Category: Voices We Love

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Voices We Love: Prince EA

Recently Prince EA has had a lot of amazing press such as the Queen Latifah Show and The Blaze TV. He has also got some bad press for how painfully honest and candid the lyrics are.  Here at Project Kinect, we know that positive social change sometimes is difficult.  Equality for all and human compassion in the technology age is difficult.  All the states that now accept and promote gay marriage took work.  What is happening in Ferguson is just the tip of the iceberg of what inequities are in our country.  The fight and work though that those demonstrators are doing is part of the walk towards positive social change.  Again. This walk is difficult.

We commend and support Prince EA for his honesty, his ability to bring this conversation to a new venue, and most importantly, how transparent he is with his hopefulness.  All is not lost and he acknowledges this.  Prince EA just warns us that we are in some very dangerous territory. He also reassures us that he is not suggesting we find the polar opposite. In a recent Facebook Post, he said, “You need not delete your social networks or destroy your cell phones, the message is simple be balanced, be mindful, be present, be here.”

Project Kinect challenges you to listen to his lyrics and digest them.  What do they do to you?  How are you charged?  Whether you are angry or inspired, what action could you take next?  Please leave your answers to these questions in the comment section.

For more information, check out Prince EA’s Website.

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Letters From a Change Agent: #BeBetter

Recently two very close friends have had some rough life obstacles. One dealt with work place drama at a large social change scale. She ended up leaving her job but took every opportunity she had her last few days to create constructive conversations about this topic where the drama sat. Her ability to handle herself composed and genuine through such a hot topic issue inspires me.

The other friend continues to inspire me through her kindness that most people would not see at skin level. She has been next to me since age 16 and I know her to be one of the most kind people I know. She recently revealed plans to me about combining her love and compassion with her amazing talents at large-scale operations. She constantly demonstrates great acts of kindness that more than not, goes unnoticed. These two women act in the realm of doing better.

I sit in a constant space of “trying to live better”. Often, I fail. A couple weeks ago I was driving on a country highway when I came upon an SUV flashing its emergency lights. As I approached it, I saw sparkles on the pavement, slowed down, passed the vehicle, saw a deer on the side of the road, and then seconds later, realized that the car had hit the deer. I was already 100 yards beyond the SUV and thought, “I should turn around.” My hesitation allowed for the next person behind me to stop and assist.

That is an opportunity where I could have been better. I am not sure that I would have turned around if the car hadn’t stopped. I like to think I would have. I’m a doer and a helper, so most likely yes, but I didn’t. That is the point. My “be better” muscle is not trained well enough to always act immediately.

We all need to be better; no matter who we are or what level of life we are living. Positive Social Change only happens when we are all better for a greater good. Any reaction of, “I already do so much!” or “What can I do?” needs to be removed from our rhetoric. We are crumbling as a species quickly and we all have to take responsibility, at any level we are capable. As my mom always said; “We all have to do things we don’t want to do!” I feel this fits in here on some scale

Do not misunderstand me. This is a change of habit, not a change of lifestyle. I do not mean lose ourselves and commit all our energy to being the best change agents we can. If you can do that, please show me how. I mean be vulnerable to those moments where it is obvious we can be better. Each one of us has the power to be better; thus, adding to the success of the whole.

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Orgs We Love: As You Sow

by Kathleen Brophy

Leveraging the power of investors and shareholders to change corporate activity for the better

The first time I heard about the organization that I currently consult for I was a junior in college. My newest endeavor at that time in my undergraduate activist angst was to try to influence the investment decisions of my institution. How was my university’s 5 billion dollar plus endowment being invested? With what objectives? What companies did we hold shares in? Did students or alumni whose money was going into this endowment have any idea about any of this? Could we do anything to influence the investment decisions?

That is when I found As You Sow. As You Sow works with investors and shareholders to advocate on social and environmental issues in business from the inside. Instead of undertaking conventional government advocacy, As You Sow has an alternative theory of change that focuses on the leverage that investors and shareholders have in really influencing corporate decision-making. By engaging in shareholder advocacy, investors use their power of the purse to promote environmental, social and governance principles in business.

According to As You Sow, to date over $3 trillion—nearly $1 of every $8 under professional management—is invested using ESG criteria, shareholder advocacy, and community investing strategies. That signals a huge paradigm shift in business as usual away from the supremacy of the bottom line over all else.

Shareholders can undertake “shareholder advocacy” by engaging in shareholder resolution voting. Each year, hundreds of shareholder resolutions are filed with the SEC when shareholders of a certain publicly traded company get together to try to change an unethical or unsustainable company policy or practice in that company.

