Spent: Looking For Change (Documentary)

Think Global Trade Social

Think Global Trade Social is a comprehensive overview of why social enterprise can serve the evolution of humanity and the opportunities to shift global capital to good.

Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein - A Short Film

Project to improve access to capital for impact entrepreneurs in Los Angeles

I and my team are grateful to be working closely with the Milken Institute to improve access to capital for women, minority and other underserved businesses such as sustainable food, clean technology, renewable energy, etc.

Here is the text of the memorandum from our work on the Milken website:

The Milken Institute California Center collaborated with the Small Business Administration’s Los Angeles office, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and the co-chair of the California Economic Summit’s Capital Action Team to assemble a group of banking executives, community leaders and policymakers to develop a scalable model for a revolving small business loan fund at either the regional or state level.

The topic for this roundtable was generated from recommendations for expanding small business lending made during previous Policy and California's Economy (PACE) roundtables. Those discussions emphasized the need to resolve the risk barriers associated with smaller loans and address economy-of-scale issues in community-based lending. One idea focused on a regional and/or state loan fund that could coalesce risk, clear technical and geographic hurdles and ultimately spur small business growth.

To establish and implement an effective funding tool, participants urged the structure of a potential fund that would in concept resolve a number of challenges: minimize administrative time, coordinate referrals from financial intermediaries and streamline the data and analysis process. In terms of providing initial structure to a loan fund, the conversation was divided into three themes:
Technical assistance and analysis

The group focused on applying big data solutions to village lending models to build capacity. The benefits include harnessing the power of crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, artificial intelligence, systems thinking, advanced systemic modeling and community intelligence to improve evaluation, due diligence, risk mitigation, performance and outcomes. They emphasized that the technical assistance component should be focused on risk mitigation while developing a consistent solution that can be scaled across a wide range of contexts (e.g., SME lending and investing in the Southern California region).

Capital coordination
The group found that increasing the flow of communication in SME financing could potentially expand the deployment of capital. They identified a number of "low tech" solutions that involve supporting the efforts of financial intermediaries, entrepreneurs and economic development organizations to coordinate more effectively.
The conversation progressed to coordinating transactions with the goal of prioritizing lending as a community of financial institutions rather than among individual or competing groups. Such collaborative approaches have long been successful among financial institutions in cooperative syndicates for large transactions. It was clear to the group that such cooperative practices had not yet been applied to SME transactions and could dramatically increase the success of such financings if they were.

Risk mitigation
Participants discussed the industry resources available to mitigate risk and infrastructure to facilitate the flow of information. Credit enhancements such as guaranty programs from the state treasurer’s office and its California Capital Access Program (CalCAP), as well as the Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank or I-Bank (i.e., the Small Business Loan Guarantee Program), are underutilized and can provide sustainable support. One issue is these government programs’ small staffs, which limits outreach and other capabilities.

Participants also spoke about the need for better referral networks and creating regional hubs. Using enhanced referral networks, incubators and technical assistance programs, big banks can channel small business loans they cannot finance to lenders who can. There remains a need for better application and sharing of best practices. One area is how best to educate and evaluate loan officers and provide incentives based on criteria other than volume. However, risk is real in small business loans, particularly if there is a product mismatch. Funds that leverage expertise in a specific sector, such as the California FreshWorks fund, could further mitigate risk.
Final thoughts and next steps

Banks often face tough situations as they are pressured to make more small business loans, then criticized for taking on too much risk. Even amid technological advances, relationships remain a prime factor in deal sourcing and risk mitigation. Accordingly, community banks and community development financial institutions have more experienced lenders, as well as established relationships, than big banks. How can we scale up the approaches and experience of community bank loan officers? Can technology solutions (i.e., algorithms that mimic loan officers’ decision-making processes), data-sharing clearinghouses or other nontraditional approaches also help mitigate risk?

