This is getting good!
I can't tell you how inspired I feel about the Good-Wil Initiative lately! So many wonderful people have asked to participate. My greatest challenge is now to come up with an effective way to utilize this fantastic army of individuals. I am not very good at administrative things; I make lists and then lose them, for example. I guess I'm a true artist in that sense. Not that being a "true artist" makes me a GOOD artist, but a definitely a stereotypical one. Depressing thought being a stereotype.
For those of you who don't know about the Fitchburg-based Good-Wil Initiative, allow me to explain. It is a organization of a type called a Social Enterprise. A social enterprise is structured like a regular commercial business, but there is no shareholder. No owner gets a percentage. All proceeds of a social enterprise are donated to a cause or mission. In the case of The Good-Wil initiative, we produce cultural events and donate the ticket proceeds to an annual selection of local nonprofit organizations. It's a lot like Newman's Own Food Company. Paul Newman and his business partner founded a company over 25 years ago that produces a selection of food products, creates jobs, raises millions of dollars for their foundation and charities across the country, and sets a good example of alternative ways of doing business in the world.
I decided to partner with Good-Wil co-founders Corinne Farinelli and David Roth to create the Good-Wil Initiative in early 2008 and it's been an amazing ride ever since.
SO now we have a small army and a big mission: Save the world one hometown at a time. Starting with our own.
Exactly HOW do we do this? Well, I only have my own model to go by and that's the one we're working with to start. That model is based on seeking out, in our own communities, our most valuable human resources and then intentionally developing them for export. Sounds fancy, huh? Well it is a bit fancy, I am happy to report.
I'll just go ahead and say it. Yes, it's possible to have something wonderful that actually comes from your own backyard. Are you shocked? We so often discount things that come from our own neck of the woods as being something that's only good enough for the locals; not worthy of national attention. We think that if they're still here and haven't gone off to some big city, then they must not be worth very much.
Well, the world is getting much smaller thanx to the Internet. We're able to connect with each other in ways that even 20 years ago no one could have imagined. No one could have even imagined imagining it! But here we are with a global platform and only the merest hint at how we can save ourselves through the careful and strategic use of it. We can actually BE in our hometowns AND be national products who are known for just that. Of course I'm eluding to myself, but the frame is universal. And I want to apply it.
All the mentorship and guidance that I needed in order to pursue my passions and be productive with them I received right here in my community. Any talent, whether artistic, technical, medical, or entrepreneurial that comes from our community should be noticed, fostered and deliberately developed by the community. I want to recreate, for the youth of our community coming up behind me, the exceptional professional education & development that I received. I want to develop them so that they will one day represent us well in the world. And perhaps they might return the favor by remaining a part of our community or by creating new examples for other communities of what we teach them. Good-Wil ambassadors, if you will.
Human export is like any other export. It needs to successfully represent the manufacturer at the same time as turning a profit. Fitchburg and North Central Massachusetts are my manufacturer and I wish to represent that in the world. I also wish to turn a profit for my manufacturer and for myself. I want to be happy pursuing my dreams knowing that I have included my community in my business plan.
Perhaps it's a bit startling to hear me refer to myself in such objective and "meat-like" terms. Well I am a piece of meat, after all. I may be a fabulous piece of meat (lol), but meat nonetheless. It's important to me to use this objective language to help keep things in perspective. Especially being in the type of occupation where one could get a large head. And ultimately, if I wish to place myself within the context of a business model - as is the case with the Good-Wil Initiative - then a product I most certainly am. And it is as such that I can only hope to find the coolest opportunities to do my favorite thing: stand on a stage and sing.
What product is the Good-Wil Initiative is trying export? Passion. Talent. And not just performing arts talent either, though that's where we're starting. But all kinds of talent and passion. What do you like to do? What do you really, really like to do? How can you leverage that personal interest into not only making a living for yourself, but into making a difference in our community, our region, our state, our country, our world? How can your own little personal interest change the world?
Simple. We do it together.
See, if you know that the 12-year-old kid next door is a whiz at fixing things, why not find him an opportunity to develop that talent? Why not make a call about a scholarship to a summer technical program or perhaps use the Internet to create a little local campaign to raise the money for a new scholarship? What if you helped him develop a small business? It isn't that hard to do.
Everyone has interests and dreams - many shuttle them off to the side as being too fanciful or too "unrealistic." And I have to say, at the expense of being publicly offensive, that's total bullshit.
If you have a passion and a natural talent for something - anything - then it's my belief that those talents can be parlayed into something that actually DOES save the world. AND YOU in the process.
