Creating a New Education Paradigm
As highlighted by the Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance (Great Plains IDEA), one of the most significant challenges that will be faced by a collaborative network will be to coordinate and meld the relationships between the various institutions. Moxely and Maes stated emphatically that in their alliance is “an agreement on principles preceded agreement of policies”. Rosabeth Moss Kanter (1994) identified three fundamental aspects of business alliances that apply to higher education:
Successful alliances yield benefits for the partners and evolve progressively in their possibilities.
Successful alliances involve collaboration (creating new value together) rather than mere exchange (getting something back for what you put in).
Successful alliances are supported by a dense web of interpersonal connections and internal infrastructures that enhance learning; they cannot be controlled by formal systems.
Earning Potentials for Collaborative Network
Through the network there is significant earning potential to support small businesses, whatever they are selling especially arts, crafts, original works, etc. (e.g. http://creativejamaicans.com/). What the Network could bring to the small company would be helping them sell more of their products, more exposure, both via the internal network and through the increased presence of the Network to search engines, marketing development training, entrepreneurial training, etc. The Network shares a small portion of each sales.
Additionally, imagine the number of small artisans, musicians, tourism attractions, wineries, farmers markets with value-added products, etc., etc. that are struggling to get a few products online - doing a simple catalogue is not difficult to support for us, but for them it is a barrier to business growth, and one of their main "profit centers". It is also a great way to attract people to visit their businesses. We just have to make it easy for them. Not to mention a wealth of entrepreneurial training that could become a part of a digital university. We have already lots of training material and have access to much more - basics could be for free, and advanced for fees, after we help them make money and have their attention.
We suspect Jeff Bezos is thinking of attracting small business and that is behind Amazon's "Free Web sites for everyone" (www.yola.com). It's the 'teller machine" model, offer a service for free, get them dependent and addicted, then start hitting them up for money. But we won't do it that way because we will always bring them more value than they pay for. Yola is probably trying to bring people so they support small businesses, then they will use Amazon's "affiliates" sales program model to share in the revenues.
Revenue Generation Potential – this area can be brainstormed
- Exchange/purchase goods & services within network, and outside
- Amazon
- Members pay for business presence
- Look at other Web sites that pay for referrals, and affiliates
- Online catalogue sales
- Distance learning, e-books, technical assistance
- Custom Web design
- Virtual tours
Member Cooperative (see additional details describing a HCDC cooperative model based on supporting regionally reorganized rural places
- Vested members get "buy-in" they will get some designated portion
of the "profit sharing".
- may need to be some hybridization from the traditional idea.
- follow the Wal-mart model and serve geographically disadvantaged areas, but support a regional / community model
- Tourism
- Value-added agriculture
- Real estate
- Alternative Energy
- Quality of Life
. Entrepreneurship
- Personal en-strengthening and transformation
Commitment Within Your Community: Local bank re-investment, social investing and sustainable communities.
By Andy Skadberg, Yvette Dubel
An opportunity exists to open new markets for local banks and investors interested in economically, socially and environmentally beneficial projects and business. The phenomena of “banking for the poor” has shown that a huge and untapped market exists by reaching and empowering customers that do not show up on the corporate banking “radar screen”. Hidden across the world are masses of people and businesses who have not traditionally been seen as banking customers. Substantial untapped markets, related to small and local businesses, and entrepreneurs, are waiting to be realized. The success of various “micro-loans” initiatives exemplify these unrealized opportunities to reach the masses of people who have “fallen through the cracks”. And, even when these programs have generated moderate “success” they end up not meeting the full-potential to create new banking customers which is one of the primary objectives of EndlessOne Global.
Cultural fusion, in combination with social impact bonds and micro-finance, with a focus on creating a new ways to capitalize on these opportunities is the key that opens this vault. Cultural Fusion addresses easily:
- Creating a P/R brand for banks through social capital benefits of Cultural Fusion (art combined with social mission), and
- Developing new markets for social impact bonds, micro-finance, etc.
Technologies are available to easily and naturally support these new markets, and their expansion.
Banks need to re-invest in their communities and new investors are looking for more sustainable opportunities, both financial and for society and the environment. (*Note: The Christmas classic movie, "It's a Wonderful Life" with Jimmy Stewart is a powerful story that encapsulates our philosophy of citizens of a community investing in each other)
Social, and capital investment in local communities is good business. Supporting local entrepreneurs, the people who want to live and stay in the community are good for the long-term livelihood of those communities. Traditional economic development overlooks these opportunities. Trying to attract large, non-local, companies is a much more risky endeavor. Those businesses, once they lose profits, will close down and move to other places. Investing in local businesses and entrepreneurs spreads the financial risk, as well expands positive impacts for the community such as economic stability, improved quality of life, diversification of the community’s economic base, stimulating innovation and cooperation, etc. According to Sam Wyly, small business is the only growing sector of the economy. (Wyly - $1000 and an Idea)
What are the Bankers and investors looking for? – WIFME – “What’s in it for me?”
- More customers
- Loans
- Savings
- Debit cards
Typically banks and investors are not concerned with how, they just want results. However, a significant trend is happening where more are looking at using CSR or any other means to market in new and different ways (social, environmental causes).
