For readers out there who are looking to work with non-profits, GOOD Magazine is hiring for a role to manage their relationships with non-profit organizations.
GOOD magazine’s business model is to take all (yes, 100%) of its subscription revenues and donate it to a selected group of non-profits. (And yes, Acumen Fund is one of the non-profit partners; you can subscribe and chose Acumen Fund here).
GOOD magazine is all about celebrating and sharing innovative ways to change the world for good. More interesting still, GOOD is part magazine, part movement. For example, on September 23rd in New York they are having an event called “Mavericks of Education” featuring Wendy Kopp, Ninive Calegari, and John Wood. I’m sure it will be a great way to spend an evening. From GOOD’s website:
Frustrated by the current state of our education system? Come take part in the salon series goodebut of GOOD Conversations featuring a powerhouse line-up including Ninive Calegari, co-founder & CEO, 826 National, Wendy Kopp, founder & CEO, Teach for America and John Wood, founder & CEO, Room to Read. Join the conversation and learn how these mavericks worked inside and outside the system to make change happen.
To apply for the job, email Liza Vadnai (liza@goodinc.com) and to RSVP for the event, email conversations@goodinc.com with your name, email address, city and state.
A friend just shared this fascinating conversation on the AIGA website about noticing. It touches on a few interrelated themes, but starts with the basic premise that it is important to be an “active noticer” (my made-up term) in the world if you’re going to be an effective designer (and, I would argue, communicator and storyteller).
I’m seeing the importance of noticing coming up more and more. You need to be an active listener if you’re going to be successful at connecting with people. You need to pick up on peoples’ cues, the flow of their conversation, even their language (I’ve noticed this last point especially when speaking in a foreign language, and how one’s accent naturally adjusts depending on the person with whom you’re talking. I’m pretty sure it happens in English all the time as well, it’s just harder to notice). But more broadly, the more you notice in the world, the more informed, connected, and aware you are of your surroundings, both local and global.
Noticing is also at the core of the design thinking mentality of great design firms, and IDEO has worked closely with Acumen Fund (where I work) to help us think about and incorporate user-centered design in creating products and services for the poor.
What a radical notion: start with poor people, their habits and their preference, when figuring out how to design a product. Take their opinions seriously. It’s about listening and valuing what you’re hearing and seeing, and knowing that you as an outsider don’t have all the answers. It’s also the opposite of how lots of poverty alleviation has been practiced by international organizations, like the World Bank (“Bring in the experts!”), for decades.
From the conversation at AIGA, Dan Soltzberg comments:
It reminds me a lot of the approach we take to being with people when we do fieldwork. In the field, you have to simultaneously drink all kinds of information in, and at the same time be active in guiding the interaction. There’s this tightrope walk between action and non-action, ego and non-ego. To move back and forth gracefully between these different ways of being requires noticing not just what’s going on around you but what’s going on inside you as well. It’s one of these things that sounds so simple, but really takes practice to be good at.
If you’re going to be an effective communicator and storyteller, you have to be good at noticing – it’s the source of your raw material and the fabric of your conversations.
I’m discovering that it’s also part of the value of blogging: it forces you to notice and really pay attention to the world around you.
Outside of the proof that marketers don’t yet know everything about us — the catalogue definitely arrived in the wrong house — it got me thinking: how much is “too much” when it comes to consumption? As a friend of mine once described about religiosity, it’s common to think that everyone less religious than you has no values or spirituality, and everyone more religious is some sort of kook. Which may be why I let myself off the hook for buying at Whole Foods or for the occasional tin of Stonewall Kitchen Pancake Mix (yum!) as an occasional luxury, but decide that $100+ for kids cords is borderline offensive.
I’m not arguing for a society without luxury — in fact, luxury goods played an important role in consumption over the past decade and in some ways drove the U.S. economy (let alone being things of beauty). I’m more curious about how any society tramits a system of values that determine what to consume, what to save, and what to give away. Religion is probably a good starting point, inasmuch as it emphasizes community, piety, charity, and giving. Leading by example is likely another, which is why Bill Gates and Warren Buffett should be praised both for giving AND for showing the world what is expected of people with great wealth.
This question will only become more important as more wealth is created in the Middle East, India, China, and other emerging nations. Is there anything that can be done that can strengthen and reinforce the impetus to give and support those in needs? And how big a role should breakthrough non-profits play in setting an example of what can be done with philanthropic dollars?
Here is an excerpt from an incredibly interesting piece by Paul Collier in the Guardian. Simply put, he is arguing strongly in favor of genetically modified foods for Africa. (The ban on GM food in Europe is just one in a litany of actions by first-world governments to subsidize and protect domestic agriculture at the expense of the developing world.)
