LIVE UNITED Y’All!

By Kelly Hutchinson, Donor Relationship Manager

I will admit that I love how Hank can bellow….Are you ready for some FOOTBALL? And, I am. I am ready and excited about the hiring of Coach Charlie Strong for the University of Louisville so I will attribute this seemingly football inspired United Way blog to this fact. The recent press conference introducing the new Coach won me over when he shared his heart and emotion over the joy of attaining his career dream of a head coaching position and the opportunity to lead a program. It was so easy to feel his sincerity when he spoke and now it will be even easier to pull for his success both on the field and in the community.

It continues to be an exciting time of year in NFL football also as the Indianapolis Colts and the Cincinnati Bengals continue to rack up the W’s. While these two teams are perhaps the closest we have in our region to a home NFL team, it doesn’t matter whether you are a Colts fan or on the “Who-Dey” train right now, the NFL is deserving of recognition for the longstanding partnership and support of the United Way movement. Did you know that for 35 years, thispartnership has been a shining example of the tangible good that can be leveraged into a powerful vehicle for real change in people’s lives and the community?  Check out how the NFL LIVES UNITED and see if you can find one of your team’s favorite players too!

Yes, Tis the season for football and also for giving thanks and sharing. The words THANK YOU are two of the most powerful words you can speak, share and that you can hear. Thank you for helping make our community a better place to live and work.  If you gave in your campaign at work for United Way, thank you for caring and sharing to help change the lives of those who pass by you every day. The change we strive to create at Metro United Way doesn’t happen without you. Don’t just take my word for it….take a quick look at our recent field trip. It was a LIVE UNITED thank you tour. Check it out and you will see how we surprised a few loyal donors while they were working. I think you can imagine their surprise and you can also see the strong feelings created with an in-person and heartfelt thank you.

Advocacy, Events, General, Giving, Volunteering Charlie Strong, Common good, community change, Football, Live United, Louisville, NFL, passion, thank you, United Way

By Howard Mason

I had the privilege of working this weekend with some of the wonderful leaders of the Student United Ways forming at University of Louisville and at Indiana University Southeast. We met in a retreat and talked about what brought us to the work of community change, when and why we have seen community change work, and what community change we are passionate about leading.

Spending time with these young leaders reminded me of the work of Bob Stilger, a colleague at the Berkana Foundation who has spent time with young leaders all over the world and has described what makes them tick and how they are different from the leaders of the 20^th century.

Bob calls the leadership of social movements of the 21^st century Enspirited Leadership. This leadership comes from mind, heart and spirit and provides a foundation for action in the world. Here are some of Bob’s key findings:

The work of 21^st century change leaders is:

Enspirited- Leaders work with an irresistibly strong sense of calling.

Appreciative- Leaders look for what is already working, for the wealth and assets that are already present and for the possibilities that already exist.

Emergent- Leaders follow a path of discovery, exploration and inquiry, standing in the now and looking for the new.

(In the 60s and 70s, social change movements tended to be ideological, strategic, and tactical.)

The world view of enspirited leaders

• We live in an abundant, nourishing and nurturing environment.
• We have a deep trust in the inherent goodness of the human spirit.
• It is not only possible, it is essential that we learn to live with each other on this planet in ways which promote mutual respect, fairness and justice.
• Issues of fairness and justice are of paramount importance.

This kind of leadership focuses more on possibilities than problems, and comes from a part of us beyond the capacities of our analytical, logical minds.

Six key characteristics of enspirited leaders

1. Life leads these leaders to work.

Enspirited leaders step into their work because of a strong sense of calling, rather than a logical, rational, methodical, strategic decision-making process

2. They journey in the company of others.

This work is rarely done alone. Moving into new territory, doing work that seems unconventional and perhaps even foolish to some, requires companions.

3. They demand diversity and wholeness.

When these leaders look at a given situation, they look for the surrounding web of relationships and systems. They look for the whole picture.

4. They work from a spiritual center.

The presence of a spiritual center is what allows these leaders to hear and trust their inner voice and follow its call. They also move, with that spirit, into a place of reflective learning which acts as a compass to guide their action.

5. Reflective learning guides their lives.

Enspirited leaders practice a continuous process of surfacing facts and impressions, talking about them with others in order to surface patterns and assumptions, examining their actions and behaviors, and then affirming or changing their course of action.

6. Their work is filled with ambiguity and uncertainty.

Ambiguity and uncertainty are befriended in this work. To follow a sense of calling, in the company of others, aware of a diverse world, from a spiritual center and with an awareness of assumptions, is to let go of control. There is simply no other way.

As Adam Kahane has said: To change the world, you both have to be committed to changing it and be able to listen to how it wants to change.

That is how these young change leaders will show how us how to LIVE UNITED in the 21^st century.

