Category: poverty

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Innovation, People Helping People, poverty, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with ,

Guest post by Seth Godin and Michael Bungay Stanier.

The blog connected with endmalariaday has more content than anyone could ever ever want. And that’s a bit of a problem, because more content is not going to help us sell more books, because it solves the problem “what’s in this book” rather than creating a problem “I wonder what’s in this book.”

I think what we need the authors to do is create a different problem: “You’re a good person and good people are buying this book”. There’s no shortage of stuff to read (with or without our book) but there is a shortage of easy and cheap ways to demonstrate your goodness, to be part of this tribe, to participate in a meaningful, efficient way that one can be proud of.

The big win, then, is for authors to be relentless in pushing this obligation/opportunity. “Here’s the book, take my word for it, it’s fabulous, and it’s important. It has content that will stick with you at the same time it has a benefit that you’ll remember for a long time. Buy a book, save someone’s life. How often do you get to do that?”

I fear that if we try to sell this merely as a book worth reading, we will not move enough fingers to click.

Bullet point summary of the project
The book is called: End Malaria: Bold Innovation, Limitless Generosity, and the Opportunity to Save a Life
$20 from every sale will go to Malaria No More. That’s 100% of the Kindle price, and 80% of the hard copy (The remaining $5 covers production costs.)
None of the contributors or the publishing house are taking any money from sales, and Amazon makes no profit
The book has 62 thought leaders (download PDF list of contributors) writing around the topic of Great Work – how to do more of the stuff that matters and less of all the other stuff that fills up your day
Includes such luminaries as Tom Peters, Gary Vaynerchuk, Sir Ken Robinson, Brene Brown, David Allen, Sally Hogshead and Mitch Joel
Divided into eight key areas of insight, including: Create Freedom, Disrupt Normal and Take Small Steps
End Malaria is edited by Michael Bungay Stanier and published by The Domino Project. It has an introduction from Scott Case, Vice Chair of Malaria No More
$20 sends a mosquito net to a family in need and supports life-saving work in the fight against malaria
Malaria No More’s mission is to end malaria in Africa by 2015
A child dies every 45 seconds from malariaEnd Malaria, https://www.EndMalariaDay.com,/a> , is an astonishing new book by more than sixty best selling business authors and social thought leaders who joined together to share information in a book whose entire profits go to buy malaria bed nets. Malaria is a disease that causes more childhood death than HIV/AIDS. 

Malaria bed nets are simple nets that hang over a window or a bed. They’re treated with a chemical that mosquitoes hate. The mosquitoes fly away, they don’t bite, people don’t get malaria. 

Every single penny spent on the Kindle edition goes to Malaria No More, giving them enough money to buy one or two bednets and to deliver them and be sure they’re used properly. Low overhead, no graft, no waste. Just effectiveness. None of the authors or anyone at the Domino Project receive money to be part of this project.  

Wait, there is one ulterior motive: We hope you are inspired. One of the sixty plus contributors might share a gem or spark an idea. The book is a collection of essays from 62 business and social thought leaders about the key drivers to live a life of meaning and impact. Contributors to the book (all of whom donated their work) include David Allen, Tom Peters and Keith Ferrazzi; TED speakers Brene Brown and Sir Ken Robinson; New York Times’ best-sellers Jonah Lehrer, Gary Vaynerchuk and Dan Pink; Daymond John and Dave Ramsey; and leaders from organizations such as Google and GlaxoSmithKline.

There’s a second motive: Stepping up feels right. It’s a few clicks to buy a book and for the rest of the day, or even a week, you’ll remember how it felt to save someone’s life. 

END MALARIA was born out of a passion to save lives by author and Senior Partner of Box of Crayons Michael Bungay Stanier. Teaming up with marketing and publishing innovator and creator of Squidoo.com Seth Godin, they found a way to sell a book and give away all of the profit in the fight against malaria.