With further collaboration, we can assess how technical assistance and data analysis can mitigate risk while providing a better platform for coordinating capital. In the near term, the California Center will facilitate this in a series of subgroup task forces as well as a larger private session at the upcoming 2015 California Summit

Social enterprise: an idea whose time has come

The movement of startups is about more than business, it's about reinventing our culture.

This is an excellent article on the startup movement.

"I’ve realized that, despite outward appearances, the Startup Movement is not just about startups. It is actually a deeper cultural shift that cuts to the heart of the human condition.

"It reflects a dissatisfaction with the way much of the world has gone for the last several decades. 

"It marks a transformation in how we view our societies, how we convene our communities, how we create value together as human beings.

"It’s a counterpoint to the governing economic paradigm – what economists call neoliberalism – which has prized efficiency and productivity above everything else, even when it has corroded relationships that bond us together in our communities and social networks.

"We are moving from an economic model that treats individuals as replaceable cogs in an anonymous yet efficient system, to one that recognizes that individuals are the only ones who can make the system better through their innovations, inventions, and creations.

"This notion might sound simple, but its impact is profound. If you examine the scholarly research on what makes entrepreneurship and innovation thrive – whether in Silicon Valley, Santiago, or anywhere else – the conclusions are strikingly consistent. 

"Innovation is not a solo sport. 

"It thrives in supportive, diverse, connected, pay-it-forward ecosystems. It dies in selfish ones."

Great article on "integral economics" a pathway based on integral theory.

Integral Economics: A Manifesto

Christian Arnsperger
FRS-FNRS, Belgium
Email: christian.arnsperger@uclouvain.be

December 2007

1. Introduction

Engineering an intersection between economics and the Integral approach—i.e., gradually fleshing out and promoting a truly Integral economics—may well be one of the most urgent tasks in social science today. At least, I myself (as a standardly trained economist who turned heretical at some point) believe it is, and that is why I have written this paper which, for all its defects, might stand as a “manifesto” of sorts for those of us who think it’s about time economics was pulled out of its current, arch-positivistic quagmire.

Let me emphasize that what I offer in these pages isn’t just a cheap juxtaposition of an economics that I find increasingly intellectually dissatisfying with an Integral vision that I find more and more promising. Although these two things are true, they wouldn’t be of much help if it weren’t for the fact that, on the basis of a (hopefully) thorough knowledge of the current mainstream of economic science, I believe I’ve encountered a more or less exact meeting place between the two disciplines—or, actually, between the discipline of economics and the meta-discipline of Integral methodology. This distinction is extremely important, especially in light of the fact that—within the realm of social science at least—economics has increasingly been claiming the status of a meta-discipline entitled to include and engulf all other disciplines such as sociology, social psychology, and so on. In fact, it may well be that forcing today’s mainstream economics to face up to the existence of an Integral framework out there is the only way to undo its pretension at becoming the (pseudo-)integral framework for social science.

Crossroads: Labor Pains of a New Worldview | FULL MOVIE

From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies: Otto Scharmer

Does Money Make You Mean?

Four Horsemen - Feature Documentary - Official Version

The Dawn of System Leadership

This is an excerpt of the article "Dawn of System Leadership" in Stanford Social Innovation Review

"The deep changes necessary to accelerate progress against society's most intractable problems require a unique type of leader—the system leader, a person who catalyzes collective leadership."

"We believe system leadership is critical for the times in which we now live, but the ideas behind it are actually quite old. About 2,500 years ago Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu eloquently expressed the idea of individuals who catalyze collective leadership: 

The wicked leader is he whom the people despise.
The good leader is he whom the people revere.
The great leader is he of whom the people say, “We did it ourselves.”

"The real question today is, Is there any realistic hope that a sufficient number of skilled system leaders will emerge in time to help us face our daunting systemic challenges? We believe there are reasons for optimism. First, as the interconnected nature of core societal challenges becomes more evident, a growing number of people are trying to adopt a systemic orientation. Though we have not yet reached a critical mass of people capable of seeing that a systemic approach and collective leadership are two sides of the same coin, a foundation of practical know-how is being built."

