Tag: purpose

The Third Plate and the Future of Impact Investing

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

Our food system is broken. While we have solved the problem of how to produce lots of calories for a low direct cost, this same food system has resulted in an obesity epidemic; it is why nearly 10% of the U.S. population has Type 2 diabetes; and, most recently, it likely is playing a role in the huge spike in colon cancer for people in their 30s and 40s.

What do we do about it?

I recently read Dan Barber’s The Third Plate. Dan is a famous chef, the co-owner of the acclaimed restaurants Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns. The book’s title is Dan’s answer to the question, “what will the typical American dinner plate look like in 35 years?”

In response, Dan sketched three plates to show the evolution he imagines: the first plate, from the 1960s, had a large, corn-fed steak with a small side of industrial farmed vegetables; the second, from today, had a farm-to-table organic grass-fed steak with a side of organic heirloom carrots; and the third, futuristic plate, had a “steak” made of carrots garnished with a sauce made from leftover beef trimmings.

Dan’s point, with this third plate, is that the current high-end, farm-to-table, farmers’ market approach to food is a luxurious niche that doesn’t address the core issues of the food system: while the foods themselves may be natural and healthy, they are, in Dan’s words, “often ecologically demanding and expensive to grow,” and, by definition, they work at the edges of the system as a whole.

(Cue: impact investing theme music)

The Third Plate is Dan’s exploration of a better solution, a deep dive into whether the carrot-made steak really was the future of food, and what it would take to get there. The book recounts his exploration of Soil, Land, Sea and Seed – the book’s four sections – and what the future of each of these food categories might be.

Like all good narratives, this one is told through people. Each of the book’s many protagonists – whether Klaas Martens, a farmer in upstate New York, Miguel Medialdea, a Spanish biologist, Steve Jones, a seed breeder at Washington State University, or many others – are all rebels of sorts who reach the unavoidable conclusion that whether you’re growing a stalk of wheat, raising an acorn-fed pig, or cultivating the world’s most delicious fish, the only way to produce truly outstanding food is to create food that is in harmony with a broader food system.

Take Miguel Medialdea, the Spanish biologist who raises a bass so delicious that the first one Dan Barber tastes, which, unfortunately, was overcooked, is described thus:

The fish was incredible. Even overcooked and tough – even D.O.A. (“dead on arrival”), as line cooks like to say when a fillet has seen too much heat – it made my mouth water. It was so richly flavored, you’d be forgiven for comparing it to a slowly cooked shoulder of lamb or a braised beef short rib. I’d never known bass could be so delicious.

How does Miguel Medialdea’s Venta de la Palma produce such a bass? It’s a complex system of interplay between salt and fresh water, an 80,000 acre fish farm which feels like a loosely managed system in which Miguel has set up the major pieces, nudges things here and there, and then lets the system do most of the work.

I won’t attempt to describe all of the inner workings of Venta de la Palma – Dan does it better. But I was struck by a moment in Dan’s conversation with Miguel at the end of another meal, in which Dan tries to uncover the secret of what could make a bass so delicious. Was it the scale of the property, which meant no overcrowding and, therefore, almost no disease or parasites? Was it the intricate canal system, which provides a natural filtration system against pollution?

To try to make sense of it all, Dan casually asks Miguel how long it takes for one of his bass to mature.

‘Thirty months,’ Miguel muttered, seemingly to no one in particular.

‘Thirty months!’ I said. ‘It takes two and a half years to raise…a bass?’

‘Yes, that’s the average, which is more than twice the aquaculture average.’

I asked how the company could make money.

‘So far there’s profit, enough to keep us working at an optimum, not a maximum.’

This was the kind of answer Miguel, and Klaas, and Steve Jones kept on giving: that one of the fundamental constraints that had to shift in order to operate a healthy food system is a move from maximum profit to optimum profit. They propose that the only way to create the world’s best food is by creating and maintain a system in balance, and each one of them concludes that such a system is not one that is optimized for extracting every last bit of value that they, personally, can squeeze out of it.