So, as I said before I only have my own model to go by and here it is:
I have always been interested in singing. It goes back to my earliest memories. Even in the memories within memories I can recall collecting songs in some mental list; evaluating songs for their potential to be performed in concert. Imagining myself standing on a stage and delivering their message. It has always been there even though it took many years to identify the constant througline of thought. The thought was so constant I couldn't see the forest through the trees. It wasn't until I was in my mid-30s before I could really identify it. I'd spent many years believing that acting was the path I was seeking - that would be what could satisfy my underlying passions. I was close, but no cigar. The desire to stand on a stage and communicate with many was there and understood, but I never really pursued acting. I never pounded the pavement and did what was really required to make it as an actor. I worked because I auditioned well - once I actually got around to auditioning for something, that is.
Once the Thayer Symphony Orchestra - my local professional orchestra - offered me my first headline appearance, I began to understand the difference between pretending to be someone else on stage and learning how to be myself. My mom always said that if I was just myself, people would like me. I don't know if she knew how right she was.
So here I am with this passion to sing in concert. What do I do with it? My first thought was to produce benefit concerts so that I could sing what I wanted and actually have people come. If they didn't know who I was, perhaps they would be drawn to the cause I was benefiting and then maybe they'd get to know me in the process? But the bottom line for me was: I could sing on stage and people would be there to hear it.
Since this was now my best option for being the type of performer I really wanted to be it seems so obvious to me now that my local community would naturally become my mentors and teachers. Those are the people to whom I would need to turn in order to make these types of events possible. If you're holding a benefit, you need sponsors and you need volunteers who believe in the same causes to help produce the events. You need to reach out to the community to get the support you need. And if they like your idea they'll not only help you, but they'll teach you how to do it better. They'll guide you and mold your philanthropic language. They'll eventually begin to ask you for your help as well. Before you know it you're in constant collaboration with your community and that's a network that can't be undone easily.
Choosing to make my way as a concert vocalist placed me squarely on a course that would involve the best elements of my very own backyard as my teachers, friends, and helpers. It would develop me as an individual, as an artist, as a philanthropist, and, in turn, into a teacher of those who would embark on this same course I came to understand as Social Enterprise.
So here I am an individual with a passion and an opportunity to express that passion. That's it. There it is. The rest is, and will continue to be, the natural result of the WAY I have chosen to express and live my passion. Any success that may come to me will have been because of the way I approached it. That's not to say that social enterprise is the only way anyone ever makes it in the world or finds as a method to express their passion successfully; in fact, we know many who have become successful in other ways. But this is the only one I, personally, could live with. And it is the one I am now choosing to teach to others as a way of, yes, furthering the opportunities to express my own passion: to sing.
For those of you who don't know about the Fitchburg-based Good-Wil Initiative, allow me to explain. It is a organization of a type called a Social Enterprise. A social enterprise is structured like a regular commercial business, but there is no shareholder. No owner gets a percentage. All proceeds of a social enterprise are donated to a cause or mission. In the case of The Good-Wil initiative, we produce cultural events and donate the ticket proceeds to an annual selection of local nonprofit organizations. It's a lot like Newman's Own Food Company. Paul Newman and his business partner founded a company over 25 years ago that produces a selection of food products, creates jobs, raises millions of dollars for their foundation and charities across the country, and sets a good example of alternative ways of doing business in the world.
I decided to partner with Good-Wil co-founders Corinne Farinelli and David Roth to create the Good-Wil Initiative in early 2008 and it's been an amazing ride ever since.
SO now we have a small army and a big mission: Save the world one hometown at a time. Starting with our own.
Exactly HOW do we do this? Well, I only have my own model to go by and that's the one we're working with to start. That model is based on seeking out, in our own communities, our most valuable human resources and then intentionally developing them for export. Sounds fancy, huh? Well it is a bit fancy, I am happy to report.
I'll just go ahead and say it. Yes, it's possible to have something wonderful that actually comes from your own backyard. Are you shocked? We so often discount things that come from our own neck of the woods as being something that's only good enough for the locals; not worthy of national attention. We think that if they're still here and haven't gone off to some big city, then they must not be worth very much.
Well, the world is getting much smaller thanx to the Internet. We're able to connect with each other in ways that even 20 years ago no one could have imagined. No one could have even imagined imagining it! But here we are with a global platform and only the merest hint at how we can save ourselves through the careful and strategic use of it. We can actually BE in our hometowns AND be national products who are known for just that. Of course I'm eluding to myself, but the frame is universal. And I want to apply it.
All the mentorship and guidance that I needed in order to pursue my passions and be productive with them I received right here in my community. Any talent, whether artistic, technical, medical, or entrepreneurial that comes from our community should be noticed, fostered and deliberately developed by the community. I want to recreate, for the youth of our community coming up behind me, the exceptional professional education & development that I received. I want to develop them so that they will one day represent us well in the world. And perhaps they might return the favor by remaining a part of our community or by creating new examples for other communities of what we teach them. Good-Wil ambassadors, if you will.
