Plans for a book

I am in the beginning stages of writing a book. The title will have to be my little secret for now, but I thought I'd share the premise of the book and see if there are any comments from blogland...

Premise
More and more people are realizing that we have created a world that now threatens our very existence. At the same time, a vision of a better world for all is emerging. Realizing with great urgency that we need to fundamentally change our world in order to create and live in the new one, we find ourselves with a dilemma. We don’t know how.

This book explores the terrain to be traversed and offers a concrete way to engage people across the country in building the bridge from a world of poverty, violence, and polarization to a prosperous Earth Community of abundance, peace, and unity.

Giving Thanks on Thanksgiving

As I sit quietly connecting to all that I am thankful for this Thanksgiving, I find that it all leads back to this work. All of the people, situations, ideas, projects, even technology that I would list as things to be thankful for all add up to one thing: the deep meaning this work brings me.

My family, who lovingly allow me the time and space I need to do this work, also flow with the risk-taking inherent in walking away from the safety and rationale of a traditional job to launch a new, uncertain heart-based endeavor.

My colleagues, who provide expertise, wisdom, moral support, and freedom for me to bring "all of me" to this work, and who graciously offer their legacy as a foundation from which to launch my dream of a world that works for all.

My Network, whose expertise, service orientation, and sheer numbers make credible the audacious claim that we actually CAN bring the whole system together as a nation, community by community, to create prosperity for all.

My mentors, who have helped point me to the missing links I needed to create and sustain the expertise, energy, and confidence to even attempt all this.

My friends, who patiently listen to my soapbox ravings, engage in stimulating conversation, and urge me to keep going.

Technology, that makes it possible to connect to more people, work from anywhere, raise funds, and share my obsession.

My persistence...yes, I am thankful for my own stubborness! It takes awhile to launch an idea that can change the world in the world that would be changed, but I can truly say that it brings me great joy to attempt it.

Of course, the only reason I keep going in dogged pursuit of the new world I think this work can help create is because of all of the reasons above. Like I said at the beginning, all things I am grateful for lead back to this work.

"Prosperous Communities" Vision & Mission

Here is the vision and mission for the program that is the manifestation of my bridge work. I would love to hear from folks who resonate with this. I am particularly interested in hearing from folks who want to be involved or support this work in some way.

VISION
We create strong communities nationwide, and in the process, change the way the U.S. approaches poverty to a whole-system approach that reflects shared responsibility, action, and benefits among all sectors of society. As we are successful...
...Communities across the country will create conditions that maximize the potential for all residents to prosper.
...The momentum from a nation of communities engaging in successful whole-system planning and action will create a societal view that reducing poverty and creating prosperous conditions for all is:
* A systemic issue in which everyone has a stake and a role in solving,
* A way to truly embody the principles upon which the nation is founded,
* A way to ensure sustainable national prosperity and security,
* An exercise in developing self-sustaining conditions at the individual, family, community, and societal levels,
* A win-win for society, institutions, and individuals, and
* A way to create conditions that encourage continued innovation, economic growth, strong relationships, non-violence, health and harmony.
...National strategies and policies will change to create and support conditions for all residents to prosper.

MISSION
Prosperous Communities, Prosperous Nation engages communities nationwide in whole-system planning and action to create increasingly prosperous conditions for their residents. We use the Future Search methodology, which has been proven to create high commitment to implementation and produce successful outcomes in communities across the globe. We leverage all participating communities’ work toward national planning and action by engaging policy makers in the community-level planning and in additional policy-level planning that focuses on creating the enabling conditions for our nation’s communities.

VIDEOS: It is time!

I saw these two videos recently. They speak to the shift that is most definitely occurring. This is the shift that Future Search and Prosperous Communities, Prosperous Nation can help enable.

The Prosperity for All "Movement Machine"

What do you get when you combine a proven method for creating system-wide collaborative action on important societal issues, the ability to deploy hundreds of trained facilitators to enable communities across the country, a strategy for linking and leveraging community-level results to create national change, and a neutral non-profit organization from which to launch all this? You get a “Movement Machine” for creating positive change on a national scale.

The Future Search Network’s new program, Prosperous Communities, Prosperous Nation (PCPN), is a “movement machine” focused on creating prosperous communities and in the process, fundamentally changing the way the U.S. thinks about and addresses poverty. Having demonstrated for two decades that Future Search creates ripples of collaborative change on a wide range of issues in communities across the globe, FSN is now ready to demonstrate that it can create national, systemic change for addressing poverty by applying the method nationwide in a cohesive, organized way.

