I wrote last week about the Core Capacity Assessment Tool, developed by the TCC Group. I’m going to be going through certification training on September 5, and I’ll update you on how that goes. I’m really looking forward to learning more about the tool and its possible applications to social enterprises.

I’ve already been in communication with the TCC folks, and they are anxious to see if some revisions need to be made to accommodate the unique characteristics of social enterprises.

I have started looking at some of the categories and sub-categories, and many of them look right on target for social enterprises.

On the other hand, there are some subtle wordings of the categories that suggest that some revision might help to make the CCAT more useful to social enterprises.

For instance, one of the sub-capacities assessed in the CCAT is “Environmental Learning.” This is a great category to assess and I wish more businesses would asses their ability to take in information from the environment and really learn from it. Peter Senge, in his famous book, The Fifth Discipline, claimed that some business organizations were “learning disabled,” one reason being that they had not found the means to bring in vital information from the outside of the organization into the decision-making centers of the organization, so the organization could really learn.

The wording of the category for the CCAT is:

Environmental Learning: Using collaboration and networking with community leaders and funders to learn about what’s going on in the community, and stay current with what is going on in the field .

The use of the terms “community leaders” and “funders” is very appropriate for nonprofits. But, I wonder how appropriate that terminology is for social enterprises. Perhaps additional sources for environmental information need to be added. Social entrepreneurs will use the market place, competitors, market research, and other, more business-oriented sources to get important information about the environment.

This is the kind of work I’m looking forward to….enhancing this tool, so it can be just as useful and powerful for social enterprises, as it has been for nonprofits.

Paul Hardt is a trainer, teacher, and consultant. He specializes in helping social enterprises develop and thrive. 

He can be contacted at paul@paulhardt.com

He is on Twitter at @paulhardt

His website is www.paulhardt.com

We’ve heard of Bridget Hilton before. I’ve interviewed her before about starting Jack’s Soap, a social enterprise which works to eliminate preventable diseases like cholera through giving away a bar of soap for every one sold. It doesn’t stop there: It also teaches children in developing countries to form good handwashing habits and teaches locals to make soap for their own community.

Hilton recently launched her second social enterprise called LSTN (pronounced LISTEN). This time around, she married her passion for music, nature, and social impact to give hearing back to children whose families cannot afford proper treatment for hearing loss. She found a great partner in Sound Seekers who provides custom hearing aids, medical treatment, and prevention efforts through mobile clinics.

LSTN makes high-end headphones from upcycled wood scraps from furniture makers that otherwise end up in landfills. Every headphone that is sold will enable Sound Seekers to restore hearing for one person. I was taken by surprise to learn that malaria is the main cause of hearing loss, and I’m sure as the world keeps debating about the validity of climate change, malaria will quietly extend its tentacles of affliction.

Apparently, Hilton launched the social enterprise in just two months. I spoke to her to see what was different (and the same) the second time around.

Bridget, welcome back to Social Earth! For readers who haven’t heard of LSTN, could you briefly tell us about what it is?

Glad to be back! LSTN is a new social enterprise based out of LA. We make high quality wooden headphones. For every pair we sell, we give hearing to a child in a deaf school.

So this is your second act. What is the most important lesson you’ve learned from launching Jack’s Soap that affected how you created LSTN? Were there any pitfalls you’ve faced the first time around that you wished you knew?

LSTN was created faster and was actually easier to start. I’ve made amazing contacts and friends that have helped things move very quickly. The second time around I knew how to easily incorporate, get a trademark, press, retail, make a website - tasks that took me awhile to learn before. My music background was obviously a huge asset as well. The most important lesson I learned with Jack’s was that retail margins are no joke and the pricing structure needs to be set up for retail in the beginning. Experience is a great teacher!

So let’s cut to the chase. You launched LSTN in two months. How did you do this? I don’t really believe that the idea popped into your head two months prior. Did you let the idea for LSTN marinate in your head first?

One of my favorite quotes is, “done is better than perfect”. I like the idea of launching and then figuring out some of the details later, not unlike a tech company. LSTN is a work in progress. I had the idea a few months before I started the work and research, but didn’t really believe I could pull it off. Every headphone maker I had ever heard of were giant electronics companies with millions in backing. However, I couldn’t get it out of my head - so at the end of May, I started doing major research and by the first week in June, had the two most important things - a manufacturer and a charity partner. From there, everything else is just details. I launched the site as a pre-order - in this day and age, you can launch a company with next to no money. If you are passionate about your idea, can discipline yourself and work efficiently, there’s no reason that you can’t launch quickly. Everyone has 24 hours in a day.