Matching the Markets – linking investors to new or expanding businesses
Small businesses, especially in the tourism industry, need to be mindful that “traditional” (printed, newspaper, TV) advertising and marketing is not the most cost-effective or efficient. One of the first things that is necessary is for the business owners to understand their markets, and then know how to target and/or attract those customers. It is also important to understand that “discounting” (e.g. coupons, sales) reduces profits, working against their overall strategy – to grow their business. Advertising and marketing in small business is more “public relations” (PR) and educational in nature. To address this significant opportunity we must:
- Improve “word-of-mouth” and utilization of networking and technologies
- Quality “sales” approaches offering exceptional projects and services
- Maintain high value of products and services
- Support business incubation (hatchery), via education and technical assistance
- Stimulate local capital investment with good returns
- Incentivize local economic diversification
- Develop more effective advertising and marketing (more PR)
ELIMINATING POVERTY THROUGH MARKET-BASED SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
by Muhammad Yunus
The essence of my argument is that in order to reduce, and ultimately eliminate, poverty we must go back to the drawing board. Concepts, institutions, and framing conditions which created poverty cannot end poverty. If we can intelligently rework these framing conditions, poverty will be gone, never to come back again.
In this article I will draw your attention to five issues which need to be urgently revisited:
(a) widening the concept of employment;
(b) ensuring financial services even to the poorest person;
(c) recognizing every single human being as a potential entrepreneur;
(d) recognizing social entrepreneurs as potential agents for creating a world of peace, harmony, and progress;
(e) recognizing the role of globalization and information technology in reducing poverty.”
Bridging Banks and Community and Important Considerations
There is a robust and beneficial opportunity for banks to return to the original purpose of financial institutions – to support people and communities. This Local Bank Re-investment is a win-win-win, as it will encourage people to use the bank, 2) Bank gives more loans, 3) More people, more loans, more people paying, and 4) as resources and businesses expand the bank’s business expands. This process will connect banks back to their community, especially if we affect local culture with empowerment principles. We don’t have to reach everybody, just the stars, social change agents, etc. Then the rest will follow. Supporting the initiative via education and technology support will accelerate the adoption/diffusion process.
- Innovation/empowerment
- Community, Inspiration
- Communities, businesses and individuals will become Masters of own destiny – together
Additional Items and Considerations
- Success factors
- Best practices
- Cultivate for new banking customers
- Cultural fusion provides vehicle/platform
- Technology bridging cultures (e.g. Facebook, collaborative networking)
- Technology facilitation
- Networking (actor network)
- Pods (Jeff Bezos, two pizza philosophy)
o Harvard Business Review article, highlights need for facilitating/evaluating network strength. People need to have networks that are productive based on time and energy.
- Cooperatives – regional and locally empowered (e.g. CSA – community supported agriculture)
- Groups working together and getting success, rewards, accomplishment
- As we support these various “communities” we are creating teams, helping them to create something together, something
tangible, one success leads to another, etc. Team learns to work out issues, who can do what. Groups with common interests, or
geographical, or philosophical affinity have strong incentives to work together. We can enhance, facilitate and empower this to
happen through educational programs that teach “skill-sets” and provide easy-to-use tools.
o Leadership
o Team building
o Building and maintaining networks
o Etc.
Community Funding Programs
In essence, the idea is to create a “perpetual motion” engine for local economic development. A “community fund” is created that provides loans, grants and other seed-funding to stimulate local business creation. The primary fund will be replenished by loan payback, or a built-in mechanism by which benefits become partners in this innovative approach. Additionally the benefactors of the program would designate a portion of their profits to go back to continue and expand the program and maintain it in perpetuity. Needs could be in the form of “Markets or business opportunities” derived with services that need to be fulfilled within the community.
Teams (pods) - "two-pizza teams": highly autonomous task forces with five to seven people -- no more than can be fed with two pizzas -- who innovate and test new features. Jeff Bezos
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead
- Small pods of people working, collaborating, creating
- Working in teams
o Rewards in process for team
o Individual gratification
o Seeing results, seeing progress
o Identify with larger vision, or group
o People are entrepreneurial in nature - Yunnus
Teams – Getting things done! – Important Issues
o Vision, Execution – Roles & Responsibilities, Rewards
o Communications (Internal and external)
o Outputs, Harmony – (conflict resolution)
o Process management, Progress evaluation
How to Utilize Technologies – Education/Cooperation
Technology needs to be like a black-box, possibly some level of “flow experience” within the interactivity and yet maybe just be functional. “Flow Experience” might better be associated with accomplishments, and working in the groups.
- Supporting groups to “get things done!”
- Identify opportunities, needs of the community, society (Service Education Model)
- Match up with individual interests with groups and then to the “needs and opportunities”
o Matching occurs via a “survey” function
o Give people some kind of “reward” to complete the survey
Value and Service – money will follow (offer free, substantive information)
Through our networks and these educational venues we will generate monies through entrepreneurial activities, tourism, technology, healing/wellness, development, education, new technologies, innovation across the board. The financial support will come through many different channels as long as our cause is grounded in Reverence for Life.
We have an awesome network of people and products just waiting in the wings.
We will offer people a variety of resources, that will be of real value, not withholding any secrets, and then once we have supported them with real value they will want to come back enjoy added-value products, services, experiences which I see us as well compensated for.
Additionally, we will be open to donations and other creative ways to support "social goods". If you have had a chance to see the chapter of my Vision book about the Hybrid Community Diversified Cooperative, you will see that I believe a hybridized version of business, social and infrastructure should be created with each function focusing on what they are best at.
Cooperatives and Innovating Within Existing Societal Structures
Cooperative Definition (from Wikipedia)
A cooperative (also co-operative or cooperative; often referred to as a co-op or coop) is defined by the International Co-operative Alliance's Statement on the Co-operative Identity1 as an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise2. A cooperative may also be defined as a business owned and controlled equally by the people who use its services or who work at it. Cooperative enterprises are the focus of study in the field of cooperative economics3. Cooperatives have a sponsored top-level internet domain .coop4, which identifies legally registered or recognized co-operatives.
