Monday Morning

I try to catch up on my reading over the weekends... I start out strong (up at 7 a.m. reading three weeks' worth of The Economist) but fade quickly (falling asleep at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday while tucking the boys in bed). However, I did come across an interesting article this past weekend and it reminded me of a few things. onPhilanthropy posted their "The Year in onPhilanthropy: The Biggest Stories of 2006" a few weeks ago. Their list in order:

1. Warren Buffett
2. Clinton Global Initiative
3. Google
4. Richard Branson
5. Celebrities
6. Senator Charles Grassley
7. Cause Marketing
8. The Nobel (Grameen Bank)
9. Blogs and Media
10. Don't Compete, Collaborate.

Some of these stories will have staying power (collaboration) and some will not (celebrities). However, what is important to remember is that philanthropy is core value in America. We are the most generous nation in the world and that is something to take pride in, to nurture, and to grow. We give about 2% of our nation's GDP to "charity" each year! This amounted to over $275 billion invested in 2005 in the independent/nonprofit sector both here and abroad. The next closest country is Canada at just over 1% of GDP. 75% of this annual giving comes from individuals like you and me. We don't get headlines, we don't have a product to sell, we just want to help out.

We are also a nation of volunteers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 61 million Americans volunteer an average of 52 hours of time annually (over $16.3 TRILLION dollars of donated time at $5.15 per hour minimum wage).

The point is that inspired philanthropy and volunteerism are a key thread to the fabric of our society. It helps make this country tick. It makes a huge difference in quality of life, both in the US and globally. People are identifying who and what they want to support with their time and money in a meaningful way. It is your hard earned money and you can make a social investment with high returns.

The return is most people will use a service provided by a nonprofit/charity over their lifetime. That could mean using a low cost health clinic, needing hospice care, hiking/fishing on protected open space, a better education for your kids, fresh drinking water, relief from a natural disaster, attending a community theatre performance, and the list goes on.

You probably won't make an annual Top 10 List of philanthropic headlines (unless you bought Berkshire Hathaway stock in 1968!), but you already know how important your contribution is. That is the beauty of "inspired philanthropy", where good ideas, inspiration, a lot of hard work, and a core value of giving can lead to great things.

- Jesse

Notes from the Road: Reducing your waste size...

I made the white knuckle trip up the turnpike to Boulder yesterday. It is a weird feeling to be in "stop and go" traffic with an average speed of 65 mph! However, the trip was worth it as the destination was Eco-Cycle's annual Zero Waste awards luncheon honoring businesses that have comprehensive programs to drastically reduce their refuse.

Eco-Cycle is one of the largest nonprofit recyclers in the US and is known for its innovative approaches to reduce our impact on the environment. They started out with being the first curbside recycler in Boulder. Here is a quick streaming video on Eco-Cycle.

You can bring almost anything to their CHaRM recycling center at 5030 Old Pearl Street. In addition, Eco-Cycle also has an amazing recycling plant where tons of materials enters a conveyor belt on the front end and just a trickle of unuseable trash comes out the back end. Set up a tour of that facility with your kids or classroom! It is really cool.

Zero Waste is now a primary focus of Eco-Cycle. It is a paradigm shift where all facets of the product pipeline from materials, production, seller, and end consumer contribute to making a product and its collateral completely resuseable. The goal is that nothing gets thrown away. It can all be reused. Please watch this Zero Waste video to learn more. Call Anne Mudgett at 303-444-7826 and maybe there is something you can do to help.

- Jesse

Notes From the Road: Kids in Denver need YOU!

Colorado is known for its highly educated workforce. We are second or third in the country in terms of college degrees per capita. However, it is disturbing that most of our educated workforce is moving in from out of state. In other words, we aren't doing a great job of creating an ongoing pipeline of educated workers from within. There are many reasons for this including the fact that Colorado ranks almost dead last in terms of public funding for higher ed.

Another important factor is our high school drop out rate. Our largest school district, Denver Public Schools, has a high school dropout rate of nearly 40% with a couple of its high schools at over 50%! Hard to believe but nearly 4 out of 10 ninth graders won't graduate from high school in DPS. The new leadership at DPS has a strong plan to help mitigate the dropout rate which, among many things, includes a community wide call for youth mentors to help kids stay in school!

Colorado Youth at Risk (CYAR) has been a long time member of Community Shares. They have paired over 2,500 kids with adult mentors over the past 14 years. CYAR is part of the Youth Mentoring Collaborative in Denver. This unique partnership includes CYAR; Big Brothers, Big Sisters and other youth mentoring organizations. One of the great aspects to CYAR is they provide both initial and then ongoing training to its cohort of mentors so they feel well equipped to provide support to the kids. Have a listen to this short interview with CYAR's Executive Director, Hollen Ferrendelli, on the rewards of mentoring if you have time...

Becoming an adult mentor can be a very rewarding experience and Denver's kids need mentors more than ever! It is estimated there are over 35,000 "at risk" kids in DPS from single parent, low income households. CYAR has 40 kids in its program at any one time. If you would like to support Colorado Youth at Risk or become a mentor, please call Hollen Ferrendelli at 303-623-9140.

