ShaulaBlog - clear-eyed capitalism

too many cool things

May 13, 2008 on 9:54 pm | In Along the way |

Here’s my problem. I need to be “working”, but unfortunately a wide swath of topics fall under my current definition of “work”. I’ve got my school project which is trying to focus on community economic development that makes enough money to be self-sustaining. I’ve got a grant-making agenda that’s shifting towards community economic development but not wanting to lose social justice advocacy. I’m working on socially responsible investing and trying to make sense (and a fund!) out of that messy blur between investing and philanthropy. So “working” all too easily turns into web surfing, but I have days like this one where I learn about so many amazing things I feel like my head will explode. I know my challenge is in narrowing focus and that time is coming: I’ve got my eye on an executive coach and a pair of superstar organizers and sooner or later I’ll rope enough of you into some kind of cohesive group with a unifying goal. I also have a couple projects that will actually end and free up some time by mid-summer.

Onto the coolness! First, many fascinating sites about community economic development. My goal for class is to write some slides on our Social Return On Investment and I’m leaning towards health and safety measurements – improving community ties reduces social isolation, improving activity reduces crime. I dug up some studies that support that, but really, successful community engagement means letting the community set goals and meet them, so measuring success is less about the health and safety and more about how people feel. I went to a great talk in Portland (I should post those notes!) and the speaker, Matt Leighninger, commented that most impact research measures community satisfaction. So I’m mostly finding community assessment toolboxes, which we really don’t need for this level of our business plan and we have a bunch. But a couple of the resources were irresistible, including this one:

http://www.enterweb.org/communty.htm a site of many annotated links

That site had a number of great pages with annotated bookmarks on financial topics, and wandering around there I found two fascinating orgs focused on social investment, from more of a banking perspective:
The Institute for Social Banking, which is hosting its 2nd biennial summer session, which seems to be a week of talking about all the top issues in social finance:

Main Themes of the International Summer School 2008 are:
• “Global Challenges & Social Banking”
Social, ecological and developmental challenges of the 21st century and their intersection with the banking and finance sector.
• “Clients´ Initiatives and Needs for Social Banking”
Innovative projects that offer answers to the challenges, but depend on socially oriented financing sources, for this purpose.
• “Established Social Banking Products & Services”
Proven services, such as microfinance in developing countries, ethical and ecological investments, or the support of integrated housing projects.
• “New Social Banking Products & Services”
Novel services, such as microfinance in developed countries and “green“ credit cards, but also more disputed topics such as emission trading.
• “Organisational and Individual Challenges & Changes in Social Banking”
Requirements towards the competences of socially oriented financial service provider and “social bankers”.
• “Developments & Prospects in Social Banking”
Future trends and scenarios in the socially oriented banking and financial sector.
• Optional Session: “Presentation of Social Banks and Qualifications for/in Social Banking”
Presentation by various European, socially oriented banks, as well as by the Institute for Social Banking on offers for education and training in Social Banking.

Anybody want to go to Denmark for a week this summer? Ooo I so want to go, and I’m so tempted, but it ends August 1st and I’m supposed to be in DC for my 20-year HS reunion on August 2nd. There’s probably a direct flight… at least I didn’t grow up in Middleburg PA or something.

I also found these folks:
International Association of Investors in the Social Economy
They connect to a working group of the World Social Forum and it all begins to tie together – many of the social justice folks in the community my foundation grants to have been connecting to the World Social Forums.

I also had a phone call today with one Elliott Brown, who after time in workforce development frustrated with his own job helping people get work that didn’t always work for them, decided to start his own model of working with employers to help employees become engaged managers of their own futures, and surprise, they become engaged employees as well! His organization is Springboard Forward and they have a dedication to metrics that satisfies the most business minded among us. He suggested that if I’m such a fan, I might also want to look at The Tipping Point, a bay-area philanthropy organization focused on effective organizations working on poverty and economic self sufficiency.

And, day-end, I’ve filtered my email, I’ve added more amazing things I don’t fully know how to process into my knowledge base, and I still don’t have a clear metric for my economic development project. Need to figure out how to stop being a generalist and get back to being a specialist.