To illustrate the point, at another juncture in this conversation, Dan is shocked by the 30,000-strong flamingo population on the farm. Since these flamingos eat 20% of the farm’s fish and fish eggs, wasn’t their presence a bad thing?

Miguel shook his head slowly, with the same calm acceptance shown in the face of losing half of his goose eggs to hawks.

“‘We’re farming extensively, not intensively,’ he said. ‘This is the ecological network. The flamingos eat the shrimp, the shrimp eat the phytoplankton. So the pinker the bellies, the better the system.’ The quality of the relationships matters more than the quantity of the catch.”

If Miguel’s job is to optimize the overall health of the system, then key indicators of success are the data, like the pinkness of flamingos’ bellies, that tell you about systemic health. Profit may result from this system, but the system is not engineered primarily to create profit.

What a fantastical notion, that profit might be a result and not the goal.

The parallels to our economic system are, I hope, obvious. When I compare the dialogue within impact investing with the conversations happening in the food system, I’m struck by how much we, in impact investing, have so far failed to have a rich, nuanced conversation about where profits fit in the new system we say we aim to create. In my experience, all conversations about profits – or returns – in impact investing quickly devolve into discussion of the financial return a given investment or strategy produces, with both sides losing when they debate the “right” level of return without a broader conversation about whether this return is a result of or the ultimate purpose of the investment.

The much deeper conversation we need to have is around whether to be a successful impact investor, or to be a successful player in an ecosystem funded by impact investments, one needs to have the willingness and the capacity to optimize for the health of the system, and not just one of its outputs (profits, or returns). Meet any of the colorful characters in Dan’s book and you come across rebellious tinkerers who bristle at the status quo at every turn, because they’ve learned, through a life’s worth of experience, that the traditional food system is broken.

Do we have a similarly clear point of view about whether the mainstream capitalist system works or is broken? Do we believe, as we watch everyone from Bain Capital to TPG to the Ford Foundation commit billions of dollars to impact investing, that we can create the kind of deep change we know the world needs if we are unwilling to confront this question head on? Are social entrepreneurs and impact investors the equivalent of food revolutionaries who see that we have no choice but to upend the whole system, or are we hangers-on to the edges of mainstream capitalism, excited to build out our small terrariums without ever questioning the bigger ecosystem?

My belief is that our breakthroughs will only come once we start saying out loud that our ultimate goal is to build a global economic system that is extensive, not intensive. And then, once we recognize that such systems can be built, to ask ourselves what it would take to move that from niche to mainstream.

My belief is that to get from here to there, we need more folks who are willing to think like Miguel. These are people who can deconstruct and reconstruct a food system (or any other system) and, in so doing, can reprioritize the factors they’ve been told to optimize. These are people who are willing to walk the long, hard, stupid road from nowhere to somewhere. These are people who won’t stop tinkering and experimenting and learning and failing and doing it all over again…until, one day, they can consistently produce an output that is better than anything that’s come before it and that enriches the health of all the players in that system.

It’s OK for us to acknowledge that we don’t yet know the right indicators of systemic health, as long as we say that we’re willing to put ourselves on the line to create them.

We start by asking: what is our equivalent of the pinkness of flamingo bellies?

The Hardest Thing

~ Sasha ~ 5 Comments

It isn’t figuring out how to solve the problem,

or deciding what approach will work best.

It isn’t sussing out what tactics to use,

or who will be your partners and your competitors.

It’s not figuring out product-market fit,

and it isn’t even hammering out how you’re going to convince skeptics of your story.

The hardest thing is figuring out what’s really important to you.

The things you want to work for.

The things that are worth sustained energy and sacrifice.

It’s the act of clearing away the dross, of quieting the voices that are the noise, not signal, streaming through your head.

The moment you state your goal is the moment you can’t hide from it.

It’s the moment you have to stop pretending that you don’t know exactly what it is that you are here to do.

Transform the spark

~ Sasha ~ Leave a comment

There’s a feeling that happens every once in a while…you have a fleeting moment of recognition and hear a quite voice saying there’s something different you could do, right here, right now, in this situation.

Where does that feeling come from?

