Looking forward to connecting with commitment makers at Clinton Global Initiative University! Here are some tips of essential things to carry you through an intense gathering like this. Be sure and bring:
* business cards
* cell phone & charger
* I.D.
* pre-CGIU information (agenda, logistics, etc.)
* material/info about your commitment (if appropriate)
* sense of humor, humility, and wonder
* intellectual curiosity and open-mindedness
* unbridled passion for your commitment
* willingness to be bold & take risks
* more questions than answers
* endless energy & indefatigable stamina
Be yourself, enjoy the experience, and know that it's a pretty awesome thing to commit yourself to changing our world for the better!
Showing posts with label Clinton Global Initiative University. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clinton Global Initiative University. Show all posts
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Fast Forward Core Beliefs
Just re-read my previous post from a year ago reaffirming Fast Forward Fund's core beliefs as we move to complete our 1st phase of start-up and our 3-yr-commitment to Clinton Global Initiative University. Except for the notable absence of snow, virtually everything rings true today.
I stand by Fast Forward's core beliefs:
* Investment activism. We all make a difference with our daily financial choices. Investing is action.
* Leveraged impact. Investing in a collective social fund allows young people to leverage relatively small individual resources into large-scale impact.
* Accelerated change. More inclusive, expansive philanthropic models enable youth to accelerate, or fast forward, their participation as social investors advancing innovative solutions to global challenges.
* Lifelong Giving. Cultivating philanthropic social investment among young adults creates lifelong givers and engaged global citizens.
I stand by Fast Forward's core beliefs:
* Investment activism. We all make a difference with our daily financial choices. Investing is action.
* Leveraged impact. Investing in a collective social fund allows young people to leverage relatively small individual resources into large-scale impact.
* Accelerated change. More inclusive, expansive philanthropic models enable youth to accelerate, or fast forward, their participation as social investors advancing innovative solutions to global challenges.
* Lifelong Giving. Cultivating philanthropic social investment among young adults creates lifelong givers and engaged global citizens.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Another Milestone...and we're just getting started!
I've got to say, as excited as I am about FFF's rapid development, I feel a little bittersweet as our pilot training program comes to an end with the conclusion of BGIA's "Global Social Entrepreneurship & Strategic Philanthropy" semester course. How can we be winding down? We're just getting started! The students have come so far in their study and practice of social investment. Now, all their hard work culminates this Thursday, May 14th, as the FFF Portfolio Student Directors (13 BGIA students from six countries) present the final youth-to-youth investment selections for their portfolio teams.
Seems like there've been weekly highlights and milestones:
Throughout their semester-long academic training program, the Portfolio Student Directors have been considering 14 youth-led social ventures for FFF youth-to-youth social investment. Nominated by four of our Pipeline Partners (this round: Clinton Global Initiative, Global Engagement Summit, NYWomen Social Entrepreneurs, and Teach for America), these investment opportunities address one or more of our four portfolio global social priorities: Poverty Alleviation, Public Health, Climate Change & Energy, and Human Rights & Peace. I can't wait to see what they come up with Thursday. And can't wait to continue working together well beyond the end of this semester. As the poet Tony Hoagland says, "What I thought was an end, turned out to be a middle." And we've only just begun!
Seems like there've been weekly highlights and milestones:
- launching FFF w/former President Clinton at CGIU,
- visits to Acumen Fund, Echoing Green, the Action Center;
- inspiring guest speakers
- a NYC youth-to-youth Investor Pitch,
- a virtual investor pitch featuring entrepreneurs online from Ann Arbor, MI to my hometown, Portland, OR.
Throughout their semester-long academic training program, the Portfolio Student Directors have been considering 14 youth-led social ventures for FFF youth-to-youth social investment. Nominated by four of our Pipeline Partners (this round: Clinton Global Initiative, Global Engagement Summit, NYWomen Social Entrepreneurs, and Teach for America), these investment opportunities address one or more of our four portfolio global social priorities: Poverty Alleviation, Public Health, Climate Change & Energy, and Human Rights & Peace. I can't wait to see what they come up with Thursday. And can't wait to continue working together well beyond the end of this semester. As the poet Tony Hoagland says, "What I thought was an end, turned out to be a middle." And we've only just begun!