” This is the power of authors working together, the power of ebook distribution and most of all, the power of people who care to make a difference. Over and over, we’re seeing that a new generation cares about business not just as a way to make money, but as a way to make a difference. These authors (and their readers) are making a difference at the same time they’re saving lives.” – Seth Godin.  

End Malaria Day is April 25, Twitter #EndMalariaDay , www.Facebook.com/endmalariaday

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Ethics in Government, Peace and War, Politics, poverty, privacy, propaganda, Social and Economic Justice, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This is a rare occurrence: Three of my heroes made separate local appearances this week—two from the generation older than me, and one from the generation that follows me.

George McGovern
George McGovern, 89, former Senator, Democratic nominee for President in 1972, and stalwart of the ’70s-era peace movement spoke Saturday to support his new book, What It Means To Be A Democrat, to bring attention to hunger causes—and to support Rep. James McGovern’s (no relation) re-election campaign. (I’m looking forward to having the younger McGovern, one of the most progressive voices in Congress, represent me; our town just got moved into his district.)

Born in 1956, I was too young to cast my vote for McGovern in 1972—but not too young to campaign for him, which I did. I also met the candidate at a campaign rally in the north Bronx (NYC) neighborhood where I was living (not a place that typically attracted national political figures). He impressed me with his decency, although not his speaking skills (charisma was not one of his big qualities). Listening to him on a local radio station this week, I was glad he’s become a better speaker—and glad, too, that he’s still willing to buck the system and oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq…stand for positivity and discourse in politics…and be a voice for the voiceless whose safety net continues to be slashed by both parties.

McGovern, the elder, is a reminder of the days when the Democratic Party actually supported democratic values of peace, an anti-poverty agenda, and civil liberties—values that seem hard-to-find in today’s party, where the Dennis Kuciniches and Barbara Lees, Alan Graysons, and James McGoverns of the world are a tiny isolated minority at the far-left edge of a party filled with “centrists” who are less willing to back a progressive agenda than Richard Nixon was during his presidency. How can you take seriously a party that claims to be progressive and lets people like Ben Nelson and Steny Hoyer define it?

Where are the towering figures like Barbara Jordan, Birch Bayh, Bela Abzug, Shirley Chisolm, Tom Harkin, James Abourezk and so many others—all of whom served with George McGovern in Congress? Where is even a figure like Lyndon Johnson, able to grow past his southern segregationist heritage and shepherd through a series of civil rights bills? These were Democrats who were not afraid to speak their mind, not afraid to fight for justice, and willing to do what they could to steer the US toward a better path. They didn’t turn tail and start mumbling apologies any time someone called them a liberal as if it were some kind of curse word instead of a badge of honor—a disgraceful path embraced by Michael Dukakis during his 1988 Presidential run, and by far too many Democrats since.

Daniel Ellsberg
Another of my pantheon of childhood heroes, Daniel Ellsberg, 80, spoke on a panel of whistleblowers Thursday evening at Mt.Holyoke College. Ellsberg risked life in prison to release the Pentagon Papers, a massive set of documents that utterly discredited any plausible justification for the Vietnam war.

Ellsberg didn’t go to prison, though—because the government’s case was dismissed after it was discovered that the feds had way overstepped their bounds in investigating him. Unfortunately, under laws championed by and passed under both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, what they did to him would be legal today. That is a travesty, and part of what I mean when I say the Democrats have abandoned a progressive agenda. Despite whistleblower protection laws and even payment passed since the 1970s, the government is not nice when the whistleblowers go after government fraud. Whistleblowers still risk severe punishment (just look at Bradley Manning).

If you ask me, those who expose corruption at great personal risk are heroes, not criminals.

Rachel Maddow
Local weekend resident Rachel Maddow speaks tonight, also at Mount Holyoke. Maddow, who turns 39 tomorrow, has been a refreshing progressive, articulate, and intelligent voice in a generally desolate mainstream-media landscape. I’ve been a fan of hers since she made her radio debut as a morning-show newscaster on WRNX here in the Valley.

