly action oriented. It is this very foundation that is essential for a community to move forward. We all know the Vegas line, “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas.” Well, I want to add a new line today: “What Happens in Vegas, Spreads beyond Vegas.”
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Sarah Palin's New Movement:"Moms Awakening"
Maybe you can feel the earth
trembling as the stampede of “pink
elephants” comes thundering toward
Washington, DC, their arrival slated for
election-day November 2, 2010. This is Sarah
Palin’s vision out in her new
(beautifully-produced) 2-minute video found on
SarahPAC. Palin seeks to rev up women to vote
for conservative candidates this fall. She
tells us there is a “mom awakening”
happening across America, so watch out! But I
want to know, toward what end?I’m all for moms. I myself have a great mom, and my wife is an incredible mom to our two children. But when Palin talks about moms in her video, she means only “conservative moms.” She tells us that she speaks for those conservative moms who are “rising up” for “common sense solutions,” moms who are as strong as “mama grizzlies” and who are weary of anyone who might “attack their cubs” and “do something adverse.”
I’m off to Chicago today to spend two days with folks who belong to the National Legal Aid Defenders Association. These individuals work tirelessly to make sure every American can get legal aid, especially those most vulnerable among us. From there I will go to Las Vegas, where I will be with business, non-profit, foundation, and social service leaders, among others, who are part of an initiative to ensure that all children and families in Southern Nevada can live healthy and safe lives.
Within these two groups alone, I’m sure I will find moms who care deeply about children – not just their own children, but all children. Indeed, throughout my work I have met thousands of moms who have risen up to fight for vulnerable children and families. I have met caring moms in our Kellogg Foundation-supported work in Detroit, Battle Creek and Santa Fe. And I have found inspiring moms in our efforts with local United Ways and public broadcasting. I have been contacted by such moms via personal emails, phone calls, and when they come up to me to talk after speeches.
My point is this: I have seldom met a conservative mom or a liberal mom who do not hold similar aspirations for their children. When I close my eyes and listen to moms talk, I often cannot tell the difference between a wealthy mom and a poor mom. When I travel along our coasts, or through our nation’s heartland, I hear moms of all kinds speak about their children in similar ways.
Our country is facing tough challenges nowadays and kids are paying a hefty price. Too many kids still go to bed hungry at night. Too many kids still go to substandard schools. Too many kids don’t have adequate health care, while many of their health problems could have been prevented through a simple visit to a primary care doctor. Too many kids cannot afford to go to a four-year college, or a community college.
Now, I know Sarah Palin is out looking for donations to her PAC and votes for those candidates she has endorsed; she’s no different than any Democratic leader who seeks to position their cause and themselves. But rather than try to stoke an uprising of conservative moms, rather than spark a stampede of pink elephants, why not reach out across dividing lines and mobilize moms for a kids’ agenda that we all can agree on. Why not bring people together rather than divide them even more. This is the awakening we need.
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Would you let the mosque be built?
Last night while driving home I heard a live broadcast of a gubernatorial candidates’ debate in Tennessee. One question was about whether the candidates would allow a mosque to be built in a neighborhood. As I listened to their responses, my stomach began to turn, and then I considered my own question: Is this the country we want?
It would be enough to write this morning about the silly format of the debate itself. Indeed, when I first tuned in, it would have been easy to mistake the broadcast for a bad TV game show. In one segment, each of the four candidates had 15 seconds to ask another candidate a question, and in turn that candidate had a mere 30 seconds to reply. When a candidate went over the allotted time, a bell would go off – “ding.” This happened to one candidate who was asked why he voted for the TARP bill in Congress. So, on and on the debate went, with two moderators, chattering together as if they were on Action News at 6PM. Such debate formats make a mockery of critical issues in people’s lives.
But as I listened there emerged the question about mosques, and whether the candidates would allow one to be built in a neighborhood. There were two basic responses. One came from a candidate who worried about the radical elements of Islam. He implied that the building of a mosque – any mosque – should be equated with such elements. His bottom line message: our main task in life is to be vigilant against the enemy.