Why did you choose to focus on hearing impairment in developing countries? 

I want to create the first big music-related social enterprise. Warby Parker, TOMS and Proof are giving sight, LSTN is the answer for hearing. Hearing is something that we take for granted, but to someone who doesn’t have it, it makes a world of difference to be able to hear music, laughter, nature, their family and friends. Ninety-five percent of children in deaf schools worldwide can be helped by the same process we are using - medical exams, custom hearing aids, medicine, and prevention via mosquito nets. Eighty percent of those people live in developing countries. We obviously are only going to be able to help a small fraction of those in need, but I’m very proud to even help one person. We are currently working on a partner within the U.S. as well. There is definitely a special place in my heart for sharing my biggest passion with those in need.

Not too long ago, a crop of critics casted doubt on whether TOMS is actually solving a social problem. Since you have a finger (or two) on the pulse of social entrepreneurship, how you see the one-for-one model evolving? How do you ward off some of the problems the critics point out in the their pieces? Or, do you not see them as problems or disagree with the degree to which they are made out to be?

TOMS greatest contribution to society has probably not been giving shoes, but rather inspiring so many entrepreneurs to build cause into their own business models. Is their model perfect? Of course not, but it is evolving and improving. TOMS is an easy target for critics since they are the most mainstream social enterprise. I particularly enjoy their efforts in giving sight - allowing someone to see or hear is an incredible and powerful act. I’m fully aware that all social enterprises are not doing the best job that they can, however, I’m not sure I could argue against restoring hearing or vision. It doesn’t matter if you are an affluent adult in New York City or a small child in a rural village in Uganda, your life will be forever changed by being able to hear or see. These are not your typical material possessions that will undercut the local economies - these are basic senses that everyone on earth should be able to experience if they wish to. Charitable and “one for one” companies will hopefully evolve to give less unimportant “stuff” and think more about long term solutions for individuals and communities.

But Lara Galinsky of Echoing Green wrote this article in Harvard Business Review about why everyone shouldn’t be a social entrepreneur. What is your take on her bird’s eye view?

Great article. I actually agree with Lara and love that Echoing Green has opened up a bit to encompass the entire SocEnt community, not just founders. Since social enterprise is exploding right now, there are so many people who want to start their own, but don’t know what or how. I would advise them to join the team of another social enterprise first and get behind the scenes.

You’ve partnered with Sound Seekers, who already has an established presence in the area. What is the one crucial thing to look for when searching for a charity partner?

For me, being responsive is the #1 thing I look for. Getting answers quickly is super important - along with the obvious - being legitimate! Don’t sign on with anyone that is simply dropping items off to developing countries and then leaving. Make sure they have a system and proof for everything they do. There are bigger charities for the deaf than Sound Seekers, but we chose to partner with them because they have a fantastic way of covering all the bases. They’re a relatively small organization which really helps since they can move quickly, they don’t have to jump through as many hoops as a huge charity in terms of partnerships. LSTN is a small company so it makes sense. We love Sound Seekers!

What is one specific step you recommend someone take to move an idea forward? 

Surround yourself with people you want to be like - online and in real life. They will inspire you to get your company or idea off of the ground. I am lucky to live in Los Angeles where we have an amazing social entrepreneur community that I have learned so much from. If you don’t personally know any entrepreneurs that you admire, find a few through LinkedIn or Twitter. Offer to buy them lunch, or even intern for them. Attend panels and public speaking engagements. This community is pretty open. Also, do extensive research on your idea and read as much as possible!

I know that you’re a prolific reader. What are you reading right now?

I’m currently reading When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Yourself. Before that I read Trust Me, I’m Lying by Ryan Holiday - fantastic and interesting look into the blog world. If anyone has book recommendations, I’d love to hear about them!

Thanks Bridget for sharing your thoughts!

###

I walked through the winding alleyways of the slum, my eyes fixated on the ground below me.  I tried nervously to avoid slipping into piles of mud and animal waste, created by a heavy rainfall the previous night.  I had received a briefing during the one-hour car ride from Nairobi to the Mlolongo slums – and yet, as I inched closer and closer to the entrance of the small house, the theory, the problem analysis, the context seemed to take a backseat to the sinking feeling in my stomach.  I removed my shoes at the gate and was welcomed into the dark room, pungently marked by the smell of urine and feces.  There in front of me, were two dozen children – some sitting on a broken couch, many lying on the ground eerily still.  My presence did not phase them; their eyes remained fixated on the bare walls and low ceilings of the small room.  These children were hollow – their perfect little bodies remained still, safe for their rising bellies with each breath, but it was clear that their minds and hearts were worlds away.  A small, confined space with more than twenty babies – and all I could hear was silence.