It’s great that there are people like Maddow to catch the torch as my generation, and my parents’ generation, starts passing it. We need more like her.

[Disclosure: I was not able to attend any of the events in person. This post is based on hearing McGovern and Ellsberg in separate appearances on Bill Newman’s radio show on WHMP, and on coverage in the Northampton, MA newspaper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette.]

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Ethics in Government, Politics, poverty, Social and Economic Justice

I’m pleased to bring you this guest post by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, chaired by Reps. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Keith Ellison (D- Minn.)—who, along with  Rep. Michael Honda, prepared this alternative budget. If the slash-and-burn mentality of Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum makes you want to vomit, share this with your friends, colleagues, and progressive allies. The original appeared at  https://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=81&sectiontree=5,81, where you can also watch a video.

—Shel Horowitz, GreenAndProfitable.com

The Budget for All makes the American Dream a reality again. By putting Americans back to work, the Budget for All enhances our economic competitiveness by rebuilding the middle class and investing in innovation and education.  Our budget protects Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, invests in America’s future, and asks those who have benefited most from our economy to pay their fair share.

Our Budget Puts Americans Back to Work
Our budget attacks America’s persistently high unemployment levels with more than $2.4 trillion in job-creating investments.  This plan utilizes every tool at the government’s disposal to get our economy moving again, including:
• Direct hire programs that create a School Improvement Corps, a Park Improvement Corps, and a Student Jobs Corps, among others.
• Targeted tax incentives that spur clean energy, manufacturing, and cutting-edge technological investments in the private sector.
• Widespread domestic investments including an infrastructure bank, a $556 billion surface transportation bill, and approximately $1.7 trillion in widespread domestic investment.

Our Budget Exhibits Fiscal Discipline
• Unlike the Republican budget, the Budget for All substantially reduces the deficit, and does so in a way that does not devastate what Americans want preserved.
• We achieve these notable benchmarks by focusing on the true drivers of our deficit – unsustainable tax policies, the wars overseas, and policies that helped cause the recent recession – rather than putting the middle class’s  social safety net on the chopping block.

Our Budget Creates a Fairer America
• Ends tax cuts for the top 2% of Americans on schedule at year’s end
• Extends tax relief for middle class households and the vast  majority of Americans
• Creates new tax brackets for millionaires and billionaires, in line with the Buffett Rule principle
• Eliminates the tax code’s preferential treatment of capital gains and dividends
• Abolishes corporate welfare for oil, gas, and coal companies
• Eliminates loopholes that allow businesses to dodge their true tax liability
• Creates a publicly funded federal election system that gets corporate money out of politics for good

Our Budget Brings Our Troops Home
• Responsibly and expeditiously ends our military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving America more secure at home and abroad
• Adapts our military to address 21st century threats; through modernization, the Department of Defense will spend less and stop contributing to our deficit problems

Protects American Families
• Provides a Making Work Pay tax credit for families struggling with high gas and food cost 2013-2015
• Extends Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child and Dependent Care Credit
• Invests in programs to stave off further foreclosures to keep families in their homes
• Invests in our children’s education by increasing Education, Training, and Social Services

 

 

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Energy & Sustainability, poverty

I love arrangements that make clean and renewable energy available to the very poor. Here’s one I found in the very conservative UK magazine, The Economist, where homeowners or tenants get a very small solar system with a $10 initial deposit and then another dollar now and then as they use the power. At $80, they own the unit free and clear (or can upgrade to a larger one).

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Business Ethics, Business-general, Corporate Social Responsibility, Demographics/Psychographics, People Helping People, poverty Tagged with , , , , ,

“Imagine Walmart doing distribution for food banks…in which The Gap runs thrift shops…in which The Home Depot is involved in rebuilding.”

