LIVE UNITED Y’All!

By Howard Mason

Do you have a BURNING IDEA that will change our community for the better? Metro United Way’s LIVE UNITED Social Innovation Prize is designed for change makers in Kentuckiana who are prepared to put their ideas into action. Prizes totaling $25,000 will be awarded to the innovators who gain the most support from the community.

Everyone deserves opportunities to have a good life: a quality education that leads to a stable job, enough income to support a family through retirement, and good health. That’s why Metro United Way’s work is focused on the building blocks for a good life:

• Education - Helping Children and Youth Achieve Their Potential
• Income - Promoting Financial Stability and Independence
• Health - Improving People’s Health

To be successful, we need to harness the wide-ranging talents of our best social pioneers-encouraging them to innovate and pursue their visions. As in the business sector, there is no shortage of innovators, but there is not yet enough systematic support available to social innovators.

Many of the best know, most effective human services that Metro United Way partners with, like Big Brother Big Sisters, were started by social innovators in the 20^th century to solve the 20^th century problems. Metro United Way wants to encourage and support the work of 21^st century innovators who achieve lasting social change through a new invention, a different approach, a more effective use of known technologies or strategies, or a combination of these.

Purpose

To attract social innovations and to highlight the benefits of innovative approaches to solving social problems, Metro United Way is creating the LIVE UNITED Social Innovation Prize.

Prizes

A total of four prizes will be awarded. Three $5000 prizes will be awarded: one for the best solution in each of the areas of education, income and health. A grand prize of $10,000 will be awarded for a solution that produces results in two or more of these areas.

The LIVE UNITED Social Innovation Prize is for expenses directly related to the implementation of the solution, and will help attract funding and other resources and support.

Finalists will be offered nurturing and support to incubate their solutions. Each finalist will be connected to a “wisdom council” of mentors and advisors with whom the finalist may meet regularly. The wisdom council will be empowered to connect the finalists with additional resources for advice, training, and support.

For many of the social innovators who participate in the competition, the wisdom council and additional connection to resources will be more valuable than the prize.

Judging

Judging will be done in two phases. Initial screening and selection of finalists will be done by a panel of volunteers who have indicated their willingness to serve on wisdom councils.

Finalists will be posted on Metro United Way’s website and assigned to education, income, health or combination categories. Visitors to the website will have the opportunity to donate by credit card to one or more finalist. To encourage broad participation, minimum donation will be kept as small as feasible.

The winners would be determined by the highest total donations in each category. All finalists will receive the amount donated to their solutions.

The website for applying for the LIVE UNITED Social Innovation Prize will open May 4, 2009.

Go to www.metrounitedway.org/innovation

The deadline for submissions is July 8.

If you know a social innovator with a BURNING IDEA, please ask them to visit the website and encourage them to apply.

Education, General, Health, Income Innovator, Live United, Prize, Social Innovation

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Howard Mason. I am the Director of Community Building at Metro United Way. In many ways, I may have the best job in the community. But that’s going to be our secret for now.

My work is about finding, connecting and supporting the people and organizations that are working to advance the common good in this community. I mean the innovators, social entrepreneurs, neighborhood heroes—the ones who are close to both the problems and the solutions.

Metro United Way can’t do everything, but we can play a key role as a leader and a partner to those who are trying to do the right things—the community leaders and social entrepreneurs who are trying to solve the 21st century problems with 21st century solutions. If you yearn to change the world, then I am writing for you.

By the way, I yearn to change the world too, so I’m writing for us.

Let’s face it: if doing the same things we have always done in the same ways were all we needed to change the world, I probably wouldn’t be writing this today. 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. I want to help us look at new ways of doing things.

Our conversation will not be about getting somebody else involved or what some other group needs to do. It is now about what each of us can do. The time has come.

In this blog I’m going to be writing about us—who we are, what we do, where we get our strength, what it takes to be successful.

I hope you will read and comment and add your experience and perspective.

Education, Health, Income, Volunteering Change the World, Community, Education, Health, Income, Innovator, Social Entrepreneur, Volunteer