-Jesse

Notes from the Road: Ten Bucks to say "Aahh"

$10 will buy you a couple of venti lattes or 4 gallons of gas OR...

The award winning Clinica Tepeyac provides a full spectrum of health care services for $10 a visit. That's right. Ten bucks pays for a full doctor's visit. As is typical of a nonprofit, community based health care provider, Clinica generates less than 10% of its revenue from client fees and fundraises to make up for the rest.

David Lack, Executive Director, calls Clinica an additional "safety net" under the primary health care "safety nets" in the Denver Metro Area. Located in the Globeville neighborhood (North of I-70; East of I-25) in close vicinity to a community garden, school, and rec center, Clinica provided affordable health care to over 7,000 patients in 2006 and expects that number will grow significantly in 2007. With six exam rooms, a full time doctor, a part time PA, full support staff, and an onsite lab and pharmacy, Clinica Tepeyac delivers quality health care to the uninsured at an incredible price!

David is an expert on national health care issues that affect us all (cost, insurance, quality of care, etc.) and sheds light on the subject in this recorded interview. If you have 15 minutes, take a listen! If you are a health care professional who would like to donate time/services to Clinica please call David at 303-583-0148 or email him.

- Jesse

Notes from the Road: Hoopin' it up...

Last Saturday, I was invited to come to a basketball tournament at Bruce Randolph Middle School with one of the Colorado HAWKS teams playing in it. I brought my two boys to the game and they have never been so quiet! They were in awe of the very tall 12 and 13 year olds playing some great basketball. I'm 6'2' and felt small too. However, if that is what it takes to get the Wolff brothers to take a break from the seemingly continual conversation we have, I'll bring them back every weekend to watch a game.

Greg Willis is the ED of the program and was also coaching the team. I met many of the kids on the team and came away impressed with their confidence, maturity, and politeness (as well as how talented they are). The sense of community was strong in the gym with a constant buzz of conversation between the kids, coaches, and parents. It was just a great example of how athletics at a local level can help build community and build lives.

The mission of the Colorado Hawks is to create an opportunity and an alternative to gangs for at-risk, disadvantaged youth. They provide a year-round, culturally diverse, educational and basketball program for 200 boys and girls aged 10-17 years. The program draws to it youth who need assistance academically and socially to achieve self-sufficiency and productive lives. The ninth and tenth graders practice and compete April through August, and then play on their high school team September through March. The fifth through eighth graders play year-round. In 2002, over 80% of the kids in the program received college scholarships. Westword named it the best nonprofit athletic progam in Denver in 2004 and HAWKS won the El Pomar Foundation Award for Excellence in 2005! Check out their website at www.coloradohawks.org or give Greg a call at (303) 393-4475 to see how you can help.

- Jesse

Notes from the Road: Family Self Sufficiency

I had the opportunity to visit with Stride today. Located just north of Alameda and Sheridan in Lakewood, Stride has been helping families (90% are single parent) achieve economic self sufficiency for 16 years. They take the long term approach to helping a family move from poverty ($18,000 per year for a family of four) to financial independence. Stride assigns caseworkers to a family for three years to help them permanently exit from the poverty cycle. The Stride program provides some initial money for removing emergency finanical needs but then focuses on providing the family with someplace to go (transitional housing) and connections to services, education and jobs, etc. What impresses me is their very high success rate (500 families served with 70% staying out of poverty). The three year commitment is what they feel it takes for a family to become self sufficient. The leverage can be huge as the grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren are all effected in a positive way and for the long term! Visit www.stride-co.org to see how you can help a proud family get on its feet again. As many of you realize, there is a very fine line (much finer than we often think) between the "haves" and "have nots". It doesn't take much (a medical condition leading to huge bills, a lost job, divorce, etc.) to land someone in a difficult predicament financially.

- Jesse

Habitat House: warmer weather makes all the difference!

You may have read about the Community Shares’ staff Habitat experience on Thursday, February 1 – it was cold, grey and started snowing at about 2:30 pm. Even with longjohns on under our jeans and ski socks, we were still cold and shaking. I wasn’t sure if this was for me – at least not in February! However, the weather took a turn for the better, and after volunteering on Thursday, Saturday was absolute heaven. The weather was warm, the sun was shining and there was a very productive energy in the air.

The weather was only part of what made volunteering Saturday a wonderful and satisfying experience. The volunteers were all my friends – I recruited, and they came. (Does “If you build it, they will come” apply here?) Many of the crowd already knew each other. Those that didn’t were quickly welcomed and by the end of the day, we were all sharing jokes about the movie “Talladega Nights.”

Everyone donned their fancy safety goggles and hard hats, and this time, we actually put the correct names on our hard hats. (Kyle had the name “Mary” on his hat on Thursday and never responded when people called him that name!) We figured out that if you take off your stocking cap and wear your hardhat directly on your head, it doesn’t fall off as easily when you lean over. There is a lot of leaning over when you are hammering window frames, door frames and wall frames! (And since all of the subflooring was secured down, I couldn’t lose my hardhat in the crawl space, as I had on Thursday.)