"Second, during the last thirty years there has been an extraordinary expansion in the tools to support system leaders, a few of which we have touched on in this article. We have observed numerous instances where the strategic use of the right tool, at the right time, and with the right spirit of openness, can shift by an order of magnitude the ability of stakeholders to create collective success. With the right shifts in attention, networks of collaboration commensurate with the complexity of the problems being addressed emerge, and previously intractable situations begin to unfreeze."

"Last, there is a broad, though still largely unarticulated, hunger for processes of real change. This is undoubtedly why a person like Mandela strikes such a resonant chord. There is a widespread suspicion that the strategies being used to solve our most difficult problems are too superficial to get at the deeper sources of those problems. This can easily lead to a sense of fatalism—a quiet desperation that our social, biological, economic, and political systems will continue to drift toward chaos and dysfunction. But it can also cause people to be more open to seeking new paths. Compared to even a few years ago, we find that many today are exploring new approaches that move beyond the superficial to ignite and guide deeper change. Organizations and initiatives like those described in this article have succeeded because of a growing awareness that the inner and outer dimensions of change are connected. As our awakening continues, more and more system leaders who catalyze collective leadership will emerge."

The Great Work...

“History is governed by those overarching movements that give shape and meaning to life by relating the human venture to the larger destinies of the universe. Creating such a movement might be called the Great Work of a people…. The Great Work now, as we move into a new millennium, is to carry out the transition from a period of human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner.”

“The Great Work before us… is not a role that we have chosen. It is a role given to us, beyond any consultation with ourselves. We are, as it were, thrown into existence with a challenge and a role that is beyond any personal choice. We did not choose. We were chosen by some power beyond ourselves for this historical task. The nobility of our lives, however, depends upon the manner in which we come to understand and fulfill our assigned role.” From The Great Work by Thomas Berry

"New Dawn of Financial Capitalism"

Excellent article from Institutional Investor Magazine "New Dawn of Financial Capitalism" frames some new thought to address the weaknesses of the current financial paradigm.

(1) Professionalisation of Asset Owners (2) Reintermediation of finance (3) adoption of the power of information technology for analysis by asset owners (4) development of new models to invest in the real economy.

Transcription of the Interview of me with Planet Experts about Responsible Investing

Here's a recent interview of me on my views from Planet Experts

Socially Responsible Investing: An Interview With Gregory Wendt

Recently, Planet Experts sat down with Gregory Wendt, a veteran wealth advisor, economist and Certified Financial Planner. Greg is considered a thought leader in his field of sustainable and responsible investing and green business. He is the founder of several non-profit community organizations and a leading advocate in improving capital markets for triple bottom line economic development. Greg is a recognized social entrepreneur where he applies a multidisciplinary systems design approach to financial innovation and community economic development.

Planet Experts: Having formerly worked at several of Wall Street’s most prestigious firms, including Smith Barney and Prudential Securities, you are presently a Certified Financial Planner specializing in sustainable and responsible investing. What triggered your professional transition? 

Greg Wendt: Sustainability is actually where I started. When I was at UCLA in 1988 I learned about the new paradigm when the United Nations Brundtland Commission came out with their initial report called “Our Common Future.” That’s where the term “sustainable development” actually was coined: which is to build a more robust framework for emerging “third world” world countries to become advanced economies and to become industrialized by incorporating the gifts of modern culture and leaving the challenges behind.

The challenge is, even at that point in the ’80s we realized that it was virtually impossible to have everyone around the world consuming the same amount on a per capita basis, considering the amount of resources that first-world nations use – we simply wouldn’t have enough planet. So the whole idea is, and was, how do we advance these societies in a sustainable fashion while increasing prosperity for all stakeholders? The key phrase in the definition of sustainable development is ‘meeting the needs of the current generation without compromising the needs of the future generation.’