Slum settlements have become a reality for millions of Kenyans who have left their rural homes for the promise of work in the big city, only to be hit with burgeoning food prices and lack of employment opportunities.  Often, women have to travel long distances outside of the slum to find work, or are forced into prostitution to make ends meet.   The problem is while these women slave away at making a living, their children are left alone during the day to fend for themselves.

Call it innovation, call it an act of kindness, call it entrepreneurship – many women in the slum community have opened ‘baby care centres’ to look after these children – a makeshift daycare concept, if you will.  For less than a dollar a day, mothers can bring their children to these centres and ensure they are watched over from dawn to dusk.  If being observed was the only pressing need, these centres would more than suffice.  But babies need more than that.  They need food – sometimes provided by the baby care centre, sometimes provided by the mother, many times forgotten, or unaffordable, by both.  Young children need love, they need a sense of belonging for emotional development, according to early childhood development principles.  However, with many baby care centres serviced by only one person, caregiver attachment is an unlikely phenomenon.  Babies need movement, they need physical activity to develop an understanding of what things feel like.  Being placed on their backs for most of the day, many of these children do not build the muscle strength in their lower body, resulting in four and five-year olds being unable to walk.  Many of the children in these centres exhibit delays in cognitive development due to a lack of stimulation.  A majority of the children are stunted for growth.  All are at risk every moment of the day of contracting an infectious disease.

As I made my way through the various centres, it took every effort to hold back a waterfall of tears.  It took every ounce of courage to converse with the owners of the daycares in my most friendly Kiswahili, applauding them for their efforts.  Every part of me wanted to scream out.  What struck me the most was in that 10x10ft room, the duality of an unfair, cruel world was contrasted by the very innocence contained within that space.  Children who knew no world other than this one.  Children whose lives could have been completely different if their seeds were simply planted in a different soil.

As international development practitioners, it is our job to design programs and identify funds to better the lives of the ultra-poor.  But as human beings, it is our responsibility to do what is within our power to create environments of opportunity for all, including those of the children in the Mlolongo slums.  Whether it be through advocacy, policy development or resource mobilization, each of us has a role to play in equalizing the playing field.  Each of us has a role to play in making this world a better place.

Jobs are hard to come by these days, especially jobs where you can integrate purpose + passion ( in a way that provides meaning + solutions for families and communities facing a social or personal issue. Over the last 2 years I’ve gotten the opportunity to work for two incredible early stage companies (simultaneously) who address personal and social issues. Unfortunately, there aren’t any tricks to being so fortunate, but I have found values and strategies that can be used for any person who wants to do social good for pay!I currently work for:

en*theos serves over 25,000+ customers and offers online courses and products to help people live optimal lives and give their greatest gifts to the world. en*theos collaborates with world-class teachers to provide affordable courses for individuals across the globe. en*theos is one of the few personal development and leadership companies that provide free scholarships and a pick-your-price option for students!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvbOaL_TaFU?feature=player_detailpage]

Abby Goldberg and belongto.it’s Maurice Bretzfield  

When Abby Goldberg was 12 years old she started a school project. A lover of animals she had seen a picture of a water bird with a plastic bag wrapped around its head. She knew that she had to do something.

One of the results of that “something” is a petition on Change.org that has been signed (as of this writing) by nearly 161,000 people!

This young dynamo’s efforts have gotten the attention of not only Illinois Governor Pat Quinn but the attention of the Chemical and Petroleum industries too. They seem so alarmed by Abby’s efforts that this year they quietly pushed a bill through the Illinois legislature that would ban municipalities within Illinois from passing their own bans on disposable plastic bags. That’s right, Governor Quinn has until August 29th to sign into law or veto a bill that outlaws outlawing plastic bags!

Abby’s immediate goal is to see the governor veto this ridiculous bill. But time is running out. The governor must act on this bill by August 29.

The reason Abby’s petition has received signatures approximately 8 times larger than her hometown’s population is that Big Business throughout the country is eager to enact local legislation similar to this bill to ban (plastic bag) bans and concerned citizens nationwide have taken notice. Abby is out there fighting our battle and we didn’t even know it!

