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A Movement Toward Hope

In spite of all the bad news, there is good news, and plenty of it. All you have to do is know where to look. A revolution is going on.   It is called Citizen Enterprise. It is a new institutional force called the ?third force.? Just as the growth of private enterprise exploded after the Civil War became a force generating 1000 fold increase in human productivity in 100 years. Our government became a second transformational force as it reinvented itself from the challenges of the Great Depression and a World War to rebuild America into a vibrant culture of opportunity. Today, there is a rapidly growing institutional sector of non-profit, non-governmental and socially focused enterprises using the productivity tools of technology, the disciplines of the market, and the mission to save our future that is changing everything. 100,000 new Citizen Enterprises have been started in the past 10 years. Employment in these enterprises is growing 250% faster than the private sector. The multi-billion dollar micro-credit industry which gives the world?s poor a chance to change their economic and educational destiny is a leading example.

In business we are beginning to see how strategic social responsibilities migrated from tiny companies such as Patagonia and Clif Bar into the main stream. When companies like Wal-Mart become the biggest seller of organic cotton clothes, when they convert their massive truck fleet to bio-fuel power, when they convince their suppliers to reduce their packaging and to use recyclable materials, something is changing. In the last few years start ups like SunEdison which puts solar panels arrays on big box store in exchange for 10 year contracts of electricity have become mainstream businesses rather than social experiments, something is up. Businesses are quickly figuring out that solving the Earth?s and mankind?s greatest problems are massive opportunities.

As younger leaders get more responsibility the sincerity of their efforts marry social good with capitalism into a new form of human capitalism that leverages innovation to create a future we can all look forward to.

And philanthropy. The richest men in the world, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, have decided to give their millions to solve the world?s problems and more importantly actively take part in the leadership. Gates takes an active leadership role in solving the problems of education and disease. This philanthropy isn?t simply giving money away, it?s applying technology, brainpower, and leadership to the problems that beset us. When the founder of eBay, Pierre Oditemeyer helps create global giving as a way to take eBay?s technology to create a worldwide market place for small indigenous charities, which help the world one village at a time, it is time to take notice of the whole change of what philanthropy means.

Environmentalism has also gone mainstream. Not only did Al Gore?s Inconvenient Truth become a media phenomenon, everyone in the mainstream, whether Republican or Democrat, has decided that pure water, clean air and rain forests do matter. All we have to do is look at our children, our grandchildren and realize that we are all environmentalists. None of us can afford the earth to become an orbiting piece of charcoal, devoid of the diversity of life. Of course, there is much to be done, but there is a growing universal will to do something.

The cause of social justice is also growing. The drive to educate women in Middle East and Africa and other cultures where they traditionally have served in some form of domestic slavery has made women education an international priority.

The Most Radical Revolution from Your Dreams on Fire

Fasten your seatbelts. The world is radically changing right now at unprecedented speed. And the change I am talking about is great. Awesome even. It?s the dawn of the Citizen Era. Writers like David Bornstein are publicizing an international earthquake that has been shaking things up for the past 15 years. It was born from astronomical growth in productivity, surplus wealth, and technology fueled by market economies around the world. Market economies have increased per capita income more than 700% in the 20th century. The principle driver was private enterprise. In counties with fair and efficient legal systems the entrepreneurial spirit ignites innovation and competition that flourishes because open markets reward great ideas and efficient execution. In fact the business sector has gotten so powerful and wealthy from the results of free and fair markets they become patrons of governments corrupting the very system that originally made them succeed.

Now something equally powerfully is rising. It?s called ?social? entrepreneurship which applies the energy of innovation and urgency of competition to solve human problems like poverty, illiteracy, environmental healing, and pervasive health problems. Worldwide, the number of non-profit/non-governmental organizations has skyrocketed since 1990 by over 400%.   Employment in the citizen sector organizations has grown two and a half times faster than the overall world economy. Millions of us are now earning our living in the citizen sector.

Why? Because today there is more awareness that we can use innovative ideas and business discipline to ramp up save-the-world solutions faster than ever. Yes, we are a race against the forces of destruction but at least there is a race.

But as corrupt as capitalists systems can become, the alternatives are worse. A Soviet-style planned economy cannot compete with open-market economies. Soviet food markets were anything but super. Long lines, empty shelves, and scarce housing were life as usual. Perhaps it?s because governments are not good at delivery of direct services. Bureaucracies are bad at value delivery, usually because there is little competition and few rewards. Governments are best at creating conditions of security, justice, and opportunity. That?s the first job of government.