“Hybridizing” the Cooperative Model
This document begins a “Master Mind” dialog for evolving the concept of a new type of cooperative. There is something incredibly powerful about the "cooperative". It transformed agriculture. And yet in the U.S. it has really been limited in its utilization and evolution. Also, in my opinion, it tends to have a "corporate" feel. The idea of a "hybrid" would be to adjust the concept of "one vote per member". This concept rings of democracy which may not be the ultimate form of a cooperative venture, because in "a democracy" you could have 49% of the group disgruntled. That to me is not a workable model.
An evolution of the original concept of the cooperative might be derived from Napoleon Hill’s book “Think and Grow Rich” describing the functioning of the Master Mind (see discussion later in this essay). A process built into the Cooperative could involve assurance of 100% alignment regarding actionable efforts. The key to tapping into incredible powers would be to assure "pure" collaboration. In many historical and contemporary human endeavors small percentages of dissonant opinions and voices resulted in ultimate failure.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statement_on_the_Co-operative_Identity
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business
Determining the scale for regional cooperatives
In the United States, an important foundational principle for how to re-structure to a more sustainable, rural "localized" model, as compared to trying to compete in “global markets”, is to look at things from a larger scale than individual communities or counties. This likely is the same for any location in the world. Defining a region is not necessarily constrained to pre-established geopolitical or jurisdictional boundaries. In fact, as was highlighted at the Rural Policy Conference of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in 2004(5), the county based system has probably outlived its utility. In the U.S. counties were established in the 1700's based on how far a person could ride a horse in a day. And small communities may have been self-sustainable in those times.
However, today, a small local community can likely not survive unless they are associated with other communities in their region. This concept has been around for some time in tourism (Clair Gunn, 1970's). With Internet technologies, and networking capabilities, we can establish whole new paradigms of regional economic models. Imagine the waste of resources that are going to the county government offices – (in Texas alone there are 254 counties). Most of these government run operations are not very effective or efficient.
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-operative_economics
4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.coop
Building regional economies should be based on a scale that creates adequate “economies of scale". Production of all types of agricultural produce and products can occur regionally as well as other social services and education provision.
- regional delineation should be “organic” and based on a collaborative “win-win-win-win” spirit
- only extend to larger markets, for imports and exports, when necessary
- competing in "global markets" is not necessary except where there is some very special products.
A proposed structure for the cooperative – three legs: business, social, infrastructure
In the world today there are three primary types of organizations: business (financial), non-profit (social good) and institution/government (infrastructure and public services). Usually, these three types of organizations end up attempting to support all three of these societal functions within their organization, but do not succeed because the organization´s “mission” is not ultimately aligned with functions outside of their normal domain of activities. For example, government agencies are very much challenged to operate a business successfully. This is also the case with non-profit organizations, in their original form they are not really designed to be businesses.
However, over time the majority end up becoming business oriented. In all three of these organizations the main focus of the organization does not give as much emphasis on the other activities. This equates usually to sort of “lip service” being paid, or worse yet a blatant use of these activities to garner support that is then utilized in an unbalanced, or manipulative way. Many cases can be seen by corporations that are really creating environmental problems using social programs or environmental programs to convince their customers they are doing good and thus people should buy their products.
A balanced organization should give adequate importance to each function. For example, if infrastructural support falters, the success of the organization will be diminished. Likewise, if the “quality of life’ (social) diminishes then the whole organism suffers. Finally, if adequate financial resources are not generated and sustained, there will be a breakdown of the whole organization (community, region).
It appears that a blending of the primary functions of these three entities would make for a more efficient organization. The institution would be responsible for managing the infrastructure and the services of the Cooperative. The business would be responsible for the fiscal and financial (marketing, business development) aspects of the Cooperative and the continued monetary support/management for the other two legs of the organization. The non-profit portion of the organization would be responsible for the programs that ensure the continued vitality of the region, such as education, social and other community empowerment programs.
What if cooperatives became the hub of distribution of locally produced products? Whatever could be made/grown locally could be distributed locally (this includes many potential cottage industry products). Also, localized “preferred” and “quality assured” services could be supported. Ever have trouble finding a good mechanic, doctor, plumber or dentist? The cooperative could provide some form of quality assurance. This could be tied to a robust Community Supported Agriculture program (CSA) which is a growing phenomenon in the United States.
A regionally oriented assessment tool could be developed and used to determine what products/crops could be grown in the area based on soils and historical productive capacities, with special emphasis on environmental sustainability. A team of researchers from Iowa State used a very robust, and adaptable, model for a project contracted by the Winnebago Indian Nation in 1991.
Basic guiding principles
In order for the project to be successful and built on a solid foundation, the following principles should guide the structure, functions and programs of the HCDC.
- Community (regional) Ownership of their Own Destiny
- Education is Foundational (John Hagelin)
- Regional responsibility
- Feed everyone (Norman Borlaug – Nobel Prize)
- Adequate housing (e.g. Various new, green building models)
- Activities for youth (Boys & Girls Clubs) (Star Club)
- We are all in this together lending a hand to our sisters and brothers
- Empowered individuals (Desmond Green – The Global Citizenship Passport)
- Arts, Inclusion and Cultural Diversity (Yvette Dubel)
5 “New governance for a new rural economy : reinventing public and private institutions : a conference summary” http://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedker/y2004iqivp55-70nv.89no.4.html
- Innovation in agriculture (Rwanda SPREAD project)
- Environmental protection (Thomas Berry, The Great Work)
- Full-enriched “Quality of Life”
- Eliminating the Middle-man, and helping the region to realize those lost “profits”
- Entrepreneurship (various programs, Marketplace for Entrepreneurs & Kids)
The Eye Am Sharing – collaborative network (www.eyeamsharing.com).