Human export is like any other export. It needs to successfully represent the manufacturer at the same time as turning a profit. Fitchburg and North Central Massachusetts are my manufacturer and I wish to represent that in the world. I also wish to turn a profit for my manufacturer and for myself. I want to be happy pursuing my dreams knowing that I have included my community in my business plan.
Perhaps it's a bit startling to hear me refer to myself in such objective and "meat-like" terms. Well I am a piece of meat, after all. I may be a fabulous piece of meat (lol), but meat nonetheless. It's important to me to use this objective language to help keep things in perspective. Especially being in the type of occupation where one could get a large head. And ultimately, if I wish to place myself within the context of a business model - as is the case with the Good-Wil Initiative - then a product I most certainly am. And it is as such that I can only hope to find the coolest opportunities to do my favorite thing: stand on a stage and sing.
What product is the Good-Wil Initiative is trying export? Passion. Talent. And not just performing arts talent either, though that's where we're starting. But all kinds of talent and passion. What do you like to do? What do you really, really like to do? How can you leverage that personal interest into not only making a living for yourself, but into making a difference in our community, our region, our state, our country, our world? How can your own little personal interest change the world?
Simple. We do it together.
See, if you know that the 12-year-old kid next door is a whiz at fixing things, why not find him an opportunity to develop that talent? Why not make a call about a scholarship to a summer technical program or perhaps use the Internet to create a little local campaign to raise the money for a new scholarship? What if you helped him develop a small business? It isn't that hard to do.
Everyone has interests and dreams - many shuttle them off to the side as being too fanciful or too "unrealistic." And I have to say, at the expense of being publicly offensive, that's total bullshit.
If you have a passion and a natural talent for something - anything - then it's my belief that those talents can be parlayed into something that actually DOES save the world. AND YOU in the process.
So, as I said before I only have my own model to go by and here it is:
I have always been interested in singing. It goes back to my earliest memories. Even in the memories within memories I can recall collecting songs in some mental list; evaluating songs for their potential to be performed in concert. Imagining myself standing on a stage and delivering their message. It has always been there even though it took many years to identify the constant througline of thought. The thought was so constant I couldn't see the forest through the trees. It wasn't until I was in my mid-30s before I could really identify it. I'd spent many years believing that acting was the path I was seeking - that would be what could satisfy my underlying passions. I was close, but no cigar. The desire to stand on a stage and communicate with many was there and understood, but I never really pursued acting. I never pounded the pavement and did what was really required to make it as an actor. I worked because I auditioned well - once I actually got around to auditioning for something, that is.
Once the Thayer Symphony Orchestra - my local professional orchestra - offered me my first headline appearance, I began to understand the difference between pretending to be someone else on stage and learning how to be myself. My mom always said that if I was just myself, people would like me. I don't know if she knew how right she was.
So here I am with this passion to sing in concert. What do I do with it? My first thought was to produce benefit concerts so that I could sing what I wanted and actually have people come. If they didn't know who I was, perhaps they would be drawn to the cause I was benefiting and then maybe they'd get to know me in the process? But the bottom line for me was: I could sing on stage and people would be there to hear it.
Since this was now my best option for being the type of performer I really wanted to be it seems so obvious to me now that my local community would naturally become my mentors and teachers. Those are the people to whom I would need to turn in order to make these types of events possible. If you're holding a benefit, you need sponsors and you need volunteers who believe in the same causes to help produce the events. You need to reach out to the community to get the support you need. And if they like your idea they'll not only help you, but they'll teach you how to do it better. They'll guide you and mold your philanthropic language. They'll eventually begin to ask you for your help as well. Before you know it you're in constant collaboration with your community and that's a network that can't be undone easily.
Choosing to make my way as a concert vocalist placed me squarely on a course that would involve the best elements of my very own backyard as my teachers, friends, and helpers. It would develop me as an individual, as an artist, as a philanthropist, and, in turn, into a teacher of those who would embark on this same course I came to understand as Social Enterprise.
So here I am an individual with a passion and an opportunity to express that passion. That's it. There it is. The rest is, and will continue to be, the natural result of the WAY I have chosen to express and live my passion. Any success that may come to me will have been because of the way I approached it. That's not to say that social enterprise is the only way anyone ever makes it in the world or finds as a method to express their passion successfully; in fact, we know many who have become successful in other ways. But this is the only one I, personally, could live with. And it is the one I am now choosing to teach to others as a way of, yes, furthering the opportunities to express my own passion: to sing.