This challenge comes from Ron Shaich, CEO of Panera, as he closes a wonderful talk at Sustainable Brands about Panera Cares, a series of pay-what-you-want stores aimed at alleviating hunger. So far, his first charity store, in St.Louis, is more than self-supporting, and they’ve opened a second location in Dearborn (metro Detroit)—both in economically diverse neighborhoods. The idea is that some who can afford it will pay more than the suggested amount, subsidizing those who pay less. And so far, it seems to be working.

Great to see this sort of abundance-based thinking from the CEO of a major restaurant chain.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Green Business, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, poverty, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , ,

This is quite exciting: solar systems for remote, off-grid areas in developing countries, set up with near-zero upfront investment and a pay-as-you-go model, converting to full ownership when the system is paid for.

If you’ve read The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, this will make sense right away. If you haven’t read it, you might want to grab a copy. This is the future: bringing technology to the poorest of the poor, not as charity but as a profitable business model that maintains affordability even among customers who have almost nothing.

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, General Commentary, Politics, poverty Tagged with , ,

There’s an awful lot of talk about how Obama has had plenty of time to fix the economy, and it’s his mess now.

While I am not a great fan of Obama, who has done too little, too slowly, on a myriad of issues, I think it’s time to put things in perspective:

Who led the banks run untrammeled and did nothing to stop the plunge into chaos until it was too late? George W. Bush (admittedly, with some help from the repeal of Glass-Stiegel under Clinton).

Who has now killed THREE jobs bills in a row with no meaningful alternative? Republicans in the Congress.

Who chopped so many taxes off the top end of the spectrum that the government can’t seem to fund anything? George W. Bush.

Who refuses to let their ultrawealthy friends pay even a tiny fraction more in taxes to cover the cost of job-creating major infrastructure upgrades? Republicans in the Congress—even though under Eisenhower and Nixon, people in the higher brackets paid considerably higher portions of their income in taxes than they do now.

Who took a huge surplus and turned it into a massive deficit, with the help of two illegal and immoral wars? George W. Bush.

I sure hope the public is paying attention come next November. The entire mission of the Republican Party agenda these days seems to be to sabotage the economy, stall any initiatives of Obama’s (even if they were originally proposed by Republicans) and bring government to a standstill.

It’s ugly, unethical, and I hope, unpopular next election. Throw the bums out!

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Energy & Sustainability, People Helping People, poverty, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , ,

In the South Bronx, once a deeply distressed urban area of New York City that the cops had dubbed “Fort Apache” because it had been so dangerous, a lot of the comeback has been around sustainability (thanks in no small measure to years of terrific organizing by Majora Carter and Sustainable South Bronx). A new initiative I just learned about creates three wins at once:

  • Cleans up polluted water
  • Creates clean and usable biofuel that doesn’t sacrifice agricultural land
  • Creates jobs and a general economic boost in a depressed area

Read about this triple win here. More and more, I think we’ll be seeing development projects like this. (I know of many others around the country and around the world.) The key is to look at waste from one process and see how it could be used as an ingredient for the next process. Another great example is The Intervale, in Burlington and South Burlington, Vermont, where beer waste becomes a growing medium for mushrooms, which in turn feeds fish. This thinking shift is one of the major principles of true sustainability.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, People Helping People, poverty, Shel's Personal Life

Guest Post by Steve Jennings

[Editor’s Note: Steve, good and gracious person that he is, sent me an advance copy of this post to make sure I didn’t have any issues with him posting it. I wrote back that I was honored, loved the post, and would welcome permission to use it as a guest post, which he granted. And my life is richer for knowing him, as well. It Unlikely Friends

Sometimes you meet someone and you become instant friends.  That happened to me awhile back.  I went to Massachusetts for some training on media interviews with one of the more brilliant marketing experts in the country, Shel Horowitz (https://shelhorowitz.com/).   He’s the author of Principled Profit, Grassroots Marketing (a must-have for bootstrap marketers), The Penny Pinching Hedonist, Marketing without Megabucks and his latest, Guerilla Marketing Goes Green.  He’s a true wordsmith and a master at getting the most bang for your marketing buck.