Its starts with observing and listening with the intent to be changed by your surroundings. This orients you in a different way, allowing you to take notice of things that others are missing.

The moment you see something different, you have the chance to do something different.

This something might be small and it might be heroic. In truth, you probably don’t know what will feel small and what will feel heroic to others, because the quality of this moment has changed thanks to the ‘it’ that only you are seeing.

You might smile or invite someone new into your circle. You might raise your hand for a task that others think they don’t want to slog through. You might anonymously help someone else shine.

When you have a moment like this, the only thing you must be sure to do is act.  Because that moment of observation, that difference in perspective that hit you, is both powerful and fleeting. It’s the action you take that transforms that ephemeral moment of recognition into something tangible that’s experienced by others.

Only then does it begin to ripple out.

 

It’s all personal

~ Sasha ~ 2 Comments

You can read every webpage about every foundation’s strategy.

You can scour CSR reports to see about a company’s social priorities.

You can analyze an individual’s past giving and the boards they serve on to understand their philanthropic priorities.

That all will help, but don’t be fool yourself.

Philanthropy is and always will be personal, deeply personal. There’s no such thing as the best place to give a donation, and there is no analysis that gives the philanthropist the right answer.

This is why all the best philanthropists have a healthy dash of angel investor in them. Angels invest in people above all else, because they know that when you can find that rare combination of grit, belief, tenacity, vision, people skills, humility, audacity, and, and and….

You see, that’s the point.

The list is too long, the unicorn-like combination of attributes so rare, that it’s always, fundamentally, about someone’s belief in you.

(and, for those keeping score, ‘you’ is not just the founder or the CEO, not by a long shot).

The show

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

Every talk, every event, every time you bring people together, you are really speaking to just a handful of people. This is your real audience, the people you are addressing, the ones you hope will be changed by that experience.

I think of it visually, imagining a camera looking down at the group – a crowd of people at an event, at a talk, a meeting of a Board of Directors. As the camera pulls up, the entire audience is in black-and-white, except for the few people that matter the most, the people the event is really for – I see them in 1080p HD Technicolor.

The show, ultimately, is for them.

With this kind of clarity, you can organize your narrative, the examples you use, the language you choose, the entire experience (including who they interact with) just for them.

You truth must still come out, your story must still resonate broadly, but if this show doesn’t have a clear purpose of “who will do what differently if we hit our mark” then it’s just entertainment.

Walking the path

~ Sasha ~ 3 Comments

I recently had the chance to have dinner with a small group of amazing nonprofit leaders. Our host gave us all a gift by asking us to start the meal by going around the table and each sharing why we do this work.

Each member of the group was honest and open, and, in listening to story after story, I began to see that they were all essentially the same.

They were stories about role models, whether a mother or a grandfather, a teacher, a social worker, a friend.
Stories of seeing their own relative good fortune – because everybody is more fortunate than somebody.
Stories of the call to serve.
Stories of stubbornness in the face of the impossible.
Stories of discovering that their talents can be used for good.
Stories of getting hooked on the feeling of making meaningful change.
And stories of them fighting each day to keep walking the path and making a difference.

You may think, in hearing this, that these are other people’s stories, that you are still seeking out your purpose and your role, that others have arrived while you are still looking.

I ask that you consider two things:

  1. That you are on the path already. There is no moment of arrival. It is your job to keep walking, to keep listening, to push yourself to go closer to what is real so you can understand it, because understanding is the precursor to being useful. It’s also your job to invest in building the skills and the self-knowledge you will need to make a real difference – including confronting your fears and your self-imposed limitations.
  2. You don’t know it, but you are already inspiring others. The courage to look, to listen, to care, to dream – all of this already sets you apart. Each of the stories I heard started at a very young age, and the path from there to today was never straight.

Keep walking.

Most of your meetings will be better if you…

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

Have a purpose.

State a purpose.

Execute on that purpose.

 

This means you know what success looks like for you, and you actually say it out loud to the person you’re meeting with. For example:

“I want to make sure we cover these three topics.”

“I wanted to connect because I really want to understand ________ from your perspective.”

