The Fierce Urgency of Now

In his iconic ‘I Have a Dream’ speech,’ Martin Luther King spoke of the fierce urgency of now--the moral imperative to address injustice in the present as opposed to in some vague, ill-defined future.  Further, in his masterpiece ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail,’ he wrote that “For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’  It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity.  This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’  We must come to see...that ‘justice too long delayed in justice denied.’”

As the Executive Director of a small, rapidly growing non-profit, I often find myself trying to balance the imperative to solve problems today with the need to think strategically and build the infrastructure needed for scale and growth tomorrow.  My obsession with the ‘fierce urgency of now,’ however, had until recently always been rooted in a firm belief that when we put off doing the right thing, we are in many ways creating excuses for denying justice.  But recently I’ve been thinking more carefully about why the urgency of now is so ferocious, and I’ve come to a new conclusion: every day that goes by without us solving a problem, the harder that problem becomes to solve.  To borrow the parlance of climate change mitigation we are, in effect, ‘locking in’ injustice for years, decades and centuries to come.

The Interwoven Strands of Justice

“We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.  And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

The thesis of this post is simple and, I hope, provocative: that if you care deeply about a particular social or environmental issue, then you must at least be familiar with many other social or environmental issues.  This is due to the increasingly unavoidable link between seemingly disparate challenges, be they economic growth and climate change, health care spending and hunger, or defense spending and education.

Pragmatic Idealism

A central aspect of my job and life as a social entrepreneur, social crusader and poet is to inspire and empower others to follow their dreams and, in turn, better the world.  Indeed, one of my favorite sayings is that there is nothing more beautiful than a life well-lived.  Unfortunately, there are so many obstacles to living the lives we wish to lead: societal and parental pressure, the imperative to earn money to pay off student loans, a lack of supports and examples for those seeking to do bold things, and so on.  

As a result, far too few people do what it is they truly want to do, and this has horrible consequences for the individual and for society as a whole.  After all, in the year 2013 we can no longer justify social or environmental injustice with the argument that we don’t have the capacity to solve them: we have all the technology, the money, the wealth, the examples and the business models needed to eradicate poverty, avoid climate change, and so on.  What’s lacking, then, is the will to do so. And as I often argue, there is a significant disconnect between our will and our desire--for how many of us want to see a better world?  I’d venture that the vast majority of us long for that.  So what’s the problem? Simply put, because we feel incapable of living up to our ideals we often pursue careers that, at best, are neutral and, at worst, negatively impact the world.

McDonalds, Apple and Capital Good Fund

I recently wrote in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) about the importance of considering competitive advantage in the non-profit space.  My argument there was that, unlike conventional wisdom, non-profits do compete: for funding, for clients, for partnerships and for the tone of public discourse.   That line of thinking has been transformational for Capital Good Fund (CGF), both in terms of the products and services we offer, as well as how we offer them.  For instance, we now market our one-on-one Financial Coaching service as a benefit that employers can offer to employees and schools can provide to parents; in so doing, we are able to secure fee-for-service contracts that are significant sources of revenue for the organization.

Yet for all the good stuff going on at CGF, as well as in the social sector as a whole, we still have a fundamental problem: 1 out of 3 Americans is either in poverty or perilously close to it (there are numerous other social and environmental challenges, of course).  This is despite the fact that there are over 1.5 million nonprofits in the US (including charities, foundations, chambers of commerce, etc.).  Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a relation between the growth in the number of charitable organizations and a decrease in the social/environmental problems they seek to alleviate.

Climate Change & Poverty

As hard as I work every day to come up with new and creative approaches to tackling poverty in America, I can't help but keep a wary eye on climate change.  It isn't just that recent storms have been unusually strong and destructive, or that 2012 was the hottest year on record.  No, what bothers me most is that climate change will only serve to strengthen the divide between rich and poor while threatening the natural resources upon which we depend for biological and emotional sustenance. As I talked about in my masters thesis, the poor pay more of their income, as a percentage, for energy than the non-poor; they are more likely to live in houses and neighborhoods with high levels of indoor and outdoor air pollution; they are less likely to be able to evacuate and/or relocate during and after a storm; and, in short, they are far more vulnerable to environmental damage than others.

Now a new report put out by the National Climate Assessment Development Advisory Committee once again highlights the severity of the crisis.  For instance, the report (which is still a draft, awaiting public comment) notes that "Many impacts associated with [the effects of climate change] are important to Americans’ health and livelihoods and the ecosystems that sustain us...The impacts are often most significant for communities that already face economic or health-related challenges, and for species and habitats that are already facing other pressures."

Educational Inequality and Financial Coaching + Schools

In this blog we've already looked at the link between poverty and health and how our Financial Coaching program can help to improve health outcomes for the poor.  Unfortunately, a recent study by the UMass Boston Center for Social Policy only served to reinforce this pernicious paradigm: the study found that the children of low-wage workers are "Far more likely to drop out of school than are higher income youth, are more likely to be among the one in five American teens who are obese, and are far more likely to become parents in their teen years."

On the heels of these sad reports comes an article in the New York times titled 'For Many Poor Students, Lead to College Ends in a Hard Fall.'  Here are some of the more troubling quotes:

Financial Coaching + Health, Pt. 2: The Plan

Yesterday I talked about why there is a need for a health module within our Financial Coaching program.  Today, I'd like to talk about how we plan on implementing that module and what it will mean for our overall social impact.

First, a little background: when I first started seeing health issues coming up with many of our Coaching clients, I wasn't sure how to handle it.  After all, health can seem tangential to the financial coaching, free tax preparation and small loans that we provide.  What's more, I had no idea how to go about tackling health within our Coaching--I have no background in health and neither do any of my board members or employees.  Still, I've never been one to shy away from a challenging problem, provided that it's worth solving. So I decided to reach out to Partners in Health, one of the best non-profits in the world and whose co-founder, Paul Farmer, is a hero of mine (I highly recommend three of his books: Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights and the New War on the Poor; Mountains beyond Mountains; and Haiti After the Earthquake).