Gift Hub

Upon Discovering He has Readers

First of all I would like to thank an anonymous tipster who has informed me that my private therapeutic journal (Gift Hub, which is meant as kind of garbage can for my own alienated thoughts and feelings) is somehow being posted on line! I have contacted a pro bono attorney who is kindly crafting me a Disclaimer, User Agreement & Comprehensive Retraction of the several thousand posts here, going back to the early stages of my mental illness in which I first began "to save the world," "make a difference," "do well by doing good," and spin straw into gold, to the amusement of my distinguished Colleagues in Wealth Bondage: New Frontiers in Branding Capitalism Social. In future, those visiting here will be deemed to have signed the Disclaimer attesting they know I am crazy, misinformed, a harmless hack, and not as I sometimes present myself to be: a pompous ass in the timeless tradition of......, not to say also in the tradition of......., let alone the tradition of..... Never mind. More importantly, however, I would sincerely like to apologize to any of you who may have inadvertently read any of these posts prior to my forthcoming Comprehensive Retraction. I am not blaming you for reading them, any more than I can blame myself (on advice of my therapist) for writing them. How were you to know they were the private ravings of a lunatic when I write  like an MBA sometimes, and sometimes like a Most Trusted Advisor, and sometimes like a Secular Priest, and sometimes as a Morals Tutor to America's Wealthiest Families? You are not expected to know the difference between the genuine and the bogus. How could you given the state of American Education today? Even to raise that distinction, as between Wisdom and Folly, or Rogue and Knave, or Fool and Dupe could endanger your own sanity, let alone self-esteem, as a producer and consumer of the Social. But I am sincerely sorry for the time you have wasted and any misimpression you may have taken away. Publish. Apparently that is the button I have been pushing all these years in lieu of the one with that icon that looks like a Garbage Can. I did not hit that one because I thought it would post to the Dumpster on Gift Hub.  Me publish? What kind of country lets anyone "publish" crazy crap like this without even letting them know?

Teaching Philanthropy to the Producers and Product of Market-Humanity

In teaching philanthropy, to financial advisors and nongift planners, I notice that when I say "civil society," or "civics," or "citizen," I get this bored look, and wonder if to liven things up I should don a Benjamin Franklin costume, and pose with a quill pen in one hand, and a parchment document in the other. When I address students as "investors," or shrewd consumers, or best yet as "entrepreneurs," or "social entrepreneurs," they seem flattered and eager to learn more. When I talk about "cultivating our humanity," I get that stupified look that educators know so well. When  I talk of the student as a "frail human soul," the student looks uneasy as if in the presence of a religious nut. When I talk of "getting results," and getting paid for being good and doing well, I have the student's full attention. I can understand, then, why the business faculty at Stanford, Duke, or Yale, or Harvard is teaching social entrepreneurialism without teaching the history of ethics, or civics, sociology, ethnology, or the humanities generally, except insofar as it can be riffed on in leadership courses (which in my view belong in the comparative literature department, in late-Romanticism, or in courses on Universal Myths). I am pleased that The University of Indiana has courses on up through the PhD in civics and philanthropy - yet they do not teach personal finance, estate planning, or social entrepreneurialism. How, I wonder, do we, then, manage to subordinate "the how" of business, and money, and markets, to the "why" of our shared humanity?

Yonder Holy Beggar's Theory of Change

See that monk with begging bowl by the side of the road, leaning on a staff, all his posessions in a small bundle at his feet?  He too has a theory of change. (It is said that his father conquered this former kingdom of rice farmers, now shopping malls, and his mother ran it with an MBA from Stanford, and that the souls of the dead walk the land uneasily, their traditions in tatters, their children now clerks and consumers, as results have improved.)

