By Tessa Farnsworth Curry

America is facing a problem and ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. Since the Great Recession in 2008 11.7 million people are still unemployed, we have a current unemployment rate of 7.6 percent, and no one seems to be talking about it anymore.

“People get tired of hearing about it, but those people living in these circumstances are real and putting a face to these issues really helps you feel the heartbreak and feel how awful these situations are,” said Alexandra Lescaze, the Executive Director for the Sidney Hillman Foundation.

The Sidney Hillman Foundation honors excellence in journalism in service of the common good. They like to recognize and award the people who are bringing to light issues that are currently being glossed over by the general media, one of which being how millions of Americans have been left out in the cold in the richest country in the world.

One of their recent awardees includes Harry Gantz, the award winning documentary filmmaker of American Winter, a film that tells the stories of several families in Portland who were devastated by the recession.

“Poverty has been demonized since the Reagan administration,” said Gantz. “Now there’s this whole new wave of formerly middle class families who have fallen into poverty.”

Middle class families that had once been well-off dropped a class or two after the recession. People weren’t used to their neighbors and close friends struggling with poverty, Gantz explained. We stopped talking about the stories of these families because we would all bounce back, right?

Gantz, along with other documentary filmmakers, noticed the opportunity gap that is happening in America and how the Great Recession is still affecting millions of families, yet the conversation surrounding this topic is lacking. These filmmakers are using their greatest tools, stories and film, to change policy and help improve the lives of those struggling post-recession.

“We (America) want to put ourselves up on a high step, but we have all of the same problems as other countries,” said Travis Pitcher, co-founder of The Good Line, a documentary film company that also aims to tell the stories that others are not.

Both Pitcher and Gantz know films can tell stories and bring problems to light in a way that can produce change.

“Sometimes words and emotions can help break through policy deadlock,” said Gantz. “Appealing to people’s hearts can override their pragmatic positions.”

Gantz saw the opportunity to do this when he began the process of filming and creating his documentary American Winter. In order to make sure the film was successful and impactful, the filmmaker took two years to research, film, and edit the documentary.

Through the 211 system, a nationwide system through which people call if they need some type of social service (think hotline for help), Harry and Joe Gantz (Director) were able to get in contact with families in Portland that were struggling post-recession.

The filmmaker said that through this film he has created lasting friendships and relationships with these people.

“We are in constant contact with the families,” said Gantz. “The same way they would call 211, they call us and we chat.”

What was their recipe for putting together a compelling film? When deciding what to film and include in the documentary, the filmmakers would see where the day took them, rather than set up a solid plan. Gantz said they would talk with families, make a decision of where to go that day, and then do interviews to fill in the blanks in the story.

The film has resonated with many, proof of which can be found on the American Winter Facebook page. There are over 3,650 followers from around the country sharing their stories of loss, as well as sharing ways in which they can help donate their resources and time.

“We have to take this opportunity to reignite the war on poverty,” Gantz said.

The film premiered on March 18, 2013. It is now available for HBO subscribers as well as for the next several months on HBO Go.

(Photo Courtesy of American Winter)

By Ben Thurman

In 1997’s big hit, Good Will Hunting, Will Hunting scoffed, “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library.”

Fifteen years on, this idea has taken root as people emerge to challenge the conventional wisdom that without a college degree, life will amount to failure.

The debate about the value of a college education is intensifying, with increasing numbers dissatisfied with their experience. The spectre of debt drives discontent.  In the last decade tuition fees rose by 42% and graduates can now expect to pay upwards of $100,000 for a four-year programme.

Rising fees have increased the level of expectation, and with growing numbers unable to secure a job at the end, the sum no longer appears a worthy investment. As degrees become increasingly ubiquitous and therefore less likely to guarantee a chosen career, college education appears less relevant and applicable to the real world.

As long as a degree guaranteed the security of a job and the skills needed to carry it out, the price was tolerable. But when half of college graduates under the age of 25 are either unemployed or doing a job that does not require a degree, people are beginning to question the value of college education and develop alternative solutions to the millennial generation’s demand for applicable skills and employability.

Attracting recent media attention, Enstitute is a new education incubation model that challenges the traditional college norm. Based in New York, it offers young people the chance to learn core skills through on-the-job experience.

