Independent Sector Conference- Ben Jealous

One of my favorite people, Ben Jealous, the new CEO of the NAACP was the second speaker at the NGen welcome lunch. Ben walked us through a story of the movement to abolish the death penalty that he was a part of right after graduating from college in 1996. Some lessons from that movement included:

• Break big goals, like abolishing the death penalty into smaller goals like ending the juvenile death penalty.
• Engage young people in organizing work because they can engage unusual coalitions like the civil rights community partnering with the conservative pro-life movement.
• Invest in the development of your workforce, regardless of age. The anti-death penalty movement had some key wins, these wins were the result of the organizing work of a recent college grad who had success organizing students in high school and on college campuses.

Ben also gave great professional development advice as a 35 year old CEO of a national civil rights organization:

• Seek out many mentors and give them the opportunity to support your growth. Building those relationships are key in any field.
• He had specific advice for those that care about social justice. Develop the skill sets needed to build institutions, not just the skills to organize individuals. This is the way to create systemic change and strengthen your career.

Expect big things from Ben and the NAACP in the coming months and years.

Independent Sector Conference-Tamara Draut

Today through Tuesday I will be at the Independent Sector Conference in Philly and blogging about the Next Gen track. The conference track began with a great convening of all of the Next Gen leaders for a welcome lunch. The event was moderated by Brian Gallagher, the CEO of the United Way of America.
Tamara Draut author of Strapped: Why Twenty and Thirty-somethings Can't Get Ahead was the first speaker. She very honestly opened the session with her confession that as a Gen Xer she is envious of millenials (aren't we all) because they are leading the next movement of social change. Through their culture of collective action (think Facebook Causes) and belief that change is possible. That envy ends with economics. Millenials will not be as well of financially as their parents because of declining wages, increasing healthcare costs, and the skyrocketing cost of education. She called for the end of our dept for diplomas system (hear, hear!)

Blogging at the Independent Sector Conference

From November 9-11, I will be blogging from the Independent Sector Conference. Quite honestly I was going to skip their conference this year given the recent job transition but then I heard that they will be having a Next Generation track. It is really encouraging to see that an important institution like Independent Sector realizes how important it is to prepare the pipleline of leadership. It will also be great for me to meet with other foundation and nonprofit staff members from around the country. Some of my best ideas have come to me during conference sessions. They give you the opportunity to look beyong your normal way of looking at the world and envisioning something better.

If you are also attending the conference and are interested in blogging about any of the sessions or want to meet up for coffee at the conference send me an email at tristaharris (at) gmail (dot) com.

Independent Sector 2008 Annual Conference
NGen: Moving Nonprofit Leaders from Next to Now- Sponsored by Comcast
Developing the next generation of nonprofit leaders is critical to the ability of charities and foundations to improve lives around the world. The “NGen: Moving Nonprofit Leaders from Next to Now” program, which is new at the Independent Sector 2008 Annual Conference, will help expand and improve the nonprofit talent pool by developing the leadership skills and networks of emerging leaders.

Open to nonprofit professionals under the age of 40, NGen will offer its participants special sessions addressing issues they face as emerging leaders and opportunities to network with leaders of all ages. You must first register for the conference before you can register for this program.

The IS Annual Conference, “Our Hopes, Our Voice, Our Future,” takes place November 9-11 in Philadelphia.

For more information about the Annual Conference and NGen, visit: www.independentsector.org/annualconference/2008/index.html.

Myths of Flatness

"The anger that comes with a sense of injustice, that life is deeply unfair, is powerful and dangerous."
-Katherine Marshall

The Push Conference is over but the posts will continue. I think the best types of conferences are ones where you have new ideas to chew on indefinitely. The session on Flatness was an interesting contrast between the rest of the world's view of U.S. consumerism and how some U.S. companies are working to develop ethical brands. Chandran Nair started the session with an overview of how the exportation of U.S. culture is an unsustainable global nightmare and yet it would be unfair for the U.S. to tell the rest of the world that they can't enjoy the same level of consumerism that we take for granted everyday. If every person in China began driving and eating the amount of seafood that U.S. citizens do, the air would be unbreathable and the oceans would be emptied of fish (or at least the delicious ones). His suggestion was an increase of environmental planning worldwide.

Other speakers on this topic included Jonathan Greenblatt and Katherine Marshall. Jonathan talked about how corporations are trying to buy authenticity through their social responsibility efforts. He gave some examples of when this has worked well (Ethos Water, Good Magazine, Tesla sportscar, and Living Homes) but it can also go bad like the Red Campaign. My favorite quote from Jonathan was "moving people from consumer to advocate is the best way to engage people." This is evidenced by the organic movement and consumer's push to get store to stop using plastic bags. Jonathan is now working for Good Magazine, who's YouTube videos have been extremely popular (they have been described as Sesame Street for grownups) so I have shared one below.

Opening of Push Conference

Tonight was the opening reception for the 6th annual Push conference that I will be covering on this blog. Push's founder described the conference atmosphere as a "zone of discovery" and said that she hoped through our experiences here that we will develop connections to new visions of what is possible and invent a future where we can all contribute.

Push has a history of staring the conference with performance art and this year was no exception. Jenni Wolfson presented the first segment of her one woman show "Rash" about her experience in Rwanda documenting human rights abuses for the UN. A video of one of her performances is above. She had a very powerful message how about the randomness of your place of birth can have such an impact on your destiny. The show was painful to watch because it laid in front of the audience the bare truth about how ugly humans can become, when teachers can murder students and nuns can slaughter church members simply because of ethnicity.

Following Jenni was Dan Wilson, a songwriter and artist, who performed a variety of his songs including his hit "Closing Time", which was written to celebrate the impending birth of his daughter. Dan also wrote "Not Ready to Make Nice" for the Dixie Chicks. His beautiful messages of hope and possibility were a startling juxtaposition to Jenni's show.

The opening was an important reminder to me that art can expose the ugly side of human existence that we would rather ignore and can also show us our greatest possibilities. Both of those viewpoints are important as we look at how we can shape the future. Look for more posts this week as the conference progresses.