John Henry (Of Metrics and Man)

John Henry, yes, he was a steel drivin' man, but the steam drill drove him down. And the men on the line, driving spikes for the railroad, sang in a down tempo, stinting the blows, to stay in rhythm and to stay alive, in competition with Frederick Taylor's men, the one right way, and the coming of the machine. If I owned the railroad, invested in it, or rode the rails on a ticket, it would all be about the number of spikes driven, and dollars per mile, and the meal the conducter might serve. I might not even hear the work songs of the chain gang driving spikes, might not even notice the marker commemorating the spot where John Henry died. But now, as a fundraiser, and advisor, they are coming for me. And when I talk to the head of the railroad about his blessed fortune and how he will make a difference for the better in the world he says, "Don't treat me like a thing, don't handle or process me, I am who I am, listen and serve me, as a human being." And I say to myself one more spike, one more rail, drive that spike, or the steam drill will drive me down.

Interfaith Worker Justices seeks new Executive Director

Kim Bobo has chosen to step down as head of Interfaith Worker Justice, an organization she founded 18 years ago. No one can fill her shoes, but perhaps one can carry her torch. Do you know anyone?

What's next for Interfaith Worker Justice? The organization is seeking
a new Executive Director, based in either Chicago or D.C. This is the
greatest job in the world, because Interfaith Worker Justice is working on the
most important issues facing the nation. We focus on real campaigns and issues
that generate concrete improvements in people's lives, and the leaders in the
affiliate network, board of directors and staff are wonderfully amazing people.The work has been a gift to me, and I know it will be for the next director. - Kim Bobo

I am honored to have worked, as an IWJ board member, with Kim, whose personal example reminds me daily that I could and should do more in solidarity with those who have least. For some the dumpster is no joke.

Making a difference for the better by shooting ourselves in the foot

"Make a difference" - a lot of us say that, but presumably we mean "make a positive difference." But what counts as positive? And how can we measure that? I mean we all want more beauty in the world, but I find your nose a bit too thin and raised too high in the air. I feel the world would be made immeasurably better if you had it surgically improved to make it wider, and lowered it by an inch. You might feel otherwise. Or, I might feel the world would be better if ordinary people, those closest to an issue, were left alone to solve their own problems, with help from above, but not orders based on reports sent up the line. You might greatly disagree, feeling that my experience raising roses in the heaps of garbage beside my dumpster at the Intersection of Wealth and Bondage is "anecdotal evidence," and that rose production might be improved if only I were to install metrics, let your minion know daily or more often  how things are going via a spreadsheet, and then get consulting advice or orders plus maybe funding back. So we have a difference here. I want less of what you want more of.  Since you are creating SASB, and Guidestar and Give Well, and Charity Navigator and Markets for Good, and I can see you are metrics driven and show no sign of a literary intelligence, have no understanding of philosophy, civics, and very little in the way of humility, and seem mostly to think that engineered solutions are better than organic, and that you are smarter than I am since you manage me by metrics and I can only grind my teeth and seethe, I assume that Giving Well at full extension will end Badly for all but a few - those in charge, and those who serve them. You have to admit that net net and overall this has been a trend from Capitalism Beta to Alpha, to 1.o to 2.o and whatever iteration we are now on. Those with less and less in the way of a humane or spiritual understanding of life, those in fact with a materialist measure and manage view, are in charge, and within a generation, it won't be just the Polar bears who regret how well things are going, according to business plans and their countless unintended consequences.

Crowd Sourcing our Motto Upgrade subject to Rigorous SASB Standards

Wealth Bondage Rebooted is getting a little stale. The following Branding-4-Good statements, have been created by me, in a fugue state, while high on carpet layment glue, or were submitted by our readers, or my AAA friends, I forget which, as potential motto upgrades.