In an interview with the Huffington Post in March, founder Kane Sarhan spoke of his motivation:

“I was seeing friends graduating from university with 60k in debt and not finding a job they could love.” Meanwhile, co-founder Shaila Ittycheria, working as a hiring manager, was coming across graduates who had “no problem-solving skills, no reasoning skills, and were totally useless in the workplace.”

The two developed a model that addressed both the disillusionment with college education among young ‘entrepreneurial types’ and the skills gap for hiring managers in vibrant tech start-ups. Enstitute places college-aged entrepreneurs for two years in New York’s hottest start-ups – among them are Thrillist, bit.ly and Flavorpill – to learn practical, applicable skills under the apprenticeship of high-profile chief executives.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sarhan realized the gap between the classroom and the boardroom while still an undergraduate. His decision to take a job under the founder of a New York tech start-up proved a much more relevant learning experience; he hopes to offer young people the same opportunity and prove that, for the young digital elite, the top jobs do not require a degree. “Our long-term vision is that this becomes an acceptable alternative to college.”

He is not alone. Young people today have a widening pool of alternatives for ‘self-directed learning.’ The Thiel Fellowship offers a $100,000 grant to encourage the generation’s most exciting innovators to skip college and pursue their ideas; UnCollege runs programmes that provide mentorship and networks to Silicon Valley; and Minerva is delivering an Ivy League education exclusively online.

Dale Stephens, founder of UnCollege and author of Hacking Your Education, in a piece for the New York Times argued against the need for “a $150,000 piece of paper” when there are so many alternatives: online courses, interning, apprenticing.

“With a connection economy as powerful as ours,” he argues, “the real world is starting to give a greater return on investment than the manufactured [world] we set up in college.”

Alternative programmes are certainly more affordable. Enstitute currently charges $1,500 in tuition and fellows receive a small stipend. Dev Bootcamp – “an apprenticeship on steroids” – teaches programming, coding and other marketable skills in nine weeks.  With 90% employed after three months, the immediate return on the investment of $12,000 is much higher than most college degrees.

However, these programs by their own admission target the intelligent, ambitious, ‘entrepreneurial type.’ Currently, opportunities seem to be isolated to technology start-ups. While college is ‘not for everyone,’ technological entrepreneurship is surely for even fewer.

The companies affiliated with Enstitute are very happy with the first batch of fellows. Ben Lerer, co-founder of Thrillist describes his apprentice as “an awesome value at a nominal cost.” The eleven fellows from the first year will surely go on to achieve great things, having learned to develop mobile apps, code programs and prototype screen-based products.

But it is hard to imagine any of New York’s most dynamic entrepreneurs taking on anything less than the most brilliant young people. While this and other ‘real world’ opportunities for young people, such as UnCollege and the Thiel Fellowship, are only applicable for a tiny minority, it is unlikely that they will achieve the goal of disrupting the traditional college model.

Right now self-directed learning through online sources, such as those made available by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Stanford, are not recognized in the same way as a college degree. Similarly, it remains to be seen whether employers will treat the graduates of Enstitute with scepticism when they enter the job market.

Hiring managers still place a premium on college degrees and often will not consider an applicant without one. However, the skills gap that was observed by Ittycheria remains. If college education continues to produce graduates that are “totally useless in the workplace,” employers may begin to consider candidates that have developed marketable skills through alternative, on-the-job experience.

Alternatives to college education remain largely unexplored, and they are currently the domain of a somewhat exceptional minority. However, as long as college fees continue to grow and job prospects look bleak, more young people look set to consider online and practical alternatives to college education. Indeed, as Benchmark Capital invests $25 million in Minerva, it is clear that Silicon Valley believes that attitudes towards higher education are about to change.

(Photo Courtesy of Creative Commons)

By Adam S. Poswolsky

If extreme poverty is going to be eradicated in our lifetime, all sectors of society, especially young people, need to be mobilized.

Nourish International, a social venture started in 2003 by a student at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, get this.  That’s why it engages students on college campuses to use social entrepreneurship to empower community partners in the developing world.