Appendix A
Guiding Principle 3) Creating Systems that Serve People: The Infrastructure Serving People Community Model and Success Across Scales (from original Reverence for Life University proposal, Jamaica)
From over fifteen years work with rural communities we have discovered two critical concepts which must be understood to make “systems” contribute to the success of the community: 1) the Infrastructure Serving People Community Model, and 2) Success Across Scales.
The Infrastructure Serving People Model of Community Development is depicted in Diagram 4, and shows, in a very rudimentary way, the flow of life in a community from an infrastructural and services perspective that lead to the fulfillment of community’s goals and visions. Currently, in nearly all societies, we develop community supported infrastructure (Box 1) that serve the people who live in the community (Box 2), that leads the community to a collective or shared vision (Box 3), – while (by assumption) supporting individual community member’s “pursuit of happiness”. The basic, default, assumption is that the individuals in a community all share some basic values that are depicted as Box 3 on the far right “Vision/Dreams – Better life”.
Diagram 4: The “Infrastructure Serving People” Model of Community Development: Where is the Gap? – Converting the “potential” of Infrastructure and Services to Realize a Community’s Vision
The common practice is for government(s) to supply capital (derived from taxes) into a community to support infrastructure development (Box 1) (roads, sewer, water, electricity, etc.). The second box depicts the social/cultural context. This includes all of the human systems (organizational) and supporting governmental functions within the community. These two (boxes 1 & 2) components, in a “hoped for reality”, would work in dynamic interaction leading to the advancement of the human system (socio-cultural community)—that is to say, to evolve the community towards some advanced state, supposedly leading the community toward a shared vision, and a better quality of life. Theoretically and ethically this should be for all of the members of the community.
The ability for a community to realize a shared vision is highly dependent upon leadership. Over the years, working with a variety of communities and examining research that has been conducted, the process of creating this “vision/dream” in communities is becoming a stronger and more deliberate process. In fact, as one looks across the rural landscape, tools and businesses that are espousing advanced processes to support the development of community “vision” are expanding. But, in our experience, communities achieving goals and visions were most often stymied by community conflict or problems with leadership, agencies or political processes which often reflected a sort of “drama” usually associated with individual personality conflicts or power struggles.
Various techniques for resolving community conflict have been developed, but many expand on the concepts derived from a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats). Our team’s extensive work on a community development project inspired us to create this simplified version of the reality of places—communities and their citizens. A fairly simplistic model, however, it allows us to not get lost in the details of the community, using the old adage to avoid the trap of “not seeing the forest for the trees”.
It has been our observation that public dollars are spent primarily on infrastructure (roads, sewer, etc.). This is where the state and national governments focus the funding that is available for rural communities. The remaining public monies (usually insignificant compared to engineered capital expenditures) are allocated to social programs. Our observations have been that these do not adequately empower individuals or the groups that they are designed to serve. Usually they come in the form of “hand-outs”, or charity based programs. Most social programs of government agencies (or contracting companies) do not ultimately perform satisfactorily. When resources are limited, the demand for effectiveness should be extremely high. In almost all government programs monies that are available for building roads or physical infrastructure are many times greater than monies available for empowering the people.
We believe that ultimately institutions should be expected to utilize the resources allocated more effectively and efficiently. However, as stated above, changing these institutions is like trying to change the course of an oil tanker by pushing the front with a kayak. This may seem to be a pessimistic view, and we do not want to get sidetracked in our discussion. You, the reader, can come to your own conclusions. Our experience in attempting to innovate in various agencies and institutions in the United States (especially Texas) for more than fifteen years has resulted in unsatisfactory success. We believe that during these dramatically changing times we will see one of two things happen with these agencies that have been assigned to “serve the people”, they will either adapt and start serving more effectively, or they will ultimately go away. We predict no timeframe for this to happen. But the necessity for solutions is far too urgent than to be able to wait to see what happens.
We propose pragmatic, cost-effective strategies to be implemented at whatever level progress can be realized. The “success-across-scales” concept discussed next introduces some basic ideas for empowerment. Ultimately these strategies boil down to two basic ideas “education” and “empowerment”, usually initiated by inspiration. The education principle is addressed as a theme in the JRLU and is really the “hub on the wheel” and something that we can, from a practical and organizational level, address and implement. The most effective means will be through identifying a strategy and inviting other institutional (government, private, non-profit) partners, but ultimately moving forward with the strategy without waiting for buy-in. We will move forward with those partners that see the vision, believing ultimately most organizations will participate. The best strategy will be to have partners that have a mission to serve at each of the scales identified in the following discussion, but if a proper strategy is implemented from the “bottom-up” the appropriate partners will come on board because individuals of influence who participate in the JLRU/RRES (power-actors or “local stars”) will bring them in as necessary.
Success Across Scales
The “Success Across Scales” principle emphasizes that to achieve organizational (or community) success, individuals and the different scales of organizations need to be supported. (e.g. family, business, organization, city, region, state, etc.)
One simple fact that can be learned from working with individuals and organizations in essentially any context is this: the success of collective groups, on the whole, is highly dependent on the success, or health and happiness, of its individual members. This truth applies at all scales and for all organizations or communities whether it is a family, a business, an organization, a village, a city, a region, or a nation.
Collective (or community) health can be measured by the community’s ability to provide services to ensure that the whole “body” be healthy and prosperous. In other words success can be measured by how the members of the community are being served and thus prospering in health and happiness (spiritually physically, mentally and economically). This, to some extent, would be a result of services being provided through the group’s efforts (education, infrastructure, social services). However, an individual’s success is not dependent on a group’s success, or are all groups dependent on other groups. For larger communities the typical “terms” or areas of concern that are important to a systems analysis would be social, economic, political, environmental and historical/cultural (as depicted in Figure 3). The success of all community services, and subsequently the overall health of the community, could be determined by creating measures and evaluation techniques that would examine the overall performance of the government or services sectors to fulfill and sustain the community in the most healthful, prosperous and meaningful way.
