I push nonprofit and for-profit people and businesses to really explore the boundaries of what double and triple bottom line thinking, acting and profiting means! Too many people on both sides of the teeter-totter use the community side to feel good and the money side for pocketing profits. There is way more collaborative potential with exploring true blends of opportunity. For more than 20 years I've been a professional fund raiser, political advocate and nonprofit administator in the areas of family support, counceling, homelessness, youth empowerment, alcohol and drug assistance and much more. This work involved me in national and international HIV/AIDS empowerment projects (International AIDS Candlelight Memorials), gender equality initiatives (original "Take Our Daughter's To Work Day"), and youth development opportunities. It has also given me the chance to watch and become a strong advocate for the role of community nonprofits in the emerging movement of socially responsible investing. Now I am working on showing stronger models in action!
Love the little town we live in, Benicia, CA. Known affectionately by me and my partner (if no one else!) as California's City of Many First, this was the historical center of many of the activities that made this fine state what it is today. We're working on capturing what some of this is for a small-town retail store business model now in development. Nothing like being planted in the dirt of innovation!
I would love to have two ideas come to fruition:
A "Nickel-a-Meal" campaign wherein customers at fast food restaurants voluntarily contribute an extra nickel with each purchase so these millions of self-generated dollars (or even a few billion) can be used to develop locally supported food empowerment projects against childhood obesity.
I'm also working on a series of novels that would give life (real and perhaps some CGI) to commercially appealing entertainment heroes and heroines whose talents center on the tools and techniques that social activists actually use in their efforts to change the world ... or one little part of it. Currently, the main rolemodels young people have via the entertainment media are ficticious and weapons oriented. I'd love to see such "Advocates In Action" as a first step toward rewarding social justice activities in a realistic way that is even appealing on the big screen and the world of virtual entertainment.
It's just as easy to click over to my Experience page at www.AllanShore.com (aka www.VentureCharities.biz). Thanks.