General, Volunteering Charactersitics of leaders, community change, Leadership, Student United Way

by Kelly Hutchinson, Donor Relations

I would like to take a moment today and congratulate all the fine people who have made the switch from analog to digital. Once again, we as Americans have survived another important milestone. It seems if we ban together we can accomplish anything!

I laughed out loud recently at this FB post made by a friend. I also quickly thought about a deeper message that entered my mind. I thought to myself, so the big day finally arrived, passed and went unnoticed. Sort of like the Y2k bug that never really reared a pesty head but the hype leading up caused such a stir.

Then, I thought a little bit more….One of the real challenges we have in our work at Metro United Way is in getting the message of our work out into our community. If you are a volunteer, donor or both then I would want to say THANK YOU as that is always a most important message. I know have along the way learned the value of lending your time, talents and treasure the United Way.

However, if you are in the pool of people who aren’t quite sure about the value of United Way, what we do, or the opportunities created, well then you need to know more.

Our goal is to advance the common good and share opportunities to give, advocate and volunteer for vital health and human services that will impact education, income and health in our community. At Metro United Way, we change the lives of those who walk by us everyday and we can change what we see in our world.

Stay with me on this… Think about it…What a difference it would make if the same dedicated messaging, and urgency -I recall for at least a year no less watching the scrolls, commercials and reminders to be ready for the impending switch from analog to digital TV- could be applied to helping our community.

Hmmm…I wonder what would happen for our neighbors, friends, and community if the same effort and level of importance this constant messaging created in citizens could be used to advance the common good and inspire people to get involved, and prepare to create some community change?

We would see progress toward bold goals and we would help make things better for all of us. Because we all win when families are financially stable, when children succeed in school and when we enjoy good health.

You too can share the good news, spread an important message and create a ground swell of awareness and support. You can also join with me in an easy, affordable way to make a big difference today by joining the Give 5 Now virtual campaign for Metro United Way. Check it out, share the message and Thanks!

Advocacy, Education, General, Giving, Health, Income advocate, Common good, community change, give, Give 5 Now, United Way, Volunteer

By Howard Mason

Individual passion

I believe all of us care about living in a vital, caring community. But we each care in our own ways and we each have our individual passions. We need all of that passion and we don’t expect that any one’s passion is exactly the same as anyone else’s. Our job is to find ways for each of us to express our passions in ways that advance the common good.

Commitment to personal action

As important as passion is, without a commitment to action, passion doesn’t take us anywhere. The commitment to action we are talking about is a personal commitment.

How can you, how can I, how can anyone find a way to move our passion to action? Again, each of us will be different, but I believe each of us—if we think personal, rather than organizational—can find a way to act on our passions.

Some of us know what actions our passion points us toward. Others of us are only beginning to discover this or ask the question. Some of our commitments will take the form of leadership or starting something new; others will find existing efforts to join or support. Our actions are an expression of who we are or want to be. The invitation to action is an opportunity to express our best selves.

Collective will

If our passion is individual and our commitment to action is personal, our will to see our vision realized must be collective. The lives of children, families, seniors, and people with disabilities can change very much for the better. But the change will only come if there is strong enough collective will to make those changes simply unavoidable and inevitable.

When we have made sweeping changes in this country in the past, those changes have been swept into being by a prairie fire of grassroots support. Let’s not waste our energy talking at length how to plan one big bonfire that we hope will catch the prairie on fire. We each must become a spark that can burst into hundreds, thousands of individual flames of the prairie fire.

Doing new things in new ways to get new results

Let’s face it: if doing the same things we have always done in the same ways were all we needed to make our visions reality, we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion. We might already live in the most vital caring community in America.

So let us also face the fact that we are going to have to try new things, go about our efforts in new ways, if we are going to get the new results we seek. Our discussions will need to help us look at new ways of doing things, since we are talking today about what each individual can do. Our conversation today is not about if only somebody else were involved or what some other group needs to do. Today it is about what each of us can do.

Where do we start?

We are here to change the world. Where do we start?

Here is a story about someone who set out to change the world. She found that she wasn’t making much progress, so she tried to change her country. This was also too difficult, so she tried to change her neighborhood. When she didn’t have success there, she tried to change her family. Even that was easier said then done, so she tried to change herself. Then an interesting thing happened. When she had changed herself, her family changed. When her family changed, her neighborhood changed. When her neighborhood changed, her country changed. And when her country changed, the world changed.

Change always starts within us—in our hearts—then in our organizations and communities. Gandhi said we must be the change we wish to see in the world.

So now we know where to start.

Let’s get going.

Advocacy, Education, General, Health, Income, Volunteering Change the World, Community, community change, passion, responsibility, vital caring community