Much evidence supports the fact that most agencies and bureaucratic efforts have failed to accomplish the social programs that they have been assigned to fulfill. One need only spend some time thinking of personal experiences, or observations of the performance of the organizations they have come in contact with. We could cite numerous examples, but will not for the purpose of brevity.
Taking Care of the Whole (person, community)
As Wallace D. Wattles so clearly stated,
“Those who do not quite fill their present places are dead weight upon society, government, commerce, and industry; they must be carried along by others at a great expense.” (Wattles 1910).
This quote contradicts much of our view of “helping people”, but in reality there is great truth in this statement. In fact, empowered in a “certain way” we see that every person can make a contribution, although the problem really comes down to them realizing that. We would argue that the “charity” model for service has been institutionalized, but ultimately is doomed to failure. What should replace it is the model of “inspiration” or “empowerment”.
We propose an analogy of an individual that elaborates this idea. The same analogy can then be extended to communities, nations and the world. Imagine if a person was to only take care of half of his body (if it could be done): to literally not feed it, bath it or take any efforts to assist it to be a healthy partner to the other half of his body. One can easily imagine how healthy or happy that person might be, dragging around a half-dead body.
This may seem to be a ridiculous analogy because there is no way that a person could only sustain half his body. However, is the analogy so ridiculous? If we extend the analogy to the world, at this time only about ½ of the world’s population has access to clean water. That would seem to be the most basic human right, but one half of our “body” or “collective being” is not getting the most basic needs fulfilled. Now, if we take this hypothetical situation and extend it to any other “body” that exists in the human condition – a community, a nation, the world, wouldn’t the actions of leaving behind and not caring for a significant portion of the those “communities”, denigrate the whole?
Throughout human history we can see that this has been the case. Take the civil war in the United States. What was the result of the two halves of the nation fighting? – tremendous strife and suffering (although elements of transformation resulted, including the Land Grant Education system). An endless number of examples could be cited. And currently, if one looks from this perspective across the globe, one can easily observe this “ailing body” syndrome. Dis-ease (allegorically used) is rife, poverty and human blight are ubiquitous, and extremely denigrated environmental conditions exist in every corner of the globe.
The solution to this dilemma seems to evade us. Yet as one looks in another place, in the lives of some awakened, or empowered, people, there seems to be great harmony, peace, prosperity and abundance. Is the solution so elusive and difficult that only a few can utilize and implement it? No! And this truth is well established in literature and spiritual traditions that has come to us throughout the ages. The solution is clearly stated in Wattles’s book, to “move from the competitive to the creative”, or to awaken.
The Solution: Inspiration instead of Charity
As Wattles points out, the basis of revitalizing individual lives, and naturally communities, is not through charity but through inspiration.
The poor do not need charity; they need inspiration. Charity only sends them a loaf of bread to keep them alive in their wretchedness, or gives them an entertainment to make them forget for an hour or two; but inspiration will cause them to rise out of their misery.
(Wattles, 1910)
Our challenge, and opportunity, is to assist each individual to realize this. No one is his brother’s keeper. Les Brown states it clearly "Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else." And the inability to empower the individual naturally extends to larger communities because the primary basis of social programs is based on a charity model, programs that give “hand-outs”.
Diagram 5: Success Across Scales: The success of each level of organization moving up with the arrow is dependent on the success of the lower levels.
The “Success Across Scales” Principle
Diagram 5 depicts our “Success Across Scales” principle. In very simple terms, this diagram shows that the success of the larger scale organizations (geographic, or structural) are dependent, first on the success of individuals, and then on the subsequent organizational success moving up the pyramid. This diagram contradicts the traditional top-down, hierarchical model that has over-taken most governments, institutions of higher learning, and corporations.
There appears to be an interesting paradigm shift occurring where these “top-down” systems are failing and are being replaced by systems that are based on the foundation of empowerment of individuals, and cooperative models (grass-roots). It is beyond the scope of this proposal to cite numerous examples, but one significant case is in banking, the success of micro-loan programs that are making tremendous impacts in Bangladesh, Guatemala and Colombia (as well as in other countries) (Banker to the Poor). The success-across-scales principle illustrates a natural, logical building of the “capitalization” of social systems, or in other words – empowering people.
It is our contention, as we propose a new development paradigm, one based on each individual awakening, that the next critical organization to re-align is the family. Practically universally, the family will be a pivotal “community” for the realization of a successful societal empowerment strategy.
Realizing this awakening, or transformation, is not about forcing the family to change, but to empower individual family members to free themselves from limiting perceptions and mentality. Providing “a way out” of the cycle of suffering to a family member, to awaken and empower them to “demon-strate” personal transformation is possibly the most effective strategy. Ultimately, for the family, all of the members need to thrive, if they do not this decline is reflected as a diminishment of the overall health, happiness and prosperity of the family. And typically this diminishment is played out generation after generation. However, in some places this tide is being reversed.
We expect that the rate of societal change will advance rapidly as families are transformed and that transformation then “adopts and diffuses” into the larger community groups. So our efforts need not so much be focused on changing the family, as on reaching the “change agent” (or receptive individuals) in the family. Change agents are ripe and receptive and can be found throughout organizations, communities and societies. These individuals then become the carriers of the message, not through preaching, but through demonstration, through living a more empowered and awakened life.