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Launching FFF at CGIU with a push and a pull
Over President’s Day weekend, the Fast Forward Fund will be launched at the Clinton Global Initiative University, amidst a gathering of those people who most inspire FFF: young adults making bold “Commitments to Action” that tackle the greatest global challenges we face today. While CGIU promises to catalyze a new generation of social entrepreneurs, FFF promises to create a new generation of social investors directing philanthropic capital and partnership to youth-led social innovation. Arriving on the heels of the awesome TED conference and just weeks into the new Obama Administration, the 2nd annual CGIU heralds a historic moment of global social change, imperative, and opportunity. While times like these compel us to look at our leaders for inspiration, CGIU & the FFF remind us that we must also look at each other, and at ourselves.
Who inspires you? When we think about who inspires social change, great names come to mind: historic leaders and heroes, philosophers and visionaries, activists and martyrs, writers and artists. But when you consider who really shapes your personal approach to making a difference in the world, very often it’s someone far closer to home: a working mom or step-father, a 2nd grade teacher, a wise co-worker, a childhood friend, your first love. Someone who’s life has personally touched yours.
An old family friend and mentor of mine, Don Gould, “Uncle Donny” to me, was a huge figure in my young adult life, at 6’4” literally towering over my 5’1.75” frame (all people under 5’2” know their height to an eighth of an inch!). He used to talk about needing both “a push and a pull” to create real social change, whether that plays out in your personal life, your professional arena, or the wider world around you. The push for change comes from the challenges, trials, problems and unsolved puzzles that keep you up at night. The pull comes from the opportunities, dreams, visions, hopes, and possibilities that get you up in the morning. Of all the lessons he taught me, this “push-pull” dynamic is the one I keep recalling as I consider what it takes to be an effective social investor, what it might take to drive the global social agenda today.
I see this push-pull dynamic emerge as a common theme underlying the successful social change-makers profiled in Elkington & Hartigan’s book, The Power of Unreasonable People. These social entrepreneurs transform global challenges (that’s the “push”) into market opportunities (that’s the “pull”), corresponding to the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. Looking through a Fast Forward Fund lens, these opportunities cultivate the field of social investments we’ll be considering as FFF builds up its portfolios this year in four areas: climate change and energy, global health, poverty alleviation, and human rights & peace.
As you consider social investment opportunities, ask yourself this: what is your push and what is your pull? What keeps you up at night, and what gets you up in the morning? Let us know! We want to hear from you. How you answer these questions may serve to guide you well in deciding where and how to direct your social investments, and guide us as we shape the Fast Forward Fund and prepare to launch at CGIU.
Who inspires you? When we think about who inspires social change, great names come to mind: historic leaders and heroes, philosophers and visionaries, activists and martyrs, writers and artists. But when you consider who really shapes your personal approach to making a difference in the world, very often it’s someone far closer to home: a working mom or step-father, a 2nd grade teacher, a wise co-worker, a childhood friend, your first love. Someone who’s life has personally touched yours.
An old family friend and mentor of mine, Don Gould, “Uncle Donny” to me, was a huge figure in my young adult life, at 6’4” literally towering over my 5’1.75” frame (all people under 5’2” know their height to an eighth of an inch!). He used to talk about needing both “a push and a pull” to create real social change, whether that plays out in your personal life, your professional arena, or the wider world around you. The push for change comes from the challenges, trials, problems and unsolved puzzles that keep you up at night. The pull comes from the opportunities, dreams, visions, hopes, and possibilities that get you up in the morning. Of all the lessons he taught me, this “push-pull” dynamic is the one I keep recalling as I consider what it takes to be an effective social investor, what it might take to drive the global social agenda today.
I see this push-pull dynamic emerge as a common theme underlying the successful social change-makers profiled in Elkington & Hartigan’s book, The Power of Unreasonable People. These social entrepreneurs transform global challenges (that’s the “push”) into market opportunities (that’s the “pull”), corresponding to the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. Looking through a Fast Forward Fund lens, these opportunities cultivate the field of social investments we’ll be considering as FFF builds up its portfolios this year in four areas: climate change and energy, global health, poverty alleviation, and human rights & peace.
As you consider social investment opportunities, ask yourself this: what is your push and what is your pull? What keeps you up at night, and what gets you up in the morning? Let us know! We want to hear from you. How you answer these questions may serve to guide you well in deciding where and how to direct your social investments, and guide us as we shape the Fast Forward Fund and prepare to launch at CGIU.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)