“I’m hoping that by the end of this meeting we will finalize the partnership we’ve been discussing for the past six weeks, and that your company will commit to $1M of funding towards that partnership.”

I’m surprised how rare it is to hear people actually articulate their goals for a meeting.  Especially fundraisers.  Doing so doesn’t make you pushy, it makes you clear and effective.

 

What I Talk About When I Talk About Blogging

~ Sasha ~ 91 Comments

I’ve had a lot of conversations in the past few months that start with people saying, “I really have been meaning to write or blog, but I just haven’t done it. Any advice on how to start and stick with it?”

Here are 12 things that I’ve learned since I started blogging in 2008:

  1. A structured time to write. Stephen King is famous for saying that step one in writing is to put your “butt in the chair.” Not glamorous, but true. 99% of my blog posts have been written on the train that I take home from work. And most of them come out very quickly – in 10-15 minutes. But I’ve discovered that when I don’t take the train, I don’t write blog posts. That’s when I write.
  2. Make a commitment. Commit to how much you’re going to publish / write / post. I’d suggest you aim high because you’ll probably do less than you intended (because that’s life). And “publish” because I think creating finished work (to your own standard) is important, because it lets you practice sharing complete thoughts that engage other people as readers.
  3. Set it up so someone is reading. I’ve been blogging for more than six years now and I’ve written nearly 1,000 posts. I absolutely, positively, would have given up after six months if I didn’t have readers. I’ve grown to feel that my readers and I have an unspoken contract: they commit to taking the time to read, think and (hopefully) act on the things I write that they find useful; I commit to keep on writing. And occasionally, they comment or reach out to say how a post has helped them or moved them or taught them something. That feels great. [If you’re writing for yourself or in a journal, this “someone” could be a colleague, a boss, a friend you respect, and you could commit to sharing 5 things you’ve written every month. My hunch is that if it’s just for you, you’re writing a personal journal, which is also important work but is something different.]
  4. Ignore your inner critic. We ALL think that everything we write isn’t good enough (not good enough for us, and definitely not good enough to have others read it). The irony is that the more you let yourself censor your own work, the less of your own work you’ll produce, and the less your work will improve.
  5. Remember that it’s much more important to write a lot than it is to write well. This is basically the same point as the prior point, written differently. When I was posting nearly every day, it helped me tremendously to know that if a post wasn’t good enough, I’d have another shot at it tomorrow. It’s helped me even more to go back to posts I’ve published and try to remember which ones I thought were the “good” and the “bad” ones.
  6. Remove the “am I saying something new?” filter. Because no, you’re not saying something completely new and that’s OK. The point is that it’s YOU saying it, and we care about what you think and how you make us feel when we interact with your idea and your emotions.
  7. Ignore the outer critic. Yes, sometime between here and there people you care a lot about will tell you to stop or to do things differently. Listen to them, contemplate what they say, but don’t commit to doing what they tell you to do. Any creative, self-expressive process is inherently delicate, a flame that’s easy to snuff out. Protect it.
  8. Keep it short. I’m highly partial to 200-500 word blog posts. Every time I write something longer than that it’s because I couldn’t make it shorter. Yes you might have a more technical or expository topic than I do, but by and large if you want people to interact with your ideas you need to present them as simply as possible, with as clear language as possible, in as few words as possible. Use this work to practice not hiding behind elaborate, obtuse language.
  9. Have a strong purpose, loosely held. Especially if you’re trying shift from being someone who doesn’t write to someone who does, I think it’s helpful to have a specific intention plus the freedom to write about what you want to write about. When I started this blog I thought it would just be about fundraising, but I didn’t have enough posts in me on that narrow topic, and the whole construct felt constraining. What I’ve found since then is that through the process of writing this blog I’ve figured out what this blog is about, and I think my readers get it too.
  10. Discomfort should happen. The reason you’re doing this is to grow. Growth comes through doing things you haven’t done before, aren’t comfortable doing, and aren’t good at today. If it feels hard, risky, or awkward, you’re doing the right things.
  11. Do it because it matters. There should be some deeper purpose, which isn’t the same as an external objective (as in, “this is how I’ll land a book deal” or “this will help me when I’m looking for my next job.”) I started blogging because I wanted to understand the job I was doing – fundraising – and what it meant, and could mean, to me and to the nonprofit sector. Over time that focus deepened into wanting to understand, in a much deeper way, people who give to charity, which led to an exploration of generosity, which in turn opened up a lot of avenues of further exploration. Ultimately, this blog has become a vehicle for understanding my own purpose and for sharing things that I’m learning or being challenged by along the way.
  12. Someday you won’t be able to live without it. My blogging continues to evolve, and its purpose and continues to shift. It changes as I do. But it is now part of who I am and what I do, and I hope never to lose that.