Then, as the rest of the family watches their brother, sister, daughter or husband make their dreams come true and become free, the rest of the family will much more likely follow suit. We can see this phenomenon demonstrated in phenomena like Alcoholics Anonymous, A Course in Miracles, Over-eaters Anonymous and other “self-help” organizations.
The family, given its importance in nearly all cultures, can be a pivotal influence to catalyze societal (global) transformations. This process is known in scholarly circles as “adoption-diffusion” and the process can be stimulated at all levels and across broad geographies. The key to success is to find “stars”, “change agents”, or “power actors” who will embrace “change and transformation” and then will show others how to transform their lives, to realize their dreams and aspirations. In other words, leaders from the people, so to speak, can be inspired to show others in the community how together they can change things. Often times these people are hidden, waiting for the right opportunity to, selflessly, show others the way.
In order for a region to successfully create collaborative initiatives, it will be dependent on the success of the communities within the region, and also the businesses, but ultimately the individuals who operate those businesses.
Appendix B
A Concept for a Groundswell Crowd Funding Project
This is from my dream state of February 27, 2014. This was after I had been talking about crowd funding and to create a global fund for our children. I remember I was earnestly speaking with a large group of people, my ire was up a bit, it is time! There was essentially no editing.
FYI – my wife conducted a successful Kickstarter campaign for our friend Bob Windt, the inventor of a small, efficient Hovercraft (www.hovercraft.com) – the funding is for a children’s book! “Yep, It’s Rocket Science”, teaching science and physics through hands-one learning, making “science toys” - http://goo.gl/bS562z
The book is now published www.yepitsrocketscience.com
A concept for crowd funding.
THE BREATH OF LIFE PROJECT
"Breathing New Life into the World Economy"
$100,000,000, but we would like a billion
(a 1,000,000 member cooperative, to start)
This project is for your children and our future. If you want to see the reason for this project, get out a picture of a child you love. Or, look at a picture of anything in nature, or at the Earth from space. You could even look at yourself in the mirror because that is the ultimate reason, because you are here to help make this shift occur.
The financial machine that is operating in this world is out of control. No one has a handle on it. No one understands how it is really working. It appears that it wants to eat all of life. It doesn't, because we don't because we created it and we can stop it. All we have to do is stop feeding it.
A consortium of individuals are cooperating and have created a system that can bypass the corporate banking system and initiate a network of cooperative financial centers (banks). These can be created at any scale: nation, state, city, church, group, company or even you.
As you enter this Groundswell system you will create a secure investment into the future and all of life on earth.
Examples of cooperative/independent banks can been seen popping up in many places such as North Dakota (state bank), the Lakota Fund in South Dakota and in the transformation that is going on in small countries like Iceland and Scotland. If you want to see the basic premise for what we are proposing watch the movie "It's a wonderful life" with Jimmy Stewart and the role that the Baily building and Loan played in the community depicted. However we can bring this down to a much more personal level.
With the Groundswell card you become your own bank. A secure repository for your earnings and future prosperity.
The main reason why we (Groundswell) share prosperity is because this is what the new economy will be based upon - sharing, giving and abundance. Instead of a debt system which systematically enslaves people into imaginary debt into their future - the system we have created will be based on real value, assets but especially "Reverence for Life", and that means all of life (see the work of Albert Schweitzer).
Your $100 investment into Your and your children's future will help us to expand this work to get this project proliferated to every corner of the world where the current economic system has influence.
Ultimately the results of this will be the end to war, environmental destruction, health systems that incur massive pain and suffering and any other forms of calamity that is driven by the corporate "profit" motive.
The benefits first off is you get to continue using electronic Visa/Mastercard just like you do today. But the great thing is you will not be going into debt or paying any interest.
The Groundswell card is not a "credit" card (which is essentially a contract to go into debt, the crisis facing the world financially) but a money services instrument. This card will be connected to future currencies that are not debt based.
Other benefits include, but are not limited to, a whole array of things that have been prevented by the "profit" motive
- stopping environmental destruction (e.g. clean water, air)
- replenished soils and sustainable agricultural systems
- free and efficient energy technologies
- new community infrastructure
- every person living fed, clothed, housed and receiving health/wellness care
- REAL education
- Improvement in all community and social services
- a total restructuring of industries like the military, prisons, medicine, agriculture, transportation, communication, etc.
- a freeing up of all of humanities creative potentials to begin to experience life as the "free" and sovereign beings that we were born to
be.
The most important and simple idea to understand is that the current system of money is based on a lie of "scarcity". Money is energy and energy is not scarce, nor is life. Just look around you.
We have an incredible team of people and organizations that have been working a very long time to bring this opportunity to you. It is offered in absolute love and with a vision for peace, harmony and abundance for all of life including the Earth herself and the natural world.
Here we answer the question "What do you get?"
- a list of the "money services"
- The Groundswell card is connected to digital currencies which can be earn in a variety of ways. Our first concept is through reading,
viewing and sharing digital content in various forms. This is something that will totally transform our educational systems.
- here we can include a short case study about the homeless man in Seattle who has earned bitcoin so he can eat/
The future will turn this system into a truly giving and sharing system, just like how the trees and sun exchange their energy with us and Source/God puts our breath in us and love in our hearts.
The mission of this project is to free humanity from the shackles of exchanging paper and the creation of imaginary numbers that has squelched human creativity, compassion and love for a long time.
Questions People Might Have
We can hear the naysayers "Sounds to good to be true."
It's not! Further, this attitude comes from the existing skeptical view of life which is a product of the scarcity view of life. This view has most of humanity, even the "smart" ones, in a perpetual hamster wheel called work - which is actually debt slavery.
Why does Groundswell need money?