Nourish puts students in the driver seat to take action by running social ventures at their chapters, while contributing investment in sustainable development projects around the world. They have a national office that provides resources, programs and trainings for students to start their own entrepreneurial ventures.  The students select the ventures to run, the students select the partner organizations, and the students see the projects through implementation by going to work alongside their partners abroad during the summer.

“Fortunately for the field, many amazing student organizations are now working in grassroots community development,” explains Allie Treske, chief operating officer for Nourish International.  “Nourish is unique in that it takes student leadership seriously.  Two college students serve on our board of directors, and co-lead our student advisory board, a nationwide group of student leaders who have a serious stake in the future of this organization.”

The focus on student leadership is paying off, as Nourish has already raised over $350,000 in partner communities in 25 countries around the world since 2004, and will expand from 28 to 45 campus chapters by the end of the year, with a goal of reaching 100 campuses over the next five years.

The Nourish chapter at the University of Texas-Austin raised over $5,000 through their Hunger Lunch program, in which they partner with a local food truck, Naan Stop, and sell Indian food on campus. Proceeds from the student-led venture went towards an educational initiative that supports technology infrastructure including computers through DJMV, a nonprofit community partner that works to improve living conditions of poor and marginalized people in Odisha, India.

Nourish selects their projects based on partnerships with established organizations on the ground, ensuring they are meeting the needs of the community members, providing the resources that they want and need.  “This enables a group of students who otherwise wouldn’t really know how to go about doing development work, how to actually make an impact in helping the poor,” says John McCreary, a University of Texas-Austin graduate, and former student board member.

Other organizations are also empowering students to create global change.  GlobeMed matches students with grassroots organizations to address health disparities.  FaceAids has raised $2.5 million to fight AIDS by building a movement of young leaders, with 230 student chapters focused on global health equity.

Like Nourish, FeelGood incorporates student social entrepreneurship, by having students run non-profit delis specializing in grilled cheese sandwiches, and investing 100% of the proceeds in partner organizations eradicating global hunger.  FeelGood was started in 2004 by Kristen Walter and Talis Apud, then students at the University of Texas-Austin, and now has chapters at universities across the country.

Nourish projects allow students to learn social entrepreneurship skills,but also receive hands-on field experience working in community development. Students at Ohio State University partnered with the Global Health Network, a nonprofit primary health organization focusing on maternal and child health, to build the capacity of health workers in Oyam, Uganda. After six weeks, the students taught sexual and reproductive health education to local youth, constructed latrines, and visited the homes of new and expecting mothers. The students were also involved counseling and testing over 700 women and their spouses as part of an outreach program for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

Some organizations are working to ensure young people get passionate about eradicating poverty before they even go to college.  Global Citizen Year sends high school graduates to work on service learning projects in Senegal, Brazil, and Ecuador for up to eight months for an impactful gap year before college.

“By living with a family in a single community, our Fellows remain in one place long enough to learn the local language and customs, and to develop the trust and relationships which help them understand why people are poor, and what actually works (and doesn’t) in addressing the root causes of poverty,” explains founder Abby Falik.  “In contrast to classroom based study of poverty, this learning comes through first-hand observation and experience.”

Organizations like Global Citizen Year and Nourish have demonstrated that the personal experience of working in grassroots development keeps young people passionate about poverty eradication, long after they graduate college.

(Photo Courtesy of Subject)

Dana Frasz is a food entrepreneur.  She wants to recycle food, taking the food that’s not consumed and putting it into the hands of those who cannot afford it.  She wants companies to stop wasting so much food – at the grocery story and in restaurants.  She wants us all to be aware of how much we’re throwing in the dustbin.  Too idealistic?  Frasz would argue otherwise.  Hear her talk about her passion – FoodShift. 

How much waste is there currently in the US and how accurate are these figures?

40% of all the food produced in the US is wasted.

This figure is from national experts on food waste – author, Jonathan Bloom wrote “American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half its Food” and Dana Gunders has been researching this issue for at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

What are grocery stores doing currently to prevent food waste?  Are there any policies in place to prevent this?

Some grocery stores are donating excess food or marking down the prices of food that is still good but may be past its peak freshness, damaged in some way or cosmetically imperfect.  There is a federal policy in place to encourage food donation.  It’s called the Good Samaritan Food Act and it was passed specifically to encourage the donation of food.  It protects food donors from liability as long as they are donating to a non-profit.  Many food donors can also receive tax deductions for their donations.