Other candidates invoked lofty language about Judeo-Christian principles being the backbone of our nation’s history, and some even talked about freedom of assembly and the right to free speech. But in all these cases, such language was merely a quick segue to say that the building of a mosque is a local zoning issue (read: I’m not going to touch this issue), and that all such decisions should be made locally. And yet, even in these answers, there was a clear and unmistakable sense that none of these candidates would suggest that a mosque should be built, as they might a church or synagogue.
We live in a time when it is easy to tap into people’s preconceived notions, untested ideas, and basic fears. I know there can be all sorts of local zoning issues when citing any building near or in a neighborhood. In my old neighborhood, there were always concerns about a rapidly growing church down the street. But working out zoning issues is radically different from whether we allow mosques to be built at all in communities.
As I listened last night, I recalled times growing up in Upstate New York when I was the first Jew many people had ever met, and when my school-age friends came into our temple – any temple – for the very first time. It was a different world to them. Sure, I’m part of the Judeo-Christian history of this country, but, it seems to me, it is how we use that tradition today that counts.
Our partner in our recent public broadcasting initiative, Nashville Public Television, a major station in Tennessee, has won community-wide plaudits for stepping forward and genuinely engaging the community in hot-button issues surrounding a growing immigrant population in the community. Beth Curley, the CEO of NPT, and Kevin Crane, Vice President of Content and Technology, demonstrated real leadership in their work. It’s clearly possible, but it’s clearly a choice.
On issues like the building of a mosque, what would it mean for the candidates to do the same – and for each of us as well? -
How to re-engage and mobilize Americans
Last week I told you that I had “banned” the phrase “civic engagement” from the Institute’s work and I got quite a reaction – some in support, others not. My point was simply that engagement needs to be more about people and impact, and less about endless discussions over inputs and process. For people in the country want to re-engage and get to work; at issue is our response.
We sit amid the morass of a continuing recession, two wars, and the BP oil disaster, to mention just the highlights of the nation’s current challenges. As I travel the country, there is a deepening sense the nation is barreling off course. People are searching for, well… a sense of “hope.” But experience tells us that the upcoming mid-term elections won’t be the tonic. They will surely produce more cynical electoral maneuvering from both sides of the aisle and from all quarters (including the so-called Tea Party).
The current path doesn’t bode well for our collective mood. Some observers are comparing this period to the 1970s when then President Carter gave his infamous “malaise speech.” In yesterday’s New York Times, the columnist Ross Douthat wrote about a growing “pessimism bubble” that, much like a contagion, is spreading throughout the country and taking on a life of its own. Douthat suggested that a little optimism would do us all good. His point: we should take comfort from the nation’s record of bouncing back from bad times.
But where will this optimism come from? From the people, I say. But nothing is automatic, and unless we take decisive action, such optimism will not materialize.
Wherever I go people express deep frustration, even anger about corporate wrong-doing, double-talking politicians and problems such as the BP oil crisis where it seems no one is in charge. The current state of affairs, on one level, is the continuation of many years of people’s disgust with politics and public life – where their reality was constantly distorted, and where they felt little control over what is happening around them.
And yet, on another level, there is something totally different at work nowadays – something we can productively tap into. More than at any other time I’ve been working in politics and public life, people today want to re-engage and reconnect with each other. There is a genuine hunger to be part of something larger than ourselves. People want to come back into community life.
People’s desires transcend politics. This urge is not about the election of one individual or another, though that’s certainly important to people. Rather, what I hear is people talking the ways in which we choose to live with one another and the fundamental nature of community. I do not pretend to know where all this is heading and where it will end up.
But what I do know is that people want to get to work – with their neighbors, their friends, their co-workers, and their fellow community members. They want to make a real difference. They want to make a dent in the challenges before us. In short, they want to help change the very trajectory of the country.
There’s more than enough work to do in our country – from supporting returning soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan, to cleaning up oil-stained beaches, to truly working with kids to gain a leg up in school and at home. We need to mobilize our nation to do the nation’s work. This will require that we genuinely engage people in conversation about setting a common purpose for taking action – and then creating ways to act. For it is only through our joint efforts that we can do meaningful things, be part of something larger than ourselves, and regain some semblance of control over our future. It is then that we will burst through the pessimism bubble and generate real hope.