It was an extraordinary privelege to meet and interview Abby. Abby’s enthusiasm is only matched by her grit and passion and knowledge of what she is talking about. We’ll be releasing our entire interview with this wonderfully articulate young person and two of her very proud teachers soon. In the meantime, please act!

40,000 signatures in a short week is a great challenge for any solo digital activist, let alone an @ActivistAbby whose summer break just ended. Let’s lighten Abby’s load by combining our social media muscle to get her the signatures she deserves!

If you’d like to support Abby’s hurculean effort and help her reach her goal of 2000,000 signatures go to Governor Quinn: Don’t Let Big Plastic Bully Me!  where you can and share her petition - we hope that you will. To borrow a phrase from the Girl Scouts let’s Get Her There!

I’m increasingly intrigued with the assessment tools that are available to leaders of non-profits and social enterprises. I attended a session at the Nonprofit Management Center at the University of St. Thomas/Minneapolis last week, and heard a presentation from Dr. John Brothers. Dr. Brothers summarized for us his model for organizational life cycles for non-profits. You’ll remember, I posted a blog entry a few months ago on Greiner’s approach to organizational evolution. I invited social entrepreneurs to take a look at an assessment tool I developed, based on the Greiner model.

Dr. Brothers has co-authored a book, Building Nonprofit Capacity, which also contains some ideas for assessing your nonprofit. He has some tools that will help you do this, as well.

Dr. Brothers also mentioned a nonprofit industry tool called the CCAT (Core Capacity Assessment Tool). It looks like a very powerful tool for helping nonprofits assess where they stand in terms of key measures of effectiveness.

So, my question is, “How applicable are these tools to social enterprises?” Yes, many social enterprises are outgrowths of nonprofits, and some social enterprises are the core of their nonprofit “parent.” However, I am increasingly hearing about the tension within social enterprises between the “business culture” and the “nonprofit/mission culture” of social enterprises. Which leads me to believe that the measures for success of nonprofits may not be the same as those for social enterprises. There may well be some overlap between these two sets of measures, but the financial make-up of social enterprises is likely to push those organizations to act differently.

I’ve suggested elsewhere in this blog that the Baldrige Criteria for Nonprofits could be used as the basis for an assessment tool.

And, there is that whole issue of cultures. I blogged last week about the work of Dr. Joanne Martin at Stanford University, in the area of culture clashes within social enterprises. An assessment tool might be helpful, in helping social enterprises understand better the tensions within their organization. As the saying goes, “You have to know where you are, before you go somewhere else.”

If you’ve used the CCAT, or any other tool to help your social enterprise function more effectively, please post your experiences here.

Paul Hardt is a trainer and consultant, with nearly 40 years of experience teaching and training people in a wide variety of settings. 

He can be contacted at paul@paulhardt.com

You can follow him on Twitter @paulhardt

His website is www.paulhardt.com

“Solid wastes” are the discarded leftovers of our advanced consumer society. This growing mountain of garbage and trash represents not only an attitude of indifference toward valuable natural resources, but also a serious economic and public health problem.
— Jimmy Carter

Within the United States the idea of milk that need not be refrigerated is still a very foreign idea. Much technology has gone into making such an idea reality, however, and around the world unrefrigerated milk safely sits on grocery store shelves, waiting to be consumed.

For many around the world these containers are a blessing – a way to keep and transport perishable liquids to places and homes without refrigeration. There is, however, a downside.

The packaging for these liquids, , also known as aseptic boxes, is a high tech combination of materials designed to last forever. And that they do.

Once the liquid inside has been consumed these containers can take ages to even begin deteriorating. Their compositional make-up makes them very difficult to recycle, and so they often end up on the side of the road or raising the levels of local landfills.

All About The Silicone from Actuality Media on Vimeo.

“All About The Silicone” is a film not only about one idea of what can be done with these packages to repurpose them, but it also tells the inspiring story of Michael – a transplant to Talamanca, Costa Rica who saw an environmental problem and decided to do something about it.

Michael is proof that one man can make a difference.

All footage for this video was shot on Canon XA10’s by two Actuality Media crews as an exercise with equipment while preparing to film the short documentaries “Que Será del Caribe” and “CoopeTal.”

Actuality Media is an organization that takes media students to developing communities around the globe to create positive media that tells the story of changemakers doing good works to fight societal and environmental problems that plague the world. These short documentaries were each produced during a thirty day outreach where crews researched their subject changemaker, wrote out their story, filmed and edited it.

