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Hildy Gottlieb
Tucson, AZ
I have dedicated my life to developing and teaching systems for making visionary community (and global!) change practical.
As president of the Community-Driven Institute, I teach practitioners throughout the Community Benefit Sector how to adjust the work they are currently doing, to create more significant change in their communities and in our world. My book about this subject - due for release in January - is "The Pollyanna Principles: Reinventing "Nonprofit Organizations" to Create the Future of Our World."
Recent Activity
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Hildy signed the petition | -
Hildy commented on the article |Angela's quote hit home. Way back in 2004, within a single month, I received 5 different requests to keynote 5 different conferences, all wanting me to talk about "Ending Poverty." In declining each and every one of them, I shared my reason with them all:
"I will gladly work with you if instead of a normal 'conference,' you all get together with each other's groups, and we facilitate a multi-group dialogue aimed at actually doing the work to end poverty. We could actually get to work DOING IT rather than having 5 different conferences with 5 different keynotes and breakouts, all TALKING ABOUT doing something but taking no action?"
In most cases I received polite "thanks but no thanks" but one (whom I knew well) confessed, "That sounds so good. Unfortunately, our conference is our principle fundraiser for the year."
I say this not to blame the organizations who rely on that revenue. I say it to highlight that the system organizations work within is part of a culture that considerably devalues community benefit work - still sees it as ancillary to and a 2nd class citizen to the "important" work of the for-profit world. And that as a result, organizations who absolutely want to do amazing work are put in the position of having to make these absurd choices, simply to survive to do that work.
It will be interesting to see what happens in this year-or-two when Nathaniel's astute observation comes to pass, not only for lack of interest but for lack of $$ for attendees to attend. Perhaps we can take this opportunity to do more than just change the inner workings of each of these conferences individually - to do more than just move away from the keynote / plenary / breakout model and towards some of the innovative models Nathaniel describes.
Perhaps this is the time we can seize the opportunity to work across organizations, to convene for purposes that are productive - using that collective force and intellect to create some real change.
Hildy
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Hildy commented on the article |Thanks for this, Nathaniel!
Whenever I am interviewed by media who ask, "Don't we have too many?" my response is always "How many is too many? And who decides?" If a community has 1,000 organizations, was the cut-off 954? Or 327?
More to the point, my rejoinder to those reporters is also always the same: If a community has 5 organizations dedicated to child abuse, and the community still has child abuse, perhaps we need MORE and not FEWER organizations!
Both of which are a glib way of saying, "Stop with the pat questions. Can we begin talking about the only thing that matters - creating change in our communtiies?!"
So thank you for bringing up this very important point!
Hildy -
Hildy commented on the article |Alanna:
Great food for thought here. I have often dreamed of what the world might look like if drug research / production was done not by for-profit entities, based on supply & demand and focused on profit - but instead by nonprofit / Community Benefit Organizations, with no mandate other than to find what works and make it available. As you suggest above, so much changes when we challenge our assumptions. Thanks for getting my brain going this morning!
Hildy Gottlieb
Author - The Pollyanna Principles:
Reinventing "Nonprofit Organizations" to Create the Future of Our World
www.CommunityDriven.org -
Hildy commented on the article |Nathaniel:
Thanks for sharing this. It is, like all competitive capacity building programs, a well-intentioned effort that will have unfortunate unintended consequences - perpetuating the competitive atmosphere this sector almost uniformly decries. While I am sure what is taught is valuable, as it is with many capacity building initiatives, such learning will go to only those deemed to qualify.
Until we assume that “capacity building” is an aspect of community infrastructure (just like we assume usiness infrastructure such as economic development offices, microlending programs and etc. are necessary in even the smallest of towns), this sector’s potential to create significant community improvement will continue to be stunted.
Worse, though, until such infrastructure is as much an assumed part of communities as libraries and schools and parks, competitive capacity building initiatives will continue to perpetuate the competitive environment decried by everyone doing this work- including those who promulgate capacity building programs!
Given the huge numbers of people engaged in social change activities, we are at a jumping off place in terms of our potential to create significant community (and global) change. To dole out capacity building to only a competitive few negates the whole purpose in building that capacity in the first place - to build knowledgeable, effective, cooperative efforts to create the future of our world.
Hildy Gottlieb
Author -
The Pollyanna Principles:
Reinventing ‘Nonprofit Organizations’ to Create the Future of Our World
