Published by Gregory Heller on 06 Dec 2011 at 01:45 pm
Lessons Of The Dancing Guy, When To Lead And When To Follow
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A recent opinion piece on The Chronicle of Philanthropy website, “Calling All Boomers: Don’t Start More Nonprofits” reminded me of the Derek Sivers TED talk “How To Start A Movement” in which he analyzes a popular YouTube video of a guy dancing on a hillside at music festival. |
Guest Blogger, Gregory Heller, shares his thoughts on when to lead and when to follow!
According to the piece, a recently release study revealed “that 12 million baby boomers want to start their own nonprofit or socially oriented business over the next decade.” I think we can all agree that it is wonderful that so many people are moved to do good. But as the author, Mark Rosenman, suggests, is this really the best way for them to affect change?
The notion that what is needed to solve some social ill, or intractable problem is a new nonprofit organization or social venture business flows from our addiction to new. We may assume that if organizations have been around for so long and has not solved the problem, they must be incapable of solving the problem. The presence of unsolved problems may, to some, be evidence of the ineffectiveness of existing organizations working on the problem thus leading to the conclusion that what is needed are new organizations.
As Rosenman argues, this is a kind of narcism. New organizations require significant resources to get started. These start up costs could instead support existing organizations. The energy of the people involved in starting new organizations could instead go to revitalizing and reenergizing existing organizations.
This is where I come back to the dancing guy (and if you haven’t watched the video yet, you might want to, and then come back to this article). He’s out there doing his own thing, dancing all crazy. As Sivers outlines, it is not until one or two followers join him that the avalanche of dancers follows and he has started a full fledged movement.
In business it may be fine to try and start a new enterprise to do something just a little bit better than the existing businesses out there. But in the nonprofit sector — the public sector — when working for the greater public good, I think we all have a responsibility to amplify the work of existing organizations before splintering support by creating new ones. The socially responsible thing is to do your due diligence and if there is another organization working on the same thing you are interested in meet with them and see how you can join them, dancing on the side of the hill.
Working together and getting beyond personal or organization ego is not easy, but perhaps the #occupy movement has lessons to teach in this regard. By getting together — face-to-face — and taking the time to get to know each other and really listen and share, these ambitious do-gooder baby boomers will learn that they can achieve their goals by working with, and helping to improve existing organizations.
About the author
Gregory Heller is a strategist with CivicActions, a professional services firm specializing in open source solutions for nonprofit organizations with particular expertise in the Drupal content management system and CiviCRM. CivicActions has been helping organizations around the world solve problems since 2004. This article originally appeared on CivicActions.com, you can follow Gregory Heller and CivicActions on Twitter.
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Tags: CivicActions, Gregory Heller, mark rosenman, movement, Philanthropy
4 Responses to “Lessons Of The Dancing Guy, When To Lead And When To Follow”
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A thought provoking article. I worry about the way people seem to have accepted the view that the public sector is not working in some way. The fact is that if we want to have decent services which are available free to everyone at the point of use then we have to accept that there is a cost associated with that. Whatever people’s views are about the quality or range of the services provided, we should acknowledge that there are a large number of very experienced people providing the services. I wonder how many of the new social enterprises that are springing up to provide services which are outsourced by councils etc, are being run by people who have been made redundant from the existing services. The author of the article is right to point out the costs that are involved in setting up new businesses and if they are starting from scratch they have a long learning curve ahead. What happens if they get things wrong? And what happens if the new organisations are found not to be providing better services than are currently provided. Will we just go on creating more and more new businesses?
Heller is right that nonprofit organizations have not yet proven themselves revolutionary. That’s because many are bogged down trying to match middle-class standards of salary, 401k plans, lovely offices with latest equipment.
As a serial social entrepreneur, I’ve started 18 community-based organizations whose staff wake up in the morning excited to fix problems rather than to secure their old age. Staff who realize that community is the ultimate social security.
My recently recognized non-profit organization is taking the instinctual power of music along with our instinct to gather as tribes to a global level!!! http://www.groovism.org will provide “the dancing guy” a groove to shake his booty to!! When enough of us a helping to create The One Global song, for a sufficient amount of time, something miraculous will occur!!
Yes, I agree with these sentiments. And the interesting thing is that it is hard to know all of the good work that is happening around the world, and which groups or organizations are one’s of integrity to participate with.
As you mentioned, the #Occupy movement so beautifully illustrates this ripple effect of work and inspiration and community that already exists, and needs care and attendance to grow and empower the voice of the people.
As with the mic-check style of communication with this great movement, to sharing what has already been said, and rippling it out into the crowd to yet again empower once more with the same words, we are creating a project to do a similar thing.
The Connectivity Project is working on a website and a documentary/docu-drama as an attempt to highlight in yet another way the work that is already happening around us. So that the spotlight and microphone are again given to the work that is not so evident to all of us, to allow them a chance to be heard from another vantage point. It also addresses the significance of each and everyone of us, in the actions that we live, as we exist in an amazing world of interconnectivity, where all things have a ripple effect, thus what we do also has this ripple effect. Is it having the effect that we desire? Let’s live into the lives in which we desire.
Since our project is about community and collaboration, we invite you and anyone who is interested to be in touch with us with their stories, ideas, talents….
Thanks for your wonderful article and insights.
Find us at http://www.connectivityproject.com
Rose Madrone