The odd thing about our friendship is that Shel and I disagree on a whole host of issues.  Shel is liberal on most issues.  I’m mostly conservative. Our religious views are quite different.  Yet despite our apparent incompatibility, our friendship quickly flourished.

Why?

First, we found our common ground.  Shel and I both believe in leading a simple, responsible lifestyle.  We both enjoy hiking and drinking in nature’s wonders as we go.  We both get riled at the sight of injustice and corruption. It didn’t take us long to find lots of other areas where we agreed.

Second is integrity.  Shel lives what he believes.  He does what he says he’ll do, and he won’t be shy about telling the truth.   I try to be the same way in my life.  Unfortunately, integrity seems to be a dying value in much of our culture.  So when I meet someone who has it, I am drawn to them.

Third, it’s OK to disagree.  We accepted our differences and voiced our positions in friendly, reasonable conversation.  You can’t bring everybody to your side.  Jesus didn’t even reach everybody he came in contact with.  So Shel and I both took time to listen and learn from each other. We didn’t change each other’s opinions, but we broadened our minds.

It’s not hard to get along with people.  Instead of focusing on our differences, try to find some common ground.  There’s more of that kind of real estate than you can imagine.  From that starting point, make an effort to truly listen.  Digest what the other person is saying.  In far too many discussions we humans are guilty of concentrating on how we will advance our position and fail to truly hear the views of the other person.  You don’t have to agree, but you must try to understand.

Yes, Shel and I are unlikely friends. I can’t speak for him, but my life is richer for it.

God’s grace to you,

Steve Jennings, Executive Director

www.TeensOpposingPoverty.org

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Democracy, Energy & Sustainability, General Commentary, Green Business, Peace and War, Politics, poverty Tagged with , , , , ,

While the GOP lines up to see who can be more crazy and out-of-touch and unintelligent than their competitors, the Left is strangely quiet. Haven’t even heard rumblings of candidacy from Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who has set the bar for leftist challenges in the past two presidential elections.

And this is odd, because Obama has failed the Left, despite being elected on a platform—dare I say a mantra—of “change.”

Yes, he can claim a number of significant accomplishments—one blogger found Obama’s legislative accomplishment rate was an astonishing 96 percent—but on most of the issues that really matter, his record does not inspire:

WAR:

We’re still in Iraq, where five US soldiers lost their lives this week. And we’re way deeper in Afghanistan than we were, with about 100,000 troops on the ground. And we’ve deployed in Pakistan and Libya. The only real move toward peace was Obama’s recent speech on the Israel-Palestine conflict

HEALTHCARE:

All that energy into the pathetic and complicated Obamacare compromise! Not only was single-payer not “on the table,” but even the wimpy public option was taken off the table. What was left?  A gift to the insurance industry and not much else. I want a candidate who will propose a one-sentence health reform bill: “All US citizens and legal residents are eligible for Medicare from birth.” If we need to phase it in, start by moving eligibility to age 55, then 40, then 20, then zero over a period of years.

ENERGY/ECONOMY/ENVIRONMENT

I lump these three together because the solution integrates across the disciplines: A massive, Marshall-plan-style initiative to get OFF fossil and nuclear energy sources in ten to twenty years, replacing them with sources that are both clean and renewable (with special attention to deep conservation that reduces the need for energy by 50 percent or more). We’d use government loans to jumpstart the effort, bring the price of conversions down, and front the money for homeowners, tenants, farmers,  and business owners to get systems in place—with the loans repaid out of the energy savings. This would boost the economy, create hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of jobs, get people out of poverty, put them back to work, remove our biggest reason for starting wars—and drastically reduce our carbon footprint, all at once!

The candidate who can articulate this vision, who can claim the unfinished mandate that Obama promised and didn’t deliver, has a pretty good shot at galvanizing the American people—if they can be convinced that these changes are actually possible.

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