Seven wall frames were built, and six of those had to have windows and/or doors put into them. Again, very satisfying to start with just subflooring at the beginning of the day and end the day with 7 walls up – ok, 6 walls and one wall frame -- satisfying nonetheless.

Part of what also made it such a great day is the supervisors that are employed by Habitat – they are not only skilled in home construction, but they are really good at working with people like me who don’t use a hammer on a regular basis and who have no idea how to read a home blueprint design. It takes a special kind of person to get 5 giggly women – two with gorgeous fingernails – to use all of their arm strength to build frames and lift up heavy pieces of plywood. Many of us had sore arms the next day. At one point, the side of the duplex with the most women volunteers had more walls up than our guy friends on the other side – and we made sure to point that out to them.

As I wrap up, I want to once again thank my friends for all of their hard work and incredible energy. Thanks also to the Habitat guys – Spencer, Brady and Adam, who put up with our silly jokes all day, and still motivated us to build 7 walls from scratch. Thanks to Habitat for all the good work they do, and for providing this opportunity.

- Mary

CSC Staff hammers Habitat House....

The hardy team of Community Shares enthusiastically embraced our sponsored Habitat House on a very cold and snowy first day of February. Marty, Alyssa, Mary, Jesse, Kyle and I, along with CSC board member Greg Trainor, wore our nail pouches with pride as we hammered, sawed, carried, cut twice/measured once, slipped, and froze our way to finishing up the subfloor and door/window frames for the house.

Everybody's individual talents really shone on the different projects we worked on. Marty "Numbers" Kennedy took charge of any project requiring measuring or counting out studs for framing. Jesse proved he was the glue that holds us together by laying down beads of adhesive for the subflooring. Kyle and Alyssa built access panels to the crawl spaces beneath the floor. (Does that mean they're subversive or excellent at forging into unknown territory? You decide.) Mary and I got to crown studs for most of the morning. That's a real job, we swear! Email me and I'll tell you how it's done.

I think these photos really say it all. Those are not Kyle's every day glasses... he just likes retro look safety glasses.

- Beth

Habitat House: the first day of work

Alyssa and I arrived at the Habitat House at 9AM this morning for the first day of volunteer work along with eight of our friends. The snow was coming down at a steady pace and the bitter cold had us anxious to get to work so we could stay warm. Some of the cement for the foundation had already been poured and the rest of the foundation is scheduled to be completed on Tuesday. Much of our day was spent clearing snow and moving building materials so construction can continue over the next week as planned.

Sorry, we forgot the camera this time so we don't have any proof of our hard work! We'll be sure to get some photos this Thursday when the whole staff volunteers on the house.

- Kyle

Notes from the Road: Children's Outreach Project

You can't miss the Children's Outreach Project (COP on 8000 Pecos) as it is a large blue and white igloo. Denver has its big blue bear and a big blue igloo. An igloo is a very appropo architectural design in Denver this year! The inside of COP is unique too. Executive Director Stephanie Baer leads a team working with a unique, mixed population of 50% kids with special needs and 50% typical children. There is a fantastic ratio of 3:1 (staff/pupil) at the COP. They need new board members, donated books for their library and a new building. I learned a lot about early childhood education by interviewing Stephanie.

- Jesse

Notes from the Road: Association for Senior Citizens

This morning I met with Tee Tanaka, associate ED at the Association for Senior Citizens (ASC). Tee has traveled all over the world as an international banker. He led trade missions to Asia for former Colorado governor Roy Romer. Today, Tee works on providing a variety of services to local senior citizens in need. ASC has a food bank serving over 200 people a week and they just purchased a facility for housing. It isn't sexy but it is an essential service for others at its very core. As our population ages, more and more seniors will need support for their basic living needs. Unfortunately, my experience has been that this can be a "forgotten" generation with little resource allocation. Liz Cahill, Executive Director, started the ASC 20 years ago and has often gone without pay for weeks at a time in order to keep the doors open... Click on link above to contact ASC if you want to help.

- Jesse

Notes from the Road: Centro Humanitario

2007 is here and I wanted to renew my commitment to learning more about the issues and challenges that face our 121 partner member nonprofits this year! I plan on hitting the road each week to visit 2-3 nonprofits and will post what I learn here. Hopefully it will provide you with some inspiration, ideas and calls to action.

Today I visited Centro Humanitario para los Trabajadores and met with Harold Lasso, program & policy director, who has spent his life working on migrant worker issues. 90% of Centro clients are homeless at some point yet they want to work and learn new skills so they come to Centro Humanitario to help break the poverty cycle. The center serves over 1,000 people per year, placing them in jobs, providing skills training, and protecting their rights as legal citizens/workers. They work out of a converted garage that has almost no heating in the winter and no cooling in the summer. Check out my interview with Harold. Maybe there is something you can do to help.

- Jesse