These are challenging times economically. With official unemployment rates hovering around 8% in both the U.S. and Canada, and millions more either unaccounted for, or severely underemployed, struggling to make ends meet is becoming more the norm. More and more, the promise of getting a college education and then moving up the corporate ladder is disappearing. Not only is it so much less possible in this age of de-unionization and regular corporate layoffs, but for many people, myself including, it’s simply not the story of a fulfilling life.
My entire adult life has been dedicated to being a community leader through grassroots service, activism, and organizational development. When given the choice between just making more money and potentially making the world a better place, I always have chosen the latter. I live my life by the motto “Serve locally; transform the world!,” believing that it is both easier to have a deep impact in one’s own community, but also that those benefits have ripple effects across the planet.
While it may seem like things are dire, the current economic crisis is also an amazing opportunity to reassess how it is that we work and live together. To challenge the stories we have about what is valuable and what isn’t. And to learn to come together in renewed, more interconnected ways.
About a year and a half ago, I left the career I had been developing as an adult ESL teacher. I loved my students, but everything else about my work felt limiting. Getting a decent, steady paycheck, for example, was often both a blessing and a curse. Over and over again, I watched co-workers (and sometimes myself) making decisions primarily based on personal job retention and/or maintaining the reputation of the organization we worked for. Too often, the need to challenge the larger systems our programs functioned within was either squashed, or marginalized in favor of maintaining the safety of the status quo. In the end, all of us – students and teachers alike – suffered as a result.
Here are a few other conclusions about our society in general that have come to me since leaving my teaching position.
1. The dominant paradigm tells us that we have to choose between taking care of ourselves financially and serving our communities.
2. The ways in which most jobs are structured make it difficult for the average person to place service and social activism work at the center of their lives. In other words, what drives our hearts is too often marginalized by trying to take care of basic needs.
3. There is a strong storyline that says “you must be self-sufficient, and that any form of asking for financial support from others means you’ve failed.”
4. The majority of paid work is underwritten by a single employer, or a small number of people donating money or paying for goods and services.
While I have not had a steady full time or part time job over the past sixteen months, I have been very active in my community. From volunteering my time to help develop a small non-profit to being part of the visioning team for an urban, eco-centric village project, my life has been rich with wonderful people, amazing ideas, and loads of generosity. More and more, I have been asking myself: “What would it look like if this were the norm? What if more of us didn’t have to choose between taking care of our financial needs and serving others?”
And so, I have started an experiment in generosity. There are basically three ideas behind the community change maker campaign.
- First off, I want to spark conversations about what we value as work, and what we collectively support financially as work. Specifically, I’m hoping to inspire more people to re-center serving and giving back in the communities we live in. And that we need to find creative ways to help each other be able to afford to serve more, as opposed to treating service, volunteering, and the like as something “extra” people do when they can. Or as something only the financially privileged are able to do.
- The campaign is raising funds to support my work in three community groups here in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The idea behind this is that there are different kinds of generosity that mutually support each other. I can give much more of my time and skills because others have given money, well wishes, and written support.
- When the campaign is finished towards the end of April, I hope to be able to share my experiences and learnings with others (online and in person) who are actively serving and giving in their community, but who are also living on the edge financially. Too often, basic financial needs prevent people from doing more in their communities, and I’d like to be a part of changing that, through offering a different approach to dealing with those financial needs.
Although it’s designed to support my current work, I want others to do something similar. Indeed, I’d like to spark a community change maker revolution.
In this age of high unemployment and crumbling economies, we need to create ways to re-center service, while also shifting how we think about supporting each other financially. Instead of considering community as the place where we go home to after long, stressful work commutes, let’s come together to make our communities the lifeblood of our existence. Places where joy, service, and sharing spontaneously arise on a daily basis.
I view this project as an inspirational prototype. Not only for folks like myself who are taking a deep (risky) plunge, but also for anyone who wants to keep their day jobs, but perhaps could shave some hours off of their regular schedules to do more volunteering and activist work.
It’s already happening. What I’m doing is not brand new, but maybe the way I’m framing it is. Regardless, the world is calling us to think anew how we work, come together, and live. Come join me and be part of the change maker revolution.
Photo Credits
Photo courtesy of Nathanserves
Hi Layne,
The fundraising died down awhile back, but the experiment continues. Still trying to figure out how to keep it going for a longer period of time. The vast majority of people are really locked into the dominant paradigm around work and finances.
Anyway, use this link to find my blogs. http://zenharvests.blogspot.com/
You will see a listing on the sidebar of my active blogs and current posts on each. Feel free to contact me via e-mail if you have any other questions/comments.