I started as a Biochemistry undergraduate at UCLA, then I changed to Math Computer Science. And then I changed from Math Computer Science to Economics. Through the multidisciplinary lens that I had developed, it just made sense that we manage our society and economy to meet the needs of both current and future generations.

When I was a child, I’d read about being an oceanographer and watched Carl Sagan, Jacque Cousteau, and was really inspired by these wise visionaries. I grew up in Southern California – surfing and tide pools and studying marine biology, complex mathematics, science and all that. So, that was my framework which brought me into this full spectrum viewpoint, and thus sustainable development just seemed to fit and appeared like the more sophisticated framework for an economic system which would work for 100 percent of humanity, and all life. If we’re managing the economy and the inputs and outputs, then we have to manage in accord with whatever’s going on for the entire the planet.

I began my real dive into this world by speaking at a conference in 1989 called “Globescope Pacific Assembly,” which was in preparation for the first United Nations Earth Summit in 1992. During that conference we conducted working groups sessions with 500 sustainability leaders from all over North America. I played a very small role, but it was a document that gave input to the Earth Summit from North American constituents. It was called ‘A Citizen’s Response to Sustainable Development.’

So, when I got into the work world, I tried various jobs until a friend of mine wanted me to work for him as an apprentice at Smith Barney. And I took the position and learned about the ins-and outs of the investment world, analyzed and traded municipal bonds. At that time I also learned about what we called socially responsible investing and that’s when I set the intention to make responsible investing my profession.

And then after working in the big firms, watching and learning the system over 11 years, I experienced positive and the negatives of the way that Wall Street’s mentality operates. Through that, I determined that I only wanted to serve clients who desired to have their money managed with a lens for responsible investing. So, I went into private practice to exclusively manage the wealth of clients who are committed to investing responsibly. I wanted to spend my days in relationships only with people who are committed to creating a better world with their money. I found it was much more satisfying to me and my clients as an independent advisor rather than being within an organization that prioritizes its own agenda and products over the client’s needs and priorities.

I went into private practice in 2002 and joined a small firm, which became a larger firm and in the last two years moved to another firm that was dedicated solely to responsible investing. Because I really wanted to be surrounded by colleagues who get everything I’m about. Fundamentally, responsible investing is not about a business alone or a money-making strategy alone or a bargaining angle, but a mission to fundamentally change the way we do business on the planet and how we harvest and steward the rewards of our enterprises.

As an ethos, we must transform the way we do business on the planet from a business relationship with nature to a reverence and partnership with nature. And that’s just smart systems thinking to just observe the system around us. One of my mentors, Hazel Henderson, talks about the fact that the way that economics is practiced today is “theory-induced blindness” – and any one of us who’s studied economics with the traditional paradigm knows the concept of externalities. Well, in the real world, externalities don’t really exist. There’s no “out there” when you consider the system of the whole planet. And the idea that the economy is a closed system where everything is separate from everything else is a totally false premise. In reality everything is an open system and everything is connected, it’s just that most of our systems are not sophisticated enough to embrace this straightforward reality.

The mission of responsible investing is to change the way we do business on the planet and moving money, which is the fuel for business, in a way that supports the evolution of our economic paradigm. That’s why I do it and I’m grateful to be in alignment with a number of professionals both in my firm and around the world who have the sense of that core mission. That’s how we live our businesses.

PE: A corporation’s primary responsibility is to generate and maximize wealth for its shareholders. How do you counter the long-held belief shared by many in the for-profit sector that being environmentally responsible cuts against the grain of capitalism — and that the two are mutually exclusive?

GW: I’m going to push back a little bit and challenge that initial assumption that businesses’ sole responsibility is to make money. That is the presumption of many in our world today based on Milton Friedman’s advocating that the only social responsibility in business is to make money – but that was a presumption based on that economic theory and our current modern system has found that one presumption. But when we look at the whole system – we realize that most people are afraid to challenge or question our own assumptions. I think that the root of what we’re dealing with here is that there are many of us making assumptions in this world based on what we believe, but we don’t recognize the assumptions that were adopted earlier were based on fundamentally false premises.