Cargill has issued its annual CSR report. The report outlines the food and agriculture conglomerate’s approach to corporate responsibility, with a special emphasis on its work to address global food security.

“Cargill is acting on its vision to be the global leader in nourishing people to address the complex challenge of feeding a world on its way to 9 billion people,” the company stated in a release. The report includes “examples of Cargill’s work to expand access to food; improve nutrition and alleviate hunger; and increase agricultural productivity and incomes while ensuring responsible land use.”

Efforts to combat food insecurity are becoming essential as a variety of factors — including climate change and a rising global population — conspire to increasingly jeopardize our ability to produce enough food to feed everyone.

Crop ecologists tell us that, as a rule of thumb, we can expect a 10-percent decline in grain yields for every 1-degree-Celsius increase in temperature above optimum during the growing season. In short, as global temperatures continue to rise, crop yields are certain to diminish.

Already we are beginning to see the effects of increased temperature on agricultural productivity. In 2012, for example, almost 80 percent of agricultural land in the U.S. is experiencing a severe drought which the U.S. Government’s leading environmental scientist has linked to climate change. The USDA reported that, “The most severe and extensive drought in at least 25 years is seriously affecting U.S. agriculture, with impacts on the crop and livestock sectors and with the potential to affect food prices at the retail level.”

Likewise, the 2003 European heat wave that killed approximately 70,000 people also cut corn yields by a third.

As with all climate-related problems, diminishing agricultural yield is a global issue. A particularly salient example is in Bangladesh, where just a three-foot rise in sea levels (half of that which is predicted by century’s end) would inundate half of that country’s rice land. This would seriously jeopardize the food security of that country’s already impoverished 164 million people.

Other agricultural regions rely on annual water runoff from glaciers that are steadily disappearing due to rising temperatures. In India, the Gangotri Glacier, which helps to keep the Ganges flowing during the dry season, is retreating. The Ganges is by the far the largest source of surface water irrigation in India, the world’s second largest rice producer.

A similar phenomenon is occurring across China’s Yellow River and Yangtze River basins, home to over half a billion people combined. As glaciers in the Tibetan Plateau continue to recede, China’s agricultural yield will be severely threatened. Yao Tandong, a leading Chinese glaciologist, says that this glacial retreat “will eventually lead to an ecological catastrophe.”

Exacerbating this problem is the steady increase in global population. Cargill’s CSR report reminds us that the world’s population will exceed 9 billion by 2050, necessitating a 70% increase in global food production. While diminishing crop yields and increasing population might mean higher food prices for those of us in the developed world, it can mean starvation for the majority of the world’s population that lives in the undeveloped world.

Thus, food insecurity represents a serious and perhaps insurmountable challenge, and understanding the facts helps us contextualize the accomplishments that Cargill has enumerated in their latest CSR report.

While Cargill, a privately-held company, ought to be lauded for its food donations and other charitable giving, which reached almost $70 million across 57 countries in fiscal year 2012, food insecurity is a problem that requires a more systemic approach if it is to be solved, as the company seems to recognize. “Providing emergency assistance is the right thing to do,” said Greg Page, the company’s Chairman and CEO, “but the public and private sectors also need to focus on long-term solutions to hunger and work together to ensure that all 7 billion people on this planet have access to safe, nutritious and affordable food.”

That said, Cargill’s approach to food insecurity focuses primarily on improved agricultural productivity and greater access to food, both of which are perhaps better understood in the light of profit maximization rather than hunger alleviation. Indeed, global food conglomerates like Cargill will be well served by opening up developing markets to genetically modified seeds that can withstand higher temperatures.

Such an approach, uncoupled with an emphasis on reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, is unlikely to get us very far. Heat-resistant crops are an inherently unsustainable solution: photosynthesis ceases at around 104 degrees Fahrenheit.

Image credit: CraneStation

A new grant program announced this week will seek to better educate a relatively unpersuaded American populace about the realities of climate change.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced new grants for community-based educational centers in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Washington D.C. The grants were awarded under the Climate and Urban Systems Partnership, an NSF-funded initiative that seeks to engage urbanites in community-based learning about climate change science.

While consensus in the scientific community overwhelmingly indicates that climate change is occurring due to human activity, Americans lag far behind their Canadian counterparts in their understanding of climate science.

98% of Canadians believe that climate change is occurring, according to a survey released last week by IPAC-CO2 Research Inc., an environmental non-government organization.