The infrastructure and initiative has been built. Many of our team have sacrificed enormously to bring this opportunity to you. Because it is being built inside of the existing system, in order to take it to a scale that will truly free humanity to live in absolute abundance, which is the intent of all of life, we have to be able to expand capacities to accommodate the scale of transactions for the future. We have to prepare now for the incoming. This scaling requires improvement of outreach and Web presentation, expansion of computing powers and continued legal support. The costs are associated with future needs, but also the "reverse engineering" out of the old system which uses current currencies. Essentially a "Catch 22" for those familiar with the term.
Total transparency. Our current global economic system is based on secret meetings, board rooms, politics, legal gyrations and lots and lots of lies, deception, corruption, and more lies. These ways of being, including the destruction of life are, seemingly, rewarded. These rewards are temporary and illusionary. They are only artificial constructs of the game as it has been orchestrated, so far.
This game is up. Life is about love. And if you are breathing you are made of love. And we who are bringing this opportunity know that we cannot take from life and advance as life. The basis for why we have created this and are sharing it with all of humanity, with complete humility, love and a spirit of love and generosity - this truth is contained in the simple teaching "do unto others, as you would have done to you" - this is not a rule, it is the way for we understand what we do to you, we do to ourselves, our God, and all of life.
Any monies received above the 100 million will be put in future trusts for our children, possibly environment, or social welfare projects.
$100 is the recommended donation (establishes an account) but any donation will receive a card - this is how the new cooperative economy will work. When those who are struggling now get into a better position they can catch up if they please, but it is not required, or expected.
Appendix C
Some discussion of the Public, Private Enterprise - a way for "the people" to take back control of creating money.
Introduction by Andrew Skadberg of John DeSantis’s “Public, Private Enterprise”
John Lennon’s song Imagine was an invitation.
Can you imagine a world with no poverty? If you have done volunteer work, or contributed to a cause to make people’s lives better, or a project to protect the environment, what if we never had to worry about money to support all of these causes?
An Invitation, or Challenge: Take the Inspiration, and as a world come together and figure out how to actually make it work. The invitation is to enter a dialogue.
Why would we come together – what is the problem? Economics drives suffering on the planet.
The Solution: I ask you to consider what money actually is? Where does it come from? How does it come into existence? Why can’t we create as much as we want to fund, or fuel the projects that can help everyone?
Money is energy. Is there any lack of energy. Of course the powers that were who sell us oil and electricity want us to believe there is scarcity, and that there is not enough energy to go around. However, all of the energy that runs this planet comes from our sun. And the amount of sun energy that is hitting our planet is more than enough to sustain all life.
Zeitgeist Web site has a great video on how the Federal Reserve and the Treasury create money – out of thin air!
What I envisioned as I first considered John’s idea was the creation of a “money sun”, a bountiful, abundant and generous system that would provide us all the needed currency to fulfill John’s and my vision for the world. Is it your vision too?
I am an entrepreneur. I have been one since I was eight years old. I have now become obsessed with helping the people of the world and the natural environment – it is our home and we have been poisoning, and defiling it.
In my life’s work in rural revitalization and people empowerment, I have created many “solutions” to problems, but what I have come to know is that the economic systems of the world, much less of the individual governments, do not work when it comes to taking care of people – and the planet. But we made it up. Why can’t we change it? We can.
So, here in this book, I am contributing my 2 cents to John’s Vision. If many people Decide to work towards this vision – it will work. And I will be one of the first people to be entirely grateful because I have spent the better part of my adult life working to create solutions that can work.
Although I have many good ideas, that should have been implemented long ago, the primary challenge, or limiting factor was lack of money – or “funding” as the various bureaucracies, banks, philanthropic organizations, non-profits would have you call it. They have been the ones holding the purse strings – but in reality, it is the same small group of economic elites that control all of these systems. As long as we keep standing in their lines, hoping for handouts, we are going to remain in the same situation that has been in existence for thousands of years.
This book is about creating an alternative – a SOLUTION. I have called the world “bass-ackwards”. I believe I was led to John DeSantis and his FORUM through some sort of divine intervention, because, part of my challenge as I have been developing my “Vision to Transform the World” is an economic solution.
In this book, John describes a way that we can bring the world back on track. What I mean by this is to focus our “economic systems” towards serving THE PEOPLE, which in my mind is why we created all of this stuff – all of the things that we do.
I do not want to go into a huge dialogue about why the money system operates as it does, but it has become very clear that there has been a small group of “economic elites” that have systematically convinced us of the idea of scarcity. It started with Adam Smith. But science has shown us, irrefutably, that everything is energy. And, on this particular speck of space dust that we call Earth – all of the energy needed to drive living systems comes from the sun. And about 70% of the energy that hits the planet actually bounces off. I can tell you with no reservation – there is no lack of energy anywhere on this planet, or in the cosmos. So, if everything is energy, that means that money is energy. And that means that there doesn’t need to be any scarcity of Money.
What we lack is creativity, inventiveness, and a willingness to let go of old ideas that obviously don’t function and bring on CHANGE. John DeSantis is inviting us to pause in our lives, for just a moment, and consider the possibility that there is a way that we can solve all of the “problems”, which in my life experience I have come to see as “opportunities”.
John’s vision will work. It isn’t rocket science. It’s a common sense solution to the world’s ills and I am doing my part to advance the cause. I invite you to join the Forum, and see if we can bring this Vision, this Dream to Reality. It’s not too late to try.
What is your vision for the World?
I had a vision, similar to John’s, back in 1979 where I saw that we truly are all together on this little ball we call Earth. I have been saying for some time that “We are all in this together, we have to save ourselves and each other.” I have written quite a bit about this in my document called “A Vision to Transform the World”, and in numerous blogs of which many are included in my book “I Am Sharing: thoughts, experiences and learning about Love and Service”.