I’ve been asked to give a talk this weekend at business conference on conscious business and conscious capitalism. I intend to raise some very fundamental questions. Regardless of how you define the term “conscious” I’m going to ask: ‘How are you going to have a conscious business if you don’t have conscious people?’ And if you have conscious people in conscious businesses, we must develop conscious relationships within businesses and between businesses. And that’s a way of saying that we cannot separate business from ourselves as human beings and we cannot separate ourselves from each other and the biosphere that we live in. There’s no real separation in reality when we simply observe what is actually going on in the “real world.”

You can’t really say that the economy is separate from everything else like a machine that just spits out money and we spend it. There are so many very tangible, observable consequences when we look at these externalities, yet the whole system is based on the idea that “someone else will deal with those consequences.” “Someone else” is us.

It’s actually impossible to have a business that’s separate from the world. So we have to really challenge that overly simplistic idea in economics 101 that everything outside of what we define as “a business” is as an externality that just evaporates. Now our ability to see how things interact has been significantly improved by big data analysis and new software analytic tools. We now have the ability to actually create better models and better approximations of the way that the world actually works. We can actually begin to understand what has been conceived of as the “butterfly effect” where when a butterfly flaps its wings, there are real results across the globe.

So that’s the way the world works. There’s nothing that’s separate, and then we have to then challenge these assumptions and start from there. I just moderated a panel last week at the Social Capital Markets Conference in San Francisco, and my fellow panelists and I discussed the reality that nature includes society, and society includes business and economy. The three are not separate systems with nothing in between. That’s the way the world is, yet we have this presumption that business is over there, society’s over there and nature’s over there and they’re three different separate systems. And every idea born out of the paradigm of separate systems are false premises based on an illusion, and everything we have in our society is based on that illusion.

Many, if not all, of our institutions and systems and financial models and theories in our economy are based on absolutely false premises – which is probably why they’re not working so well to protect the integrity of the biosphere and why we have significant breakdowns in society emerging across the world.

PE: Well let me ask you about those false premises. You clearly believe that business and the biosphere can work together, that it’s a natural part of the system. Yet how common is that mode of thinking within the business community, and can people be made to come around to your philosophy?

GW: You might be asking Copernicus, how many people around us believe the Earth is the center of the universe? And everyone will say, well, everyone believes that except that one guy – because it’s true. But just because it’s conventional wisdom doesn’t mean it’s wise or accurate [laughs].

The document ‘A Citizen’s Response to Sustainable Development’ I mentioned earlier was created 25 years ago. That document I still have in my files and I look at it occasionally and I see that what we contributed as recommendations to the Earth Summit in 1989 is still applicable now. In a quarter of a century the environmental and social justice and sustainability movement has been ineffective at creating the broad vision we held at that time. We’ve been trying to convince business and government leaders to prioritize the natural environment, our health, and future generations’ well being and all the things that we care about over the limited scope of priorities. And our approach has not resulted in a fraction of the vision our movement held.

We must change our approach from “us and them” to just “us”. And even though some people have tried to use Big Data to generate the awareness and recognize our false premises, there is not enough action taking place. It is necessary to live by example and to operate form a new paradigm. It is extremely hard to start, but if we are successful, others will naturally follow.

If you look at the conversation in our climate centers, it’s irrefutable evidence that climate change is actually happening, but more evidence is not getting certain policymakers to change their point of view. So what is it that we can do? Well we can live by  example, by transmuting mindsets we hold, and through operating from a new paradigm we can create new systems, which could demonstrate better health, well-being, more prosperity – better outcomes. Then, we can actually demonstrate this is working with real living examples.

This is where I’m very moved and encouraged by the progressive business movement and the corporate social responsibility movement. There are living examples that work and it’s just a matter of continuing to build a new world and not trying to tear down the old. There’s lots of examples of this.