“Our survey indicates that Canadians from coast to coast overwhelmingly believe climate change is real and is occurring, at least in part due to human activity,” said Dr. Carmen Dybwad, CEO of IPAC-CO2 . “These findings have been consistent from 2011 and 2012. Canadians care about issues like extreme weather, drought and climate change.”

In the United States, on the other hand, only 62% of the public thinks that global warming is underway, according to a survey conducted by the National Survey of American Public Opinion on Climate Change. Similarly, a vast majority of Canadians (86%) believe climate change is occurring at least partially due to human activity, compared with only 48% in the United States.

Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute, which received $5,882,653 under the NSF grant, will establish Urban Learning Networks in participating American cities to share best practices to improve education concerning climate change.

U.S. Congressman Chaka Fattah (D-PA) was strongly supportive of the grants. “The Franklin Institute is one of our nation’s leading scientific and educational museums. It is exactly the right place for a far-reaching program to educate Philadelphians, including school children, about the growing challenges and impending crisis of climate change,” said Fattah.

Fattah is the Ranking Democrat on the House subcommittee that oversees over $51 billion in funding for NSF, NASA, neuroscience research, the White House Office of Science and Technology, and the U.S. Departments of Justice and Commerce.

Fattah received a 94% score on his environmental record from the League of Conservation Voters (LCV). This puts him near the top of the most environmentally-friendly members of Congress, according to LCV.

Fattah’s record on the environment makes him an outlier in Congress. During last year’s legislative session, the House voted 191 times to undermine efforts to protect the environment, thus “amassing the worst environmental record of any Congress in history,” according to a House Committee on Energy and Commerce minority report.

“Philadelphians and residents of other cities rely on transportation, water, energy and public health systems that all are vulnerable to climate change,” said Fattah. “I commend Franklin Institute for developing this major outreach effort to inform our citizens of this gathering crisis.”

Institutions receiving the award include the Franklin Institute, the Columbia University Center for Climate Systems Research, the University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the New York Hall of Science, and the Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences. The grant will cover a five year period.

Image credit: Bonnie Brown

Last month, I had the pleasure of attending the Awesome Foundation’s inaugural Awesome Summit. For those of you who do not know the Awesome Foundation, it’s a wonderful and successful experiment in philanthropy: Through local chapters in cities around the world, groups of about 10 pool their money together each month to different projects in their local communities. This funding can be for anything—literally. In DC, the local Awesome Foundation chapter supported a reenactment of the bolder scene from Indiana Jones.The funding has no strings attached; they just want to support cool ideas.

The Awesome Summit was a time for people to get together and talk not only about the future of philanthropy, but the future of doing good. There were a lot of creative thinkers in the room and interesting ideas were flowing. The conference had a tech feel to it, with a lot of talk on how the internet and social technologies can create the infrastructure for a new way of creating (and funding) social change.

One thing that I appreciated about the conference was that it not only was focused on open and collaborative ways to create change, it was also open and collaborative in its structure. People were encouraged to speak up during the sessions and each panel relied on questions from the audience. It also has a user-generated session towards the end of the day based on suggestions from the attendees. Tapping into my critical thinking skills, I suggested the topic “How are we wrong?”

Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, this breakout session was well attended. People wanted an opportunity to critically analyze the way of thinking that brought us all to the Awesome Summit. This gave me hope that I’m not the only person who likes being in the metaphorical back of the room, throwing proverbial spitballs at people trying to do new things.

The conversation we had was a good critical look at the hot new trends in philanthropy and funding—mostly we talked about crowdfunding and its limitations: it isn’t a sustainable way to fund long-term projects, it’s best suited for arts funding, its hard to use crowdfunding for organizational capacity funding. But we also talked about what we could be missing as a member of the Awesome Foundation community and affiliated organizations.

As I’ve said in other posts, it’s important to get outside your comfort zone and expose yourself to people not like you. The Awesome Summit had a great group of people, and our communities are made up of people doing inspiring and innovative things, but we only make up a small part of those thinking about and working for social change. No matter how smart you are, most of the smartest people in the world aren’t you, and they have no idea what you are doing. Learning from the plethora of other smart people is never a bad idea.

So, I’d ask you to join me in the metaphorical back of the room to throw a few spitballs. As you go about your work, whether you are an entrepreneur, intrapreneur, infrapreneur, or just someone trying to make a difference somehow, keep asking yourself that question: How am I wrong? How are we wrong? Answering it truthfully can only make things better.

A version of this post originally appeared on UnSectored.