Resolutions to be voted are then put on a company’s “proxy statement” and are voted on by any person or institution that owns stock in the company and engages their proxy vote at the company annual meeting. For example, in one basic case that I researched for my undergraduate institution, shareholders had written a resolution to get a certain company to improve their stance on employee rights by publishing a legally binding employee protection policy because the company currently had no such policy.

Shareholder advocacy reminds stock owners of one of the most basic facts of investment—shareholders ARE part owners of the companies they buy stock in and therefore have the privilege, and some might say obligation, to involve themselves in the environmental, social and governance activity of that company. Shareholder resolutions present unique opportunity for stock owners to act on this principle and influence the activities of corporations in an impactful way.

In my experience at my undergraduate university, the information provided by As You Sow allowed me to advocate with a student group to the investment board of my university to start engaging in our votes on shareholder resolutions. To date, we had never engaged in a single vote in which case, the vote of the shareholder goes to management. I am excited to say that we helped our investment board vote on their first ever shareholder resolutions to harness the leverage we had as a substantial shareholder to influence positive change.

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Community Engagement is a Non-Stop Task

by Jenna Rhodes

 

Some people think that Community Engagement is one step in multi-step process for a project.  Build a team.  Check.  Set a timeline.  Check.  Engage the community.  Check.  Create a plan.  Check.  But it’s not nearly so simple.  Community Engagement is a collection of actions that can be found from the beginning of a project until the….well until forever.  Community Engagement doesn’t stop when you finish a project because building relationships is a continuous process that will lead into your next project and your next.  Relationships aren’t usually time bound.  The contacts that you make on the first project will be contacts that you will use throughout your time in your current position and possibly for your entire career.  Community Engagement is building your contact list, understanding the mission and vision of the organization that they represent, knowing what resources they have to offer, utilizing their expertise to move a project forward, gathering their opinions and impressions, and offering them your expertise and resources in return.

When engaging a community there are several things that can help the process:

1) Get out into the community and meet people – you can’t expect people or businesses to invest in your project, event, or idea if they’ve never met you.

2) Have lots of business cards – it’s not so much that they need YOUR info, but you need THEIRS and this is a great way to get it.

3) Have an organized system for collecting all of this contact info – an excel document can be a great tool to organize, sort, and utilize the rich resources that you’ve spent so much time collecting.

4) Communicate with your connections – an underutilized contact list is a waste of time and energy, stay connected by informing your newly formed network what you are doing, how it pertains to them, and how they can get involved.

5) Ask for referrals – you can’t possibly make every connection yourself, so ask your contacts to put you in touch with others who might have a stake in your project.

6) Follow up – if you say you are going to do something, do it.

Engaging a community is hard work that takes investments of time and energy.  And there will always be more people to meet.  This part of the process is ongoing.  I have been working on one project for more than a year and I made seven new contacts just this week while working on a seemingly unrelated project.  Never miss an opportunity to connect, either the work you are doing, or the work of your contacts to each other.  Be a connector and you will create a reputation for yourself as someone to know.

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Voices We Love: Chelsea Clinton

At age 31, Chelsea Clinton is taking a brave step forward to go in front of the camera, not as a public figure in the White House, but as a delivery woman of the news.  Today it was made public that Chelsea Clinton, the same young woman that we all watched grow up while her father was President, is joining the team at “NBC Nightly News” as a full-time correspondent focusing on the “Making a Difference” series.  She will be taking the time and giving a spotlight on individuals and organizations that are making differences and contributions to their communities and the people around them.  As the creator of Project Kinect, this makes me extremely happy to see that Chelsea Clinton was specifically chosen for this job.

As me, who has grown up right along side Chelsea Clinton, this makes me extremely excited for our generation.  She is a great example of just the beginning of what our generation is going to do and how we will impact this country.  I remember being twelve years old, in seventh grade and there was a group of us that were to duplicate what was happening with the presidential election.  I was leading the Ross Perot campaign and when the seventh grade elections, Ross Perot won.  Our campaign team was successful but unfortunately, Ross’ was not.

When Bill Clinton was swore in is when I first remember seeing Chelsea but didn’t think anything about it until we both graduated high school.  Later, we went to college at the same time and then graduated college.  Now, as I am into my ninth month of Project Kinect, I am on a similar path as her.  Congratulations Chelsea on your new job.  I hope it brings you as much fulfillment as the last nine months have brought me.

LA Times Article

Huffington Post Article

Thank You Slatester for posting this video

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