PE: Have you observed a meaningful shift in the dedication of corporations to sustainability? 

GW: In the ’60s and ’70s we started with moving money away from major corporations that are doing harm – nuclear weapons, the Vietnam War, tobacco, firearms, child labor – saying we don’t want to invest in these bad companies or harmful industries. Then there came engaged discussion with shareholder activism that was helpful in getting money out of South Africa and apartheid in the ’80s. And then there’s been a movement to engage and invest to encourage better behavior and actively moving toward finding companies who are living solutions or living the new model of business and reaping the rewards of being responsible business.

And then, what they call impact investing, includes investing in enterprises where the priority is to regenerate culture, regenerate ecosystems and livelihood. So that’s a progression, and the terminology continues to change, but it fundamentally means that we look at things much more than what is traditionally known as money and profit and look at the whole system – of all the stakeholders in an economic activity and see the longer timeframes and long term effects of our actions.

PE: Have you encountered a lot of pushback from businesses?

GW: I wouldn’t say “pushback,” but a resistance and continuation of irresponsible activity, or rather activity based on the false premises and sending the problems for others to fix. You look at the whole spectrum of corporations and one of the challenges that we face from the publicly traded markets where businesses have to answer to a quarterly profit report, that is the priority of management. From that, people take the story that all business is to prioritize profit, but it’s not about that priority, we know that – it’s about serving society and serving each other. There may be management that cares about some of these things but because of the system that we’ve designed, they are not allowed themselves to prioritize other factors beyond the “single bottom line.”

Corporate managers are not encouraged to prioritize the effects of their business on the entire system, they’re only paying attention to one subset of factors, which are measured by the economic and financial information rather than all the other metrics where the business influences the world. That single metric of money and power being our only measuring stick for success has proven to be an ineffective model and we’re in the middle of that evolution from one measurement to a multitude of measurements and multiple points of view at the same time. There was a phrase that was attributed to a sign in Einstein’s office – to be verified, but I like the phrase nonetheless, “What is often counted does not count, and what counts is often not counted.”

And that perspective applies in a business equation where quarterly reports reflect the business profits, but what about the welfare and the health of the employees? What about how the many pollutants that go into the environment? How many more jobs do they create? The whole tendency of cutting jobs to increase profits and how the stock usually reacts by climbing up is a disincentive for the goals we have set up as a society. If we’re trying to keep people employed by “creating more jobs” in the political arena – which is a priority for many in this society – then in the other part of the system, in the “business arena,” companies are cutting back employment and paying people less who create the wealth and then they’re making “more money” and being rewarded for it. There’s obviously a disconnect in this paradigm.

Many people think we have an economic crisis or an environmental crisis or a cultural/political crisis – we actually have a whole system crisis. The nature of our civilization is impacting our world in a manner that we’ve never seen, and the very system that we have created for ourselves has proven ineffective in creating governance and decision making processes amongst ourselves to actually address the problems we have today.

So we have a systemic crisis, and we must fundamentally look at retooling and reorienting our entire system, which points back again to responsible investing. We’re looking at the roots of money and capital and economics and asking questions like: “What needs to be retooled to incorporate factors that were originally left out of the original equation?”

PE: Why is it so difficult for the U.S.A to craft effective clean energy policies? Is it because fossil fuels have become so entrenched in our political system or is it because that’s the way we’ve always done things?

GW: You could say ‘someone will not adopt the belief system that’s against their paycheck,’ or ‘those who are in power are reluctant to give up their power.’ Those kind of dimensions of understanding, of the way our psyche and human tendencies and emotional tendencies to resist change and resist mindset shifts are some of the most important things to look at here when it comes to these kind of questions. We might just call it human nature, but human nature is not fundamentally static. Our brains are not rigid, we do have neuroplasticity, we do have thousands of years of evidence of human behavior collectively evolving and to have the maturity and intestinal fortitude to address these challenges and overcome our divisiveness and our ego-driven culture.