What has been the toughest part for you, as an activist and a social entrepreneur, in this effort?

I am really disturbed by the excessive waste and consumption in American culture.

Our materialistic lifestyles in the US have negative social and environmental impacts around the world. Rather than living in harmony with the earth, we are perpetuating a culture that is dependent on exploitation, extraction and acquisition. Food waste is not only a waste of nutrition, it squanders water, depletes soil, wastes fossil fuels and adds greatly to the world’s carbon footprint.

What is your solution? 

Food Shift is working with Oakland schools to ensure surplus food from the cafeteria is redistributed to students and families rather than thrown in the garbage. We are working with a local grocer who has expressed interest in paying Food Shift to recover food from their stores.  This would allow us to employ someone in the process while reducing waste disposal costs for the business.  We are interested in developing food recovery and redistribution models that increase access to more nutrition food, reduce waste and generate revenue in some way so they can sustain and scale – like low-cost markets and value-added products.

How feasible is it?

We have trash and recycling removal in this country, why not have a food recovery service sector that recovers and redistributes surplus food as an extension of our current waste management system?

It may sound crazy, but it is realistic strategy and could create a lot of jobs in the green economy.  Generating revenue from food that would otherwise be wasted is possible, but by no means easy.  It’s a difficult challenge to ensure food safety, to establish new distribution channels and to pilot new models that are outside of the current norm.

Why do stores not simply list fresh foods items as 50% off at night, an hour or so before closing?  That seems to make sense to avoid waste and still make some money. 

It makes so much sense – and people love a good deal.  Berkeley Bowl estimates it sells $1,500 per day of produce off its bargain shelf, which offers bags of damaged or nearly expired produce for  99 cents, Andronicos is running a program with Food Star to sell cosmetically imperfect produce at a low cost and Zero Percent is a technology that is allowing food establishment to post their surplus through an online application at either a discount or for donation.  These are all great innovations that more businesses should adopt to reduce waste, save money and protect the environment.

Are there models for food waste elsewhere in the world (that you’ve read/seen) that you would like to see implemented here in the US?

The United Kingdom is leading the way on this issue. A campaign there called Love Food Hate Waste has reduced food waste by 18% over the course of 5 years.  The UK has also standardized date labels so they are not so confusing for consumers.  Many grocery stores there provide storage instructions for fruits and vegetables and informational tips and ads are displayed in over 12,000 stores.  Instead of buy-one-get-one-free promotions, some UK stores are piloting a buy-one-give-one-free or get one later program. I also really like Rubbies in the  Rubble – a company in the UK making jam and chutney from rescued produce.

What can each person do? 

Become a food waste champion within your family and circle of friends!  There are lots of recipes and other tips online.  Here is a storage guide. And until May 12th you can vote for Food Shift in this contest to win $50,000 of free advertising on San Francisco’s public transit system.   If Food Shift wins this contest, it would mean thousands of people would be exposed to informational ads about the social and environmental costs of wasted food. Our campaign would be the first of its kind in this country and would inspire and invite Bay Area residents to be part of the solution. Help us win by voting now and sharing with your friends!   http://bit.ly/ZfntKG

BY Adam Poswolsky

If online dating works so well for people looking for love and happiness, maybe the same concept can apply to people looking for other types of fulfillment, say maybe even teachers looking for the right school to work at, and educators looking to hire the right teacher for their school.

myEDmatch, an education technology start-up based in Kansas City, is using the same principle behind online dating to create a matching service for teachers and schools.

After working as vice president of education for The Kauffman Foundation, co-founder Munro Richardson realized that the biggest challenge facing high-need schools was finding the right teachers for the school.  Teacher turnover is an enormous cost to schools—the total cost of turnover in the Chicago Public Schools is estimated to be over $86 million per year—not to mention the externalized cost on student achievement when a teacher leaves a classroom.  600,000 teachers change schools annually (the rate of attrition is 50% higher in poor schools than wealthier ones), and the estimated cost of teacher attrition in U.S. schools is $7.3 billion a year.