My only question for Collier is, what the likelihood is of widespread adoption of GM foods in Africa if there is not a major policy shift in Europe? Put another way — isn’t the risk of adoption too great for the foreseeable future, given the level of uncertainty around the ability to export GM crops into first-world markets?
Africa cannot afford the GM ban. Its cities, fed by imports, need global prices to be low. Without cheap food the children of the urban poor will be malnourished. Africa’s farmers, broadly self-sufficient, need higher productivity. Productivity per acre has stagnated, so rising production has depended on expanding the area under cultivation. But with population growth this option is running out.
On the horizon is climatic deterioration due to global warming. The semi-arid parts will get drier, and rainfall variability will mean more droughts. In southern Africa, the staple food – maize – is likely to become unviable. Whereas for other regions the challenge of climate change is to reduce carbon emissions, in Africa it is primarily about agricultural adaptation.
It is conventional to say that Africa needs a green revolution. The reality is that the green revolution was based on chemical fertilisers, and even when fertiliser was cheap, Africa did not adopt it. With the rise in fertiliser costs as a byproduct of high energy prices, any green revolution will perforce not be chemical. What African agriculture needs is a biological revolution. This is what GM offers, if only sufficient money is put into research. There has as yet been no work on the crops specific to the region, such as cassava and yams.
Acumen Fund (where I work) is now accepting applications for our fourth class of Fellows. The Fellows program is a unique opportunity to spend a year working directly with enterprises service low-income customers in India, Pakistan and East Africa, and to be part of a small cohort of dedicated individuals who are working to make real, lasting change in the world. You can learn more about the Acumen Fund Fellows Program here. And, from the Acumen Fund Blog:
We are excited to announce that the application process for the 2009-2010 class of Acumen Fund Fellows is now open. Applications will be accepted online until noon EST on October 20, 2008. Detailed information about the program and application the process, as well as bios of current and past fellows, can be found on our website. To apply directly, please click here.
We are looking for dedicated individuals with the moral imagination, the practical skills and the leadership potential to effect real change. The program thus far has been a resounding success – both for the Fellows and the Acumen Fund enterprises they support. Fellows have called their time with the program a life-changing experience, allowing them to build critical business skills and a better understanding of the challenges involved in serving low-income consumers around the world…
I was lucky enough recently to receive a gift of the book “A Fine Balance” by Rohinton Mistry. Giving a gift of a cherished book is a wonderful act of generosity and sharing, and A Fine Balance is simply beautiful.
I was struck by one of the characters in the book, named Beggarmaster, who is in charge of all the beggars on the streets of Bombay. Beggarmaster is the semi-benevolent mafioso who runs the begging racket in the city, offering protection in exchange for payment from the beggars. Beggarmaster figured out a long time ago which beggars are most effective: ones who are deformed or disfigured in some way, who really pull at the heartstrings. Beggarmaster has gone so far as to draw his own ultimate (artistic?) creation, the most effective beggars imaginable:
“For this, I need a lame beggar and a blind beggar. The blind man will carry the cripple on his shoulders. A living, breathing image of the ancient story about friendship and cooperation. And it will produce a fortune in coins, I am absolutely certain, because will give not only from pity or piety but also from admiration.” The hitch was in finding a blind beggar who was strong enough or a lame beggar who was light enough.
Those of us in the business of motivating people to give to charity have a fine line to walk. Going for pity is the easy route and it’s actually pretty effective: we’ve all seen the image of the destitute, mournful child with flies on his face — and all its equivalents. But if as storytellers we are translating, teaching, and communicating meaning in the world, then there is a feedback loop here, just one that’s hard to see at first. It’s about reinforcing a stereotype of difference, distance and safety — and reducing real, living human beings to caricature, a means to an end.
This may seem far afield to some, but I really believe we need to think broadly about “marketing” and, really, about storytelling.
A classmate of mine from business school, Tom Fishburne, just came out with a fun cartoon book called “This One Time at Brand Camp.” Think of it as Dilbert for marketers. Also, for anyone who has never worked in Corporate America, it’s a great inside view of how decisions really get made, which I think is insightful for understanding the inner workings of large corporations .
Lately I’ve particularly enjoyed Tom’s cartoons about eco and sustainability as they really capture the cynical, greenwashing mentality that’s become increasingly common for what seems like every product under the sun.
Thanks for everyone for staying tuned while I was out on vacation. And now back to our regularly scheduled programing.
The New York Times ran a story on Sunday about an appalling decision by Vogue India to run a series of photos of poor people wearing high fashion items:
An old woman missing her upper front teeth holds a child in rumpled clothes — who is wearing a Fendi bib (retail price, about $100).
