It’s graduation season again, and I watch the Clinton School of Public Service students cross the stage—brighter and more motivated than ever. I’m hopeful because I know (from the previous five years) the kinds of places they’re headed and how they will begin to make their patch of the world a better place. (And as […]
Social Change “In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”— Charles Darwin Seven years ago Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare in the heart of Memphis struggled with how to bring better health to the underserved. Their first thoughts were, who […]
Bill Moyers: What can parents do to protect their children in a hostile environment? A cancer survivor who grew up in a cancer cluster, Sandra Steingraber, has spent much of her career, in the tradition of Rachel Carson, researching the links between cancer and the environment. Take three minutes to hear this calm, well-reasoned explaination of […]
Okay, the presentation is not polished, which kind of makes it work. But the message is clear: we can’t treat climate change as just one more cause. In an earlier post, you can see a visualization of how much CO2 we humans spew into the atmosphere daily. Or you can watch this week’s TED talk in which […]
In 1984, I wrote an article for Seeds magazine titled “Is El Greco Making Maps?” It was a reaction to a new map developed by Arno Peters. What follows, borrows a bit from that piece. In the mid-1980s a map appeared that looked like something straight off El Greco’s easel. It evoked emotions I […]
Nonprofit Brand as Place Quit reading this and take a minute to think of an actual place that means a great deal to you—where you are energized or nourished. Is there a park, a coffee shop, a certain neighborhood or street, a section along a river? Hey, you’re […]
Late last month when the Supreme Court met to hear arguments on same-sex marriage, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) launched a show of support for marriage equality. On March 25th the HRC urged its followers (and their friends and families) to change their Facebook profile pictures to the red and pink equal sign. […]
They call themselves “Daredevils” because to do their work, you need courage. Youth in Kolkata, India, (formerly Calcutta) are mapping their world. As they were helping vaccinate this neighborhood in one of India’s largest cities, these youth discovered they weren’t even on the map. The Google map showed it as simply blank. So, wanting to be […]
Last summer, we shared Paul Kuttner’s review of Beautiful Trouble, a Toolbox for Revolution. Kuttner wrote that the book gathers: …a new wave of creativity in political action, from flash mobs and critical mass bike rides to viral videos and culture jamming. People across the globe are taking action in […]
