General Powell - "This isn't charity."

I encourage you to view this video interview of General Colin Powell by Tom Brokaw which was part of the Education Nation Summit held in September 2012.

In this you'll hear General Powell say "This isn't charity. You're doing it in your own self-interest." and "We're not asking you for charity. We're asking you to invest in your own future."

Sounds like the message I've been sending to business leaders, volunteers and donors for the past 18 years.

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Last night I attended an event at Northwestern University where Peter Edelman, author of "So Rich, So Poor: Why It’s So Hard to End Poverty in America" talked about his book. Meet Dr. Edelman and hear his views at this site. During the event I posted some of Edelman's comments on Twitter, under the hashtag #sorichsopoor.

In his final comments Edelman said "Our democracy is in danger." He concluded by paraphrasing a quote by Abraham Joshua Heschel,one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century, when he said "We are not all guilty, but we are all responsible."

Herchel also said "All it takes is one person… and another… and another… and another… to start a movement"

This has been what I've been writing about for years. Network building is the process of adding one person, and another and another....until at some point you have an army. The process of network building can be enhance by a greater flow of talent and dollars.

When General Powell said "This is not charity" I take it to mean that you don't just look for organizations with a 501-c-3 tax-exempt designation to support. You look for organizations that have a long-term track record and a vision of community building that focuses on building and sustaining constantly improving "birth to work" support systems in all the places where they are needed.

Follow the command of General Powell and the advise of Abraham Joshua Heschell and provide the talent, time and dollars needed to help me build the social problem solving platform I describe on this page.