- Wealth Bondage: The Best in Business

- Wealth Bondage: Bettering a Sorry World

-Wealth Bondage: Business at its Best

- Wealth Bondage: Capitalizing the Commons

-Wealth Bondage: Capitalizing the Commonweal

- Wealth Bondage: The Common Wealth Improved

-Wealth Bondage: Incorporating the Social

- Wealth Bondage: A World of Good

- Wealth Bondage: The Measure of Good

-Wealth Bondage: Accounting for Good

- Wealth Bondage: Accounting for Capital Goods Broadly Considered

- Wealth Bondage: For Positive Return

- Wealth Bondage: Capitalism Net Zero

- Wealth Bondage: Accountable to Capital

- Wealth Bondage: a Capital Account for Good

- Wealth Bondage: Good Capital for Good

-Wealth Bondage: Holding Good to Account

-Wealth Bondage: Besting Philanthropy

- Wealth Bondage: Making Good Money

- Wealth Bondage: Good Making Money

- Wealth Bondage: Good-Making Money

- Wealth Bondage: Making Money Good

Before going live, I am concerned I may in some way be violating intellectual property, infringing copyright, or transgressing Corporate Trade Dress, digital rights management, or otherwise getting sideways with those who might sue my sorry self, naked as I am, and without benefit of the Corporate Veil. I am particularly concerned about the second, "Wealth Bondage: Business at its Best." I think I made that one up, when on suicide watch in Bellevue, in the indigent ward,  as a sick joke, to amuse my fellow deadbeats, prior to being thrown back on the street, but something tells me I might have read it in some article at Stanford Social Innovation Review, or at FSG, or Bridgespan or maybe the new and improved TPI. I am sincerely sorry if I have stolen, borrowed, befouled, called into Disrepute, or Defamed, your intellectual property, if I have done so in any way. Please don't sue me. All I have is a mangy dog, with fleas and maybe rabies. You would not want him; he is not house trained since I have no house. Just serve me (service for good) a takedown notice, and I will return your phraseology of Public Good, the Common Weal, Good Capital, The Capital of Good, The Capital4Good, Markets4Good, the Commonwealth, or Accounting for Good, to its rightful owner.  At least I can give you full attribution, and credit to your account, if I could afford the licensing fee, which I can't right now.

How about Wealth Bondage: The Very Best of Good? I don't think that is Trade Puffery. Wealth Bondage, is or should be rated #1 for Sustaining Good at SASB.org The Sustainability Standards Board: Accounting for a Sustainable Future. We claim to be good, but now we can prove it.

Sometimes in my more lucid moments I really do think I am crazy. Other times I write like a Havard, Stanford, or Yale educated flack, whole melliflouous pages of Corporate Quality piffle at a time, without laughing out loud, and I have hope for sustainable sanity, and even maybe a career in Wealth Bondage worthy of that hallowed name. I know; fat chance. Still I am trying to at least observe the law. If you recognize yourself or see any of your trademarked phrases, in my post, please do tell me so I can give you full credit, if you wish for your wit and bona fides, humanity, good citizenship, self sacrifice, generosity of spirit, compassion, ethic of care, good humor and good sense, prudence, and property rights, or return your image to you, intact. Without An Image of Goodness we are nothing, no matter how rapacious and self aggrandizing we may otherwise be.  I am Good. You are Good. We are Good. Every market clears at a price. Every market creates negative externalities, detritus, and heaps of garbage, toxic fills, and broken human souls. The planet may be dying, but at least Wealth Bondage's Net Positive Returns are certified now by indepedent Audit. So don't blame us. We are Doing Good. And Well. I am just trying to find the one right phrase that hits that off convincingly.

 

The Calloused Muse

One of the Muses, it may be Calliope, the musical one, mother of Orpheus, though she has seen better days, now works in the poultry plant, slashing chicken parts on the line. Sometimes she breaks into song, the cleaver beating cadence, like meter in poetry. Asked who is her immediate supervisor she says, "You all work for me." She always has been crazy.  Comes in late, leaves early, works in spurts. Had she been more reliable, she might have made it into management by now, maybe at Bridgespan, FSG, or the new and improved TPI.