A Major Breakthrough
Six days after our initial meeting at the Community Food Bank, Michael
McDonald , the CEO sent me an
email.
“Peter:
Instead of trying to launch the 2080 community service
standardization and certification endeavor on your own as a stand-alone
nonprofit what about finding the right, well-established civic
engagement/leadership nonprofit under which to incubate it, e.g. Independent
Sector, or The Aspen Institute?
Might such an approach bring 2080 faster brand
credibility and broader nonprofit sector
support/adoption?
Michael”
Michael’s idea gave me pause. All of my experience is on
the corporate side, consequently, I am always thinking about ways to launch
something to show viability and marketability. Sprouts is an example of my modus
operandi.
Over the next few days I reviewed both The Independent
Sector and The Aspen Institute
websites and decided to start with Nadine
Jalandoni at The Independent Sector. Ms. Jalandoni handles special projects.
An automatic “Out of Office” reply came back with a promise to respond later but
that never happened.
The Aspen Institute, an esteemed think tank was next.
According to their website “The Aspen
Institute is an
educational and policy studies organization based in Washington , DC
In 2012, following an Aspen Ideas
Festival, The Aspen Institute created a new program called the Frank lin Project named after Ben Frank lin who believed central to any
democracy is citizen service. General (Ret.)
Stanley McChrystal, former Commander
of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan Frank lin Project, began
promoting a one-year conscription program for recent high school and college
graduates. When I first learned of the Frank lin Project about a year ago, I also learned
about General McChrystal and an associate Alan
Khazei. For this reason, I thought it might be a waste of time to
present an opposing idea. Michael’s comments encouraged me to look at them
again.
Alan
Khazei—a very prominent
social entrepreneur, founder and chief executive officer of Be the Change, Inc,
Co-Chair of the Frank lin Project and
adjunct lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Ken nedySchool Vietnam vet status and my lack of
enthusiasm for drafting folks into service because such programs favor the rich
and burden the poor. So I lean more toward Mr. Khazei’s kinder rite of passage
approach and decided to connect with him.
Without much trouble I
found Mr. Khazei’s email address on the Harvard University
“Thanks Peter for your interest in national service.
I and my colleagues will review your proposal and be
back in touch.
All the best,
Alan”
Each of those colleagues was cc:d in the email. In the
next fifteen minutes I Googled them and was overwhelmed by their positions and
spheres of influence. Mr. Khazei sent the Twenty Eighty Community Service
proposal to: John
Bridgeland, CEO of Civic
Enterprises, a public policy firm in Washington, D.C. and Co-Chair of the
Frank lin Project; Jason
Mangone, Director for the
Frank lin Project; Zach Maurin,
Co-Founder and Executive
Director of ServeNext.org and
Varsha
Subramanyam, Reproductive Health and Research Intern at the World
Health Organization.
Based on the credential of the folks Mr. Khazei
forwarded the proposal to, you know that he had to read it first. That fact was
enough to keep me in a full smile mode for the rest to the day. The other thing
that made me happy was all these national service executives have been thinking
about a community service program that lasts only one year. The Twenty Eighty
proposal encourages community service for a lifetime beginning in the third
grade. Can’t wait to get the next email from Mr.
Khazei.
Special
Note: If you would like to review the
seven-page Twenty Eighty Community Service Program proposal, just ask and I will
forward it to you. Or read an Arizona Daily Star article here.
Sprouts Update
6th Truck Load -
2014
Got fooled by a bag of potatoes this week. Sprouts had
their potatoes on sale— about 34 cents a pound—so while at the Oracle store on
Wednesday I collected enough money to buy 90 lbs. Since it was going to rain on
Saturday and I only have outdoor storage, I took the donation to the Food Bank
on Thursday and forgot about it.
Saturday I bought 150 lbs., 80 lbs. for Sprouts-Speedway
and 60 lbs. for Karen and Dot at DKA
Associates. Even with 19 bags in the truck it still didn’t look like a 500 lb.
load. Of course, the earlier Sprouts run to the Food Bank was still not in the
mix yet.
While at the Food Bank today it all came together and I
had no photo of this terrific haul. So I took one bag of potatoes back out to
the truck, placed it in the center of the bed and immortalized
it.
This week’s donations amounted to 586 lbs. and included River View Estates, 34 lbs.; Sprouts (Speedway), 168 lbs.; Sprouts (Oracle), 172 lbs.; and Miles Neighborhood, 212
lbs.
Surprise Cash Donation
One of the DKA shopping bags was too full. In the
process of splitting the load I noticed a folded $20 bill. Usually cash
donations are in an envelope or have a Post It note attached. In response to my
email query Dot wrote: “Hi Peter- Karen usually does the shopping, but is out of town
today through the weekend. So go ahead and buy potatoes and I will check it out
on Mon. If it was a mistake, I will reimburse it myself. Either way, we've still
fed a lot more people!”
Dot’s famous for those everybody wins
decisions!
We collected a total of 212 lbs. of food. The money we donated
amounted to $32.00, a $25.00 check
and $7.00 in cash.
See you Sunday,
Peter
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