I refer to this idea as “Taking care of the Whole” which means, that in truth, humans and the planet are a “collective being”, and if we want to truly be free and advance evolutionarily, we have to do our utmost to provide for the other half of our “ailing body”. The ailing body, is the better than ½ of the world’s population that suffers from incredible poverty. Our major obstacle, as so clearly revealed in John’s book, is our economic system.
So what is it? What’s the idea?
FUND DOING! and DO GOOD!
It is so simple that I think no one has seen it before John. We humans create the money. We literally, throughout history print the money from thin air. We used to have something tangible backing the money up, like gold. But now we don’t even do that. In fact, now, most of the money is simply digital “ones and zeros” floating around the globe in computers.
So the idea is to create enough currency to fund all needed projects to help people and the planet.
I ask you to consider why we can’t do this.
Of course, if you are an economist you are going to cite all kinds of reasons, or actually most people will come up with many ideas, but at the end of all of that discussion those reasons will not be valid. That is because, if we made money up, we can make more money to make sure there is enough currency (energy) to accomplish the things that we want to.
Foundational Concept – PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN MONEY!!!
What is required? AN OPEN MIND.
In other words, an open mind means the ability to let go of the historical perspectives that you have had up until now. The past does not determine our future. Living under past concepts of reality is analogous to driving your car down the highway by looking in the rear-view mirror.
What is the Initial Idea? Public Private Enterprise
What’s the point, or the main idea?
HOW CAN WE SOLVE THESE MAJOR PROBLEMS WITHIN THE EXISTING FORMS OF ECONOMIC SYSTEMS?
The key idea in this vision is to ALWAYS Finance ALL of the Necessary DOING, and with no need for taxes of any kind: effectively creating a world that is always awash in more and more new money because it is always awash in all of the productive new "doing", that is always able to be financed, no matter how much is needed, in an endless round of one hand naturally washing the other in this way, dynamically keeping it all going, in a constant, "Steady as she goes", non-stop rhythm, with no constantly recurring economic cycles of "Boom & Bust", both in and out of government. This will allow us to always finance everything that is most important to prosperity, peace, satisfaction, health, and happiness for all of humanity. This is the bottom line to this vision. This is where the idea of "Public & Private Enterprise" comes in. The goal is to end up with only one world-wide currency, not different money in each nation with constantly changing values. Why? So that it always stays very stable because it is naturally loved and highly respected by everyone because of the very practical, productive, all-encompassing, problem-solving, humanity-helpful way that it comes into existence in the same exact way in every single nation.
NO TAXATION WILL BE NEEDED BECAUSE ALL GOVERNMENTS ARE CONSIDERED TO BE "PUBLIC ENTERPRISES" AND SHOULD BE FUNDED AS SUCH
What can we do: Feed everyone, educate everyone, the best health care for everyone, housing, senior services, security and emergency services, the best services for prison systems, research into all fields including medicine, technology, human systems, etc., energy, environmental management and protection, assistance to communities especially rural agricultural, natural disaster relief, transportation, etc., etc., etc.
How does it work?
HOW CAN WE ACTUALLY KEEP BRINGING NEW MONEY INTO EXISTENCE, IN A WAY THAT IS ACCEPTED AS THE WAY TO DO IT, BY EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, IN ORDER TO CONTINUALLY FINANCE EVERYTHING THAT FALLS UNDER THE "PUBLIC ENTERPRISE" SIDE OF THE EQUATION?
I will start us off here with just one possible method for us to consider, and try to keep developing and improving it as best I can. This particular method has a world-wide central mission control aspect to it, an international department for the issuing of all new money for both startup and existing and ongoing "Public Enterprises" in every nation, which, as said, includes the funding of the government of each nation, under a system that is standard throughout the world, and which is accepted by all of the governments and their people in the world. It should be something more or less like any particular senate or congress, or world body, where each and every nation in the world, no matter how small or large, is equally represented, and whose votes are always equal, with none having any more power than any of the others.
In this vision, proposals for new "Public Enterprises" will always be submitted to this international body, from everywhere -- from the government of the smallest town to the largest nation in the world, and all governments in between, after, maybe, for example, a small town's proposal for the funding of a needed project, after it has first planned and worked out the details in its own community, has then been approved by the state it is in, then by the nation it is a part of, and then sent to the world body for final approval and the creation of the new money so that the proposed project can be quickly funded and can begin being created.
Before I go too much further, let me say that everyone should keep in mind, at all times, when evaluating this whole new way to do things, especially those who now own businesses, large and small, anywhere in the world, that all new money that constantly enters the world-wide system through productive and needed "Public Enterprise" activities really enters and circulates throughout the whole world-wide "Private Enterprise" system, right from the start. Why? How? Because everything, from payroll at every level, which includes, just as any other enterprise needs, planners, consultants, experts and executives, as well as all of the workers at every level of job skill and activity, from the most skilled scientists and technicians to teachers, secretaries, drivers, maintenance workers, etc., same as in private enterprise, is spent in the "Private Enterprise" side of the equation. And all of the construction within "Public Enterprise" is contracted through and done by "Private Enterprise" businesses, who are paid for doing it, same as always, and all of the needed and necessary supplies and equipment are bought from private enterprises too, and so on.
We now begin to see how we can, if we choose to as a world, after a long and intensive public dialogue, worldwide, quickly evolve to be a world that is always "awash" in money and productive doing, rather than the reverse as we now experience it -- you know, where we can never pay for everything important that we desperately need and need to do and change, even though we know how to do what needs to be done. As I see it, we are always back to square one, to the very basic and crucial question of: HOW, WHEN, AND FOR WHAT REASONS DOES MONEY COME INTO BEING.