As far as service delivery, there is a new breed of entrepreneurial citizen organizations that are solving social problems world wide. Millions of social entrepreneurs are making big impacts in education, health, and access to capital around the world. 2006 Nobel Prize winner Yanus Mohammad started the Grameen Bank in the early 1980s has created an international micro-credit industry helping tens of millions start small businesses. More astounding over 80% of his mostly illiterate clients? children are in school, many now in college in places like Bangladesh, SriLanka and India. Yanus?s ideas were originally not all worked out. He had problems in scaling up his tiny loan program beyond a score of villages. But his entrepreneurial zeal and his need for people to pay back their loans led him to keep innovating until a multi-billion dollar, worldwide _______-credit industry was born. A similar government program would have undoubtedly failed because it wouldn?t have had to succeed. He?s just one example of tens of thousands of new citizen sector enterprises delivering real, world-changing value. It?s all driven by citizen leaders-- ordinary people doing the extraordinary. What?s it all mean?

Plenty.

There is quickly emerging a ?third force? in society. A force far more successful than government in delivering services to relieve suffering and create long-term real solutions to our future?s most dangerous problems. This citizen sector often collaborates with government and private enterprise to create new sustainable solutions. The size, effectiveness, and growth of this force are unprecedented in world history. It?s a great time to be alive! This is how it looks. (Graphic of Venn diagram of 3 overlapping circles.)

The public sector, government provides laws, policies and resources to provide conditions of life (security) liberty (freedom/responsibility and equality/opportunity) so that we, you and I, can pursue real happiness with gusto.

The private sector, which is the world of business and commerce, provide opportunities to increase our material well-being and social mobility. It does this by producing and delivering products and services. The citizen sector provides solutions to problems of social justice, poverty, environmental destruction, public health and more. It does this also by developing and providing products and services.

Both the private and citizen sectors thrive when markets are free and fair because effectiveness and efficiency is rewarded. Private enterprise competes for funding and people to serve. But there is one big difference that enables citizen sector organizations to do what private enterprise cannot. Private enterprise is accountable to their shareholders. They must be profitable in both the short and long term and the more profitable, the better. That?s why oil and drug companies? leaders can look at themselves in the mirror as they strategize to max-out profits even if it causes single moms to feed their kids baloney sandwiches so they can fill the gas tank to get to work. Or increase older drug prices even if my mother is choosing her pills or heat for her house. The point is businesses are not directly accountable to single mothers or grandmothers who aren?t shareholders.

That?s why governments experiments in privatizing prisons has resulted in operations that look like human chicken farms and many for-profit Charter Schools excel by focusing primarily on wealthy, smart kids.

The citizen sector is revolutionary because it provides the services that focuses on maxing-out the value to the ?customer? because the citizen enterprise is accountable to?.us. Citizens! In exchange for tax-exempt status and the ability to compete for 0255n increasing pool of charitable capital, citizen enterprise is free to focus on just getting the best results.

Many efficient and mind blowing ambitious citizen (non-profit, nongovernmental, or hybrid) enterprises are new. Old, large-scale charities with overheads ranging from 30-40% are scrambling to redefine themselves. New entrepreneurial citizen organizations usually run at 10% to no more than 20% overhead. It?s because of free market competition for funds.   More foundations and individuals are demanding accountability and that market discipline creates innovation, efficiency and scalability.

Yes, these are exciting times. The American Dream Project is a citizen sector hybrid enterprise. Our non-profit foundation is actively raising money and seeking sponsors for educational courses offering free high school and college credit in Citizen Enterprise Leadership and other courses. We are running campaigns to promote civic engagement through The All America Party and programs like mydreammatters.com. Our for-profit alliance with consulting organizations is teaching business how to be strategically socially responsible. To make money by saving the world. (If you?re interested, email us.)

It?s time to see the future in a new way. Just as the first American Revolution changed the purpose and form of government, the 4th American Revolution will reform the role of government by shrinking its budget growth and focusing it on doing what it should be best at: life and liberty. The citizen sector will continue to explode to improve our quality of life, solve our problems in new ways and help us make Globalism actually work. And private enterprise will increasingly become a powerful engine for social good as well as provide a new economy for our children. All this will happen if we make it so. Let?s.