What if we give it away?

I recently read a fascinating article about the Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy. You should read the whole article yourself, but in short it's a foundation in San Francisco that gives grantees $100, on the condition that they use it to do nice things for strangers. It made me wonder about a few things:

It can be surprisingly hard to give away money.
I suppose I shouldn't have been shocked by this--after all, the film based on this premise has been made at least 4 times (1921, 1935, 1945 & 1985)--but the reasons behind it are rather sad. It's all about trust and the complete lack of it between strangers in a city. Perhaps the people turning down free umbrellas in the rain really didn't want one, but I can't think of any other explanation bar suspicion for the people turning down dollar bills that were just being handed to them. It's understandable how this happens, when we live in a society where hardly anything is ever given without hope of something in return, and where almost everyone who approaches strangers in the street does want something, whether its signatures for a petition or money for their next meal. It becomes easier to just ignore everybody and retreat into a little bubble. No-one is a bad person because they do this, but as a whole the community of the city loses something when we get so stuck in mistrust. I always appreciate attempts to break this down a little, like the free hugs people or the Creative Philanthropy group.

Could we replicate this in Seattle?
$100 at a time is not a prohibitive budget - are there people in Seattle who might want to put a counterpart of this society together? If you think this is a great idea, why not try it yourself? And if someone gave you $100 to do nice things for strangers with, what would you do? I'd love to see some creative ideas in the comments.

What can Sustainable Seattle give away?
Unfortunately we have no spare money whatsoever. In fact we're entirely volunteer run while we try to secure stable funding, so one thing that the individuals who make up our organization have been giving away is our time and skills: 1500 hours so far this year. But as an organization, we do have some resources - we have a reputation, a website, a mailing list and a network of contacts. The great thing about resources like this is that we can give of them without diminishing them in any way, so we can keep doing it (a very simple kind of sustainability) and here are some of the ways we do that:

• Featuring other groups' work on this blog (please contact us if you'd like to be featured!)
• Adding other groups' listings to our advertising materials; for instance the STARs program mailshot that's going out tomorrow will include links to some interesting classes at Southside Commons.
• Referring people to the right place; for instance a prospective volunteer came to our office today, and when he described his interests it became clear that Northwest SEED are a much better fit, so we sent him their way (conveniently, up a few stories in the same building).

And finally, what can you give away?
Very few people have spare money these days, but if you think about everything you do have--time, contacts, skills, ideas--I bet every single person who reads this post has something they can give away, at almost no cost to yourself but great benefit to someone else. Take up the challenge, and let us know what you gave away in the comments.

Rainier Beach Coalition Town Hall

On Thursday the 28th over two hundred people attended the annual Town Hall meeting put on by a partnership between the Rainier Beach Coalition and the South Lake High School. The crowd was diverse with a wide range of ages, ethnic backgrounds and social status. There were numerous High School students in attendance and the overall feeling of the meeting was relaxed, hopeful and positive.






The program started with a meal combining food from a variety of back grounds. The food was put out first in the words of the main organizer, Gregory Davis, "If we feed you first you better be cooperative later," to laughter in the audience. The participants were also given a series of sticker dots in order to vote on the main themes that the coalition and the community would focus on for this year. The themes were built around the main thrust of last year's community actions. The themes were: Economic Development, Education, Public Safety, Environment, and Youth and Young Families.

The Town Hall was split into a presentation portion that included both a performance by the Rainier Beach Seattle Youth Orchestra, and a power point presentation about the Rainier Beach art around the community. The orchestra was made up of seven children and a tap dancer from the High School who ad libbed to the performance of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy."

The second part of the meeting were break out sessions with the community members going to their chosen theme to express their dreams and desires about actions the community could take in order to address challenges in their communities. The members were told to dream big and to make suggestions and share ideas that weren't pragmatic, but idealistic. The break out sessions would then be used by the coalition to make connections and partnerships with viable means of making those desires come to fruition.

Community groups need to take a lesson from the very successful Town Hall meeting. The openness of discussion, the choice of following the interests of the attendees and the combination of entertainment , recognition of community members, and of course a free meal, gave the entire meeting a feeling of a friendly gathering instead of a Town Hall.

The organization was fluid and the agenda was changeable and responded to the needs and whims of the community members. Getting the community to give up an evening of their week to discuss the future of their town and attracting the attention of a deputy mayor and a city council person is an impressive feat and should be emulated. Sometimes giving up control is the best way to retain it.