For all of you out there reading, thank you. I wouldn’t be here without you.

For all of you out there thinking about writing, I hope this helps.

[title apologies: Hakuri Murakami]

This Leads to This

~ Sasha ~ Leave a comment

We get rapid-fire requests every day, and often end up beating them back with a stick.

As in: can you….write a quick response here? ….help this new potential Board Member better understand the program that you run? …meet with this journalist for 45 minutes? …share your 200 word biography for this conference? …write the first draft of our next quarterly newsletter? …give the team a 60 second update on what you’re focused on this week.

Most of the time, when we’re asked questions like this, a quiet internal narrative takes over, often with a dollop of panic: “I need to be really complete” “I’ve gotta to show them I’m on top of things” “So and so will be mad if I don’t include something about their work” “Why are you asking me that question????!”

Put another way, so often when we’re in the “answering the question mode” we feel put on the spot, and our deep desire to “do a good job” takes over in a way that shuts off any real sense of strategy or purpose.

The antidote to this natural response is to get into the discipline of saying out loud (or just to yourself):

I would like THIS (update, letter, email, 1-on-1 conversation, speech) to lead THIS person to do THIS.

Each and every time, I have the chance to start with clarifying, to myself, that this thing I am doing will create, for a small number of people (maybe just one), a specific response, a specific change, a specific action. Achieving that change is the purpose of what I’m doing.

*phew* that helps.

Step 1, then, is being able to say what that change is in what kind of person.

Step 2 is, for every word you write or say, for who you look at, for how you stand, for how you dress, for the words you choose, and, most important, everything you decide not to say…every thing is in service of that single purpose. Everything utterance that doesn’t help you achieve that goal becomes extraneous or, worse, undermines that purpose.

Here’s a nice test: when we brief someone on your next _______ (speech, email campaign, fundraising meeting, brief at the staff meeting), what do we tell him? If we dive in to “here’s how we do this, this is the content we have to cover,” we’re failing the “this leads to this” test. Whereas if we start with, “we’re trying to reach THIS kind of person to tell them THIS part of our story so that they will do THIS,” we are very much on the right track.

And every time someone on your team says “can we stop talking about this purpose stuff and just get on to creating the _______ (document, email, video, etc.) you’re well within your rights to say, “Actually, until we know what we’re trying to do here, I’m pretty sure that’s the only conversation we should be having.”

No Ask?

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

The fundraiser typically sweats about when the perfect moment is to make “the ask.”  It’s a Goldilocks mentality: not too soon, not too late.

Broadly speaking that is right.  But not if it means there’s no a sense of purpose.

Meaning: imagine for a moment that you’re the philanthropist.  You get emails and calls and invitations from the fundraiser (who could easily be the CEO or the Exec Director) pushing for a meeting.  The notes get increasingly urgent.  You sense something is in the air, and you take the meeting.

And then the meeting is just chit-chat.  It’s the sound of one hand clapping.

You, the philanthropist, discover that their urgency and your urgency don’t meet the same standard.  You suspect that there’s a punchline somewhere out there, but you’re feeling less patient about waiting to hear it.  You don’t take the next meeting.

This doesn’t mean that you, the fundraiser, greet someone and say, “Nice to meet you Analise, I’m hoping you’ll give us a million dollars.”  It does mean being clear about purpose every step of the way.

How you execute on that is up to you.