The website allows teachers, both working and unemployed, certified and non-certified, to sign-up for a free online profile, and search for open positions at schools around the country based on their “fit” — this includes information you wouldn’t normally find on a school’s website, such as expected work hours, working environment, and a school’s educational and cultural values.  The service promotes transparency for teachers, letting them review and compare schools much like a car buyer would in Consumer Reports.

On the other end, principals and school administrators can recruit from a database of teachers from across the country and find teachers that are the right fit for their school (as well as check out a teacher’s virtual portfolio: a video of leading a class, sample lesson plans, and examples of student work).

Adam had the opportunity to talk with Munro about why he started myEDmatch, and his mission to improve American education and reduce teacher turnover.

What is your story?   How did you become passionate about education?  

I grew up in Kansas City, I’m a product of public schools in Kansas City. I did well at the University of Kansas, and then got my Master’s at Harvard in East Asian studies, before studying at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar.  After, I worked on Capitol Hill for Joe Biden on the Foreign Relations Committee for two years, before moving back home and getting a job at a community foundation, and then moving on to The Kauffman Foundation.  At Kauffman, I managed their education grant portfolio, helping start a $130m college access program, and launching a charter school.

How did you realize something needed to be changed about how teachers are recruited?

We came across a problem when we were starting our charter school (the Ewing Marian Kauffman school)—that was the challenge of finding the right teachers for a high-need school.  In October 2009, I went to Boston and New York City to visit 12 high-performing urban charter schools to see what the schools were doing well, and really to ask, “Where do you get your teachers?”  The most frequent answer was, Craigslist.  It’s a lot easier for a school in New York City and Boston to attract high-quality teachers; in Kansas City, it’s lot more difficult.  We had a recruitment firm, but it didn’t solve the teacher pipeline challenge.

I had coffee with Alicia Herald, my co-founder, who was then the executive director of Teach For America of Kansas City.  Alicia was constantly getting requests from schools wanting TFA alums to share their job postings with their networks.

Alicia had a Jerry Maguire moment: sites like Match.com and eHarmony were doing matching for dating, we could combine the efficiency and effectiveness of online dating for the process of recruiting teachers.

In September 2012, both of us quit our jobs (we both had very good jobs), and jumped into this full time.  We’re trying to solve a very simple problem:  teachers finding the right school, and schools finding the right teachers.

How does the site work?

The site includes three main features that help educators and school leaders connect across different school networks, cities, and states.

First, an online profile for educators to detail what their school is looking for in its teachers (and for teachers to detail what they are looking for in a school, as well show a digital resume and virtual portfolio of their work).

Second, is a list of job postings, and third is a beliefs-based matching system to help connect mission and culture fit teachers and schools.
This is based on research I did over several years at Kauffman and the practical experience Alicia’s had from hiring and placing teachers with TFA.

How does myEDmatch address the problem of teacher turnover?

Teacher attrition is a huge program.

By some estimates, 40% of teachers leave the profession within 5 years of starting to teach and 50% leave within 6 years.

This human capital challenge really is the soft underbelly of the education reform movement.  Opening more charter schools or closing and turning around existing schools alone won’t work if we don’t get the right teachers in the right classroom so they’ll stay longer.

Principals spend the majority of their time in the second half of the year focused on teacher recruitment.  We use information from both teachers and schools.  Just like online dating, the more information we have about you, the better we can do to match your preferences.  You can meet someone within certain parameters.  Set the location, the kind of school (charter, urban, catholic, etc.).  There are filters just like in online dating.

How does the platform benefit teachers?

There are many different pedagogies and styles for learning today (STEM, college prep, experiential, arts education, emphasis family involvement, no family involvement).  There are schools that favor pay-for-performance, faith-based schools, public schools, magnet schools, charter schools, and private schools. Educators have very different views about each of these.

myEDmatch allows educators to pick exactly the type of school they want to work for, but also schools can find educators they would never know about.  A teacher may be a bad fit for one school, but a perfect fit for another school.  Actually, you can have a school in rural North Carolina that would be a great fit for a teacher in Spokane, but they would likely never know about each other absent myEDmatch. We’re excited about making these kinds of connections.