Several national organizations are seriously considering using PCPN as a way to help them achieve their missions for improving the lives of families, children, and communities living in poverty. They see it as an enabler for their organizations’ mission (e.g. as a transistor that plugs into their mission that powers it up.) PHOTO: This is me speaking to a national faith organization about a concrete way to enable communities and the nation to create prosperity for all.

Beyond the fact that FSN has the method, the people, and the organization tailor-made to create systemic change, it is taking this step to launch a national endeavor because:

• There is no national “mandate” to reduce poverty, despite the increasingly high stakes the nation faces if it does nothing different. The health of the economy and the ability to ensure national security is threatened in proportion to the prevalence of poverty, and yet we have not made addressing it a national priority.

• The “American Dream” is at stake. Despite working full-time, many people are still unable to provide the basic necessities for their families. As more and more families find themselves in this circumstance, the harder it is to honestly claim that our founding principles are valid. This threatens the very foundation upon which our nation was founded.

• Poverty is a systemic issue that affects everyone, but we have not approached it systemically. Systemic problems require systemic thinking and action. Since no one sector (e.g. the government, faith organizations, human services, education, etc.) or individual (e.g. persons living in poverty) can solve a systemic problem alone, expectations that they can or should are unrealistic. Therefore, our current approach as a nation is fundamentally flawed.

• Dozens of organizations and communities have stated their concern and commitment to action for addressing poverty, but have no feasible avenue or vehicle with which to act. Many organizations want to address poverty, but few have the capacity, method, or reach to create the kind of systemic change necessary to do so. FSN’s PCPN program offers these combined abilities as a resource to organizations and communities in this situation.

The bottom line is this: We know as a nation we have a problem that needs to be solved for the good of us all. We have the methodology that provides the structure for creating system-wide commitment and action. We have the people to deploy to support communities nationwide in the collaborative work that needs to be done. It has the track record proven to create ripples of lasting improvements. It has the neutral organization that allows it to act as an unbiased enabler for communities of people to create the future they want. And, it has a strategy for tying it all together in a way that creates a whole that is larger than the sum of these parts.

So, we have a systemic problem that affects us all and a mechanism that engages the whole system to solve it. What we need now are people in communities interested in creating prosperous futures for themselves and the corporate, public, or private sponsors to fund the work. If you would like to explore how you can be a part of this exciting endeavor, please contact me at nancy@futuresearch.net or at (540) 937-4897.
Find out more about Prosperous Communities, Prosperous Nation at: http://www.futuresearch.net/prosperouscommunities/index.cfm

The Fundamental Flaw

There is a fundamental flaw in the way we think about and address poverty in the U.S. and beyond. The systemic, complex nature of poverty requires systemic thinking, planning, and action. Yet, over the last 40+ years since the “War on Poverty,” we have approached it with individual strategies initiated and carried out by individual sectors of society. No one person, organization, political party, program, or sector of society has the answer, nor can any of these individual parts understand “the whole,” be responsible for it, or act to solve it alone. This means the answer is not IN any one place; it is AMONG us. It means we need an approach that brings diverse people together to discover they live in the same world, worry about the same things, understand their differences, take responsibility, find shared meaning and aspirations for the future, and make commitments and act to create that future. It means we need to fundamentally change the way we interact and solve problems as a society.

Several years ago, I managed a large project to develop a model to change the way we think about and address poverty. During the project, I learned about the structural and systemic nature of the problem. I also recognized that we have never approached poverty systemically. As the project ended, I began feeling a deep calling to be of service toward a solution beyond “giving fish, teaching how to fish, and studying the pond.” I wanted to CHANGE THE WATER. Luckily, I knew of a way to do that.

I am just getting started in my blogging, but trust me, you will be seeing alot more on the national, community-based action strategy to change the way the U.S. thinks about and addresses poverty I am leading. This action strategy, in which anyone reading could concretely participate in and/or help get fully launched, is called Prosperous Communities, Prosperous Nation. It is a special program of the Future Search Network, 350 members on every continent and home of Future Search, a proven, whole-system action planning method. FSN members are united by a motivation to serve society while cooperating and learning together. Our mission is making the world a better place—more open, whole, and sustainable for everyone. We have been offering Future Searches worldwide in any language or culture for whatever people can afford.

My hope is that by bringing information about this program (my calling) into the blog-space, people everywhere will become involved and together get this "movement machine" rolling.