A family of three squeezes onto a motorbike for their daily commute, the mother riding without a helmet and sidesaddle in the traditional Indian way — except that she has a Hermès Birkin bag (usually more than $10,000, if you can find one) prominently displayed on her wrist.
Elsewhere, a toothless barefoot man holds a Burberry umbrella (about $200).
As if the photo shoot weren’t a bad enough idea, Vogue India editor Priya Tanna’s responded to criticism by saying, ‘“Lighten up.” Vogue is about realizing the “power of fashion” she said, and the shoot was saying that “fashion is no longer a rich man’s privilege. Anyone can carry it off and make it look beautiful.”’
The problem is, treating people like props is a rich man’s privilege. And it’s an ugly one.
I guess you have to admire Ms. Tanna for sticking to her guns on this one, instead of coming out and admitting that this was a gross error of judgement? Vogue didn’t even bother to name the people in the shoot, though they did give details of each of the fashion accessories.
I’d venture to guess that Vogue India editor Priya Tanna has never sat down and talked to a person struggling to make ends meet, and I’d bet good money that none of her close friends face any real economic hardship.
The first step towards addressing the differences and inequality in the world is addressing the problem. But real momentum will come when we break down the illusion of separateness and difference in the world. This story is a reminder of how far we still have to go, and it’s especially worrysome coming out of a country that is as well-positioned as any to bring hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. The pace of change would quicken immeasurably if the new mega-rich in India took up the mantle of change en masse.
I will be out for a week and not blogging. The last time I took a few days off, traffic to my blog increased. I’m not sure that’s a good sign, but who knows?
The good news is that this blog is borrowing a much-maligned campaign by NBC networks to justify summer reruns: “If you haven’t read it, it’s new to you.”
This is your chance to review some posts you may have missed. Read one every day if you like, and it will be almost as good as new posts:
On a recent trip I took to India and Pakistan for Acumen Fund, I had the chance to visit LifeSpring Hospitals, which provides high-quality, low-cost maternal care. I wrote a blog post about this titled “Can a Hospital be a Breakthrough Innovation?” about my visit there on Mother’s day.
The more I’ve learned about the need for high-quality, low cost maternal care, the more I think that LifeSpring could be a blueprint for addressing an important, prevalent, but under-addressed health problem globally.
In India alone, only 43% of women are cared for by a skilled attendant during childbirth, and India’s 117,000 maternal deaths annually is the highest number in the world. The chances, over a lifetime, of an Indian woman dying due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth are 1 in 70. This makes an Indian woman 5 times more likely to die in childbirth than a Brazilian woman; 18 times as likely to die than a Chinese woman; 70 times as likely as an American woman; and 250 times as likely as a Swedish woman.
I don’t think I truly understood what poor access to maternal services means until I read this article from the Disease Control Priorities Project, which I learned about on Owen’s blog. Here’s an excerpt (be warned, it’s pretty graphic):
In developed countries, fistulas occasionally happen from surgical accidents or radiation therapy and are promptly repaired. Few in those countries have ever heard of the condition. But across much of the less developed world, fistula is an ordinary hazard of childbirth for many women and a permanent blight on countless lives. In those countries, obstetric fistula overwhelming results from obstructed labor, which occurs when the baby cannot pass through the mother’s birth canal because it either does not come head first or is too large for her pelvis. In the developed world, prompt medical intervention, often including Caesarean section, permits a delivery safe for both mother and child. But thousands of times each year in poor countries, birthing women receive no such aid and their labor is a futile agony lasting up to five days, with uterine contractions constantly forcing the baby, usually head first, against unyielding pelvic bone.
Long before the mother’s torment ends, however, the unremitting pressure kills the child. It also cuts off the blood supply to the soft tissues of her vagina and other organs trapped between the baby’s skull and her pelvis. Eventually these tissues also die, forming one or more fistulas, and the baby’s head softens sufficiently for the stillborn child to pass from her body. Should she survive, the mother soon finds urine, feces or both leaking unstoppably from her vagina. In about a fifth of cases, the woman also suffers nerve injury that can cause a condition called footdrop, which prevents normal walking. Constant contact with urine or feces irritates and infects her skin and other tissues. Her kidneys, bladder, or other nearby organs may also be damaged. Her menstrual periods may stop, rendering her infertile.
The article goes on to describe that, in addition to this physical and psychological damage, the mother often becomes a social outcast. It is stories like this that give me a real sense of urgency about the need to find, nurture and grow enterprises that are finding solutions and positioned to grow, and grow fast.