Nathan
Good morning Nathan
How is your experiment progressing
I too have been evaluating , scratch that, I have been sitting on the sidelines reading other people’s blogs/accomplishments/actions/musings and looking for the quintisential aha moment where my rubber hits the road and I too begin living a life of purpose I appreciate and understand. Damn that’s a long sentence. Normally I would have looked to edit the sentence structure / grammar yadayada … Not this time. I am even resisting adding adding a coma after Normally. Old habits die hard.
Will you please send me an invite to your blog(s)… I’ve enjoyed reading your articles this morning .
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Yes, that’s what I love about this.
I also think it’s a easy way to support a cause when you can’t make it to the rally or meeting, for example. It’s not an excuse not to show up in person, but it’s way better than doing nothing.
One additional point about Ashoka’s changemaker program is that it’s mostly focused on new kinds of business. And much of the seed money is coming from existing companies and large foundations. What I am doing is trying to offer everyday people the chance to support other everyday people. Too often, it is about big money donors getting to decide what is worthy and what isn’t. The way I see it, another way is to empower a much larger number of individuals or small groups to support projects and work they feel is valuable. Furthermore, I am not focused on funding for social business development. It’s more about supporting people to do work and projects benefiting their communities in whatever forms it takes.
Tony, I know I am not alone. Never claimed to be. Ashoka is a fine organization. However, they are focused on issues outside of North America. Perhaps you didnt notice, but I am from the US. And frankly, other than the Northwest region, this idea is not very common. The kinds of organizations you have in BC are unheard of in much of the United States. Unless you have lived here, you have no idea how many hurdles ideas like this face. People will support someone going half way around the world to serve, but when it comes to doing so in your own community, you’re expected to do it on top of your day job or when you retire. The kind of thing groups like Ashoka are doing in terms of microfinancing and spreading the generosity opportunities, I want to help bring to my region of the world. To actually have more people who are able to focus on rebuilding the communities they live in. That’s why I am passionate about this. Thank you for the opportunity to expand my reasoning behind the project.
Actually, Ashoka is everywhere, including North America. They have quite a robust program up here in northern BC and have funded several social entrepreneurs in the US. They do not focus solely on start-ups. In fact, their model is to focus on existing enterprises and provide support to rapidly expand them/let the entrepreneur do their work.
A big reason why the way you are going about financing is not very prevalent is due to the tax code. You can’t have a sole-proprietorship utilize all the tax benefits out there for forms of corporations like a charities, foundations, non-profits, community interest companies, etc…
What I find interesting in your model is how you are pretty much bypassing the whole business aspect for pay. You are requesting that people in your community pay you directly so that you can function as an agent of social change. You are held accountable to your community, not the government nor the business. Your funding is tied to communicating your worth to your community, not what property you own (beyond your innate ability) and profit from. That is a difficult challenge because you are relying on the charity of others based on their faith in you.
I hadn’t heard much about Ashoka’s work in the U.S. beyond some green tech companies getting support.
“What I find interesting in your model is how you are pretty much bypassing the whole business aspect for pay. You are requesting that people in your community pay you directly so that you can function as an agent of social change. You are held accountable to your community, not the government nor the business.” Right. This is a pretty accurate assessment. Although the beauty of an online platform is that a person can expand their funding capacity far beyond their immediate community. I have had donations from people all over the U.S, some of whom only know me through the blogging and online writing I have done. While the goal might not end up being reached, I do think there is some potential in this approach. But you are correct in that it’s a challenge, and definitely not easy. As I said, it’s an experiment because before doing it, I really couldn’t gauge what the response would be. Now, I have gotten more of a sense of some of the possible responses, some of which point to a need for adding strategies and de-emphasizing some of the things I have done this time around. Anyway, thanks for engaging on this.
I wish you good fortune. This will be a most interesting experiment and I await the results. Your approach is scalable in my opinion. I would urge you to address this aspect as it could very well gain traction. If you don’t, then I will.
Look up the Ashoka foundation (www.ashoka.org) or read the book by David Bornstein on Social Entrepreneurship. If you want some British Columbia examples: Community Futures, Social Economy Hub, new business structure: http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2012FIN0011-000240.htm, SFU’s Community Economic Development program, and so much more. Anyways, nothing new and you’re not alone on this. I don’t want to rain on your parade, but Changemakers is a program that is highly successful from Ashoka.
It took me a while to figure out that I needed to click on the word “experiment” to get to the meat and potatoes of actually sending some dinero your way. How about making it more obvious?
And, this is a GREAT idea. Completely makes sense. It is an opportunity for those who care but are caught up in the exigencies of life to support good things unfolding. Hope the campaign goes berserk for the rest of the month.