Our New Financial Coaching Fellows!

Today our fifth cohort of Financial Coaching Fellows completed our 3-day training institute.  The seven Fellows learned about banking, budgeting, credit, debt, goal setting, savings and taxes--a lot of material to cover!  Our Head Financial Coach, Cameron (top right of the photo), did an amazing job running the training.  We are excited to have such a great group of Fellows--they come from Bryant University, Providence College and Brown University, and are extremely motivated, passionate and eager to serve the community.  For the next three weeks Cameron will be working with them one-on-one--and they will also be practicing coaching with each other--before they beging providing coaching to clients.

When we started our Financial Coaching Program in 2011 and decided to use university students to serve as coaches, many people doubted the feasibility of the model. Now, two years and over 60 student coaches later, we have demonstrated that, when properly trained and well managed, students can deliver a life-changing service to the community.  During the coming months these Fellows will be serving dozens of clients and demonstrating what's possible when passion is married to strategy and diligence. 

The Marketplace of Ideas

There is a marketplace of ideas, one in which the winners shape public policy, make funding decisions and launch programs that affect the lives of millions.  Not only that, but the more time I spend in this marketplace, the more I see that the ideas that spread do so because of the money and power behind them.  The consequences of this dynamic are profound: global warming deniers, deficit hawks and pugilistic lovers of war continue to drive the direction of this country.

In short, if we are to better the world, if we are to overcome injustice, we must ensure that good, just and righteous ideas spread.  But doing so is easier said than done.  If I had a million dollar budget, I could run a robust advertising campaign online, in print, radio, tv.  And If you don't think a large advertising budget matters, remember that the first Gulf War started with an ad campaign, John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid failed, in part, because of the Swiftboat ad campaign, and on and on and on.

A Must-See Video

If ever there were a video that captured why we are so obsessed with scale and growth, this is it.  This is such an important video to watch for anyone interested in the non-profit sector--especially those that believe it can and should be doing a far better job at solving the serious social and environmental challenges we are facing today.  Enjoy and please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section of this post!

Social Enterprise Funding - A Discussion & My Plea

If you are a reader of this blog, you’ve probably heard a lot about social enterprise, social business, social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, B-corporations, triple bottom lines...the list goes on.  And if you’ve heard about all this, you might be left with the impression that these trends are vibrant and rapidly growing.  You might sense at this point that a ‘But’ is coming, and you’d be right.  For all the buzz about new business models for social change, the fact of the matter is that the successful enterprises in this space are few and far between and that it remains exceedingly difficult to start and grow them.

I know, because Capital Good Fund is one such social enterprise (that’s the jargon I prefer to use to refer to us), and I’ve seen firsthand all the barriers to growth.  Let’s cover some of these barriers:

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.