I feel this is the primary responsibility for those of us who recognize the problems on the planet. And it’s not only the responsibility for those who are perpetuating the problems but those of us who are holding solutions in our hands and to look at ourselves and ask the hard question: “Is our approach working?” Are we willing to adopt a new mindset and change our approach? And if not, why? And if we’re not willing to, are we willing to simply be honest with ourselves and ask whether our approach has worked in the last 50 to 100 years? And if it hasn’t, why do we continue to do the same old thing?

That’s why this question of designing a more effective cooperative framework amongst progressive, environmental and social justice organizations is necessary.  We must change the very fabric nature of human discourse from divisiveness to integrated cooperation, focusing on shared outcomes from our common goals. Even among the movement that wants to make the world a better place, it’s surprising how much divisiveness there is. We’re going to create so much more in the way of tangible results by operating from the point of view that “we’re in this together” and simply find a way to work better together.  It’s that simple.

PE: On that subject, you founded both the Green Business Networking and Green Economy Think Tank.  Please briefly explain both organizations and the impacts they are having in local communities. 

GW: Both of those organizations were created because of what I just said, the recognition that we really need to work better together in the movement of green, progressive, sustainable economic activity, whatever we want to call it. We’ll be far more effective if we design better systems to collaborate and create shared outcomes together.

Based on my perspective, one of the biggest problems in the economy is that the quality of relationships and the quality of trust has been diminished significantly to prioritize capital. So if we reintroduce trust and quality of relationships into the business and economic equation, we can actually utilize these authentic relationships to create better outcomes through better cooperation.

That mindset, to create better relationships amongst green business owners and economic development policymakers and NGOs was the purpose of these organizations. We’ve had monthly events every month since 2006, and we have about 5,000 people on our email list. After a couple years of events, our team realized that there was an opportunity to create better cooperation among the organizations and agents of change in the greater L.A. region and we created a couple innovative “working session” conferences in Los Angeles and a couple of the same in San Francisco, which has inspired some of our colleagues to continue the work in the L.A. region and the Bay Area in a broad range of initiatives.

Currently our work has evolved from an active contribution of ideas to improving the financial and economic ecosystems in California and advancing the growth of access to capital and impact investing for the state. I’m currently co-chair of Capital Action Team, the California Economic Summit – which is a statewide bipartisan process of public and private leaders to increase prosperity for the state while remaining committed to “advancing the triple bottom line.”

I’d love to share details of what we’re doing in these activities in the future. Meanwhile, I’m so grateful that you have included me in your efforts, I have enjoyed our discussion immensely.

A Citizen's Response To Sustainable Development - a document I was part of creating in 1989

I was a contributor and signatory to the Citizen's Response to Sustainable Development which came out of the first sustainability conference called Globescope Pacific Assembly which I attended and spoke at in 1989. It's noteworthy that many of the recommendations and solutions still apply today!

Social Impact Investment - Turn Your Money Into Real Change

Santa Monica is Creating a Well Being Index

RSA Animate - The Empathic Civilisation

Mindset shift crucial for collective impact.

For changemakers we must look deep into our approach and change our mindsets and retool assumptions continuously.

A recent article in Stanford Social Innovation Review "Essential Mindset Shifts for Collective Impact" 

"The widespread momentum around collective impact is exciting. It demonstrates a vital shift for organizations, away from considering their work in isolation and toward seeing their work in the context of a broader system, paving the way for large-scale change. The five conditions, however, are not by themselves sufficient. Achieving collective impact requires the fundamental mindset shifts we have described here—around who is involved, how they work together, and how progress happens. These shifts have significant implications for how practitioners design and implement their work, how funders incentivize and engage with grantees, and how policymakers bring solutions to a large scale. Without these vital mindset shifts, collective impact initiatives are unlikely to make the progress they set out to accomplish."