We’re trying to create greater transparency, and empower teachers to choose where they work just as much as the schools choose them.

 25% of new teachers (1-3 years experience) leave the classroom each spring. It’s about evenly split between those who quit teaching and those who leave the classroom.

Most teachers cite working conditions as the cause for this decision. We think it’s because they didn’t have enough and the right info to make a good decision about where to work.  This also benefits teachers who graduate from Ed school—many of whom never teach because of the amount of work it takes to find a job—find job opportunities more easily.

Can’t teachers and schools just use existing job boards for job searching or recruiting?

These solutions are missing the crucial discussion of “fit.”  After No Child Left Behind, there’s been a huge focus on teacher quality (pay-for-performance, measuring student growth) when it comes to hiring.  But we’re adding the discussion of fit.  You need get to get the right teacher in the right school.  If a teacher doesn’t have the skills, you can train up for that, but if it’s not a mission and culture fit, it’s not going to work, period.

Where has been the greatest surprise getting myEDmatch off the ground thus far?

Well, we anticipated having strong interest from charter schools, especially in high-need communities in areas like Kansas City, which lacks the volume human capital of a large school district like Boston.  But we’re also getting from interest from reform-minded school districts, as well schools in Boston and Chicago, places where we didn’t think there would be as much interest since there is already so much talent in those cities.

Is the site free?

The site is free for teachers.  Schools pay a fee to use the site.

When does the full-version of the site launch?

You can sign-up on the site now.  We’re anticipating a full launch Spring 2013.

(Photos courtesy of Creative Commons (top) and Subject, Munro Richardson (right))

Author Katrina Fried and the book’s photographer, Paul Mobley, have been busy promoting Everyday Heroes, their new book which catalogs the work of 50 social entrepreneurs in the United States.

Katrina Fried has previously written American Farmer, and as Senior Editor and Associate Publisher of Welcome Books has edited or produced numerous award-winning and bestselling titles.  Creating visual narratives that push the boundaries of illustrated books is her greatest passion. She lives and works in New York City and Northern California.

We speak with Katrina about this latest project:

You say that there has never been a book like this one.  ”Not remotely,” to quote you.  How do you feel that this book distinguished itself on the bookshelf?

There is no other book on this subject that treats the photographic element with the same respect as the written.

A powerful image provides very different information, which is also received viscerally.

As a reader, the photograph is personal and specific, which makes it an excellent introduction to the text. I have always been interested in using this combination of the visual and the written to amplify the power of a story—particularly when that story might otherwise be more easily overlooked. In this regard, Everyday Heroes really stands alone both on the bookshelf and in the marketplace.

What was your process for selecting these 50 stories?

When I began exploring potential subjects, I knew relatively little about the modern landscape of domestic philanthropy. After a year of research and hundreds of hours spent interviewing accomplished social entrepreneurs, the learning curve was steep.

Narrowing down the subjects to just fifty was the next challenge. The criteria I used helped somewhat. Offspring of the marriage of entrepreneurship and community service, they nearly all self-identify as social entrepreneurs. They vary widely in ages and backgrounds. They are all Americans. They are also what I would categorize as “out of the box” visionaries, whose often unorthodox techniques set them apart from the traditional nonprofit model.

My hope is that everyone who picks up this book will discover a story and a cause that speaks to him or her, no matter their background, their politics, or their personal values.

What do you want to achieve with this book?

I wanted donors to meet the founders of incredible nonprofits, I wanted to expose young leaders to new forms of social entrepreneurship, and I wanted corporations to think more deeply about the way to serve.

The reality is that we are not all cut out to be social entrepreneurs.

But the variety of causes, ideas, and narratives chronicled in Everyday Heroes does go to prove that there are as many different ways to give as there are human beings.

With each hero’s story, there is yet another entry point to the undercurrent of munificence that flows around us. And here, I believe, is the real take-away: There is no contribution too small or insignificant. Whether you choose to show kindness to a loved one or a neighbor, to volunteer, to donate, or to build your own movement—you are helping to grow a culture of giving.

While you refer to it as a book on social entrepreneurship some of these organizations would be classified as non-profits.  Do you find that it’s imperative to have a for-profit revenue stream or does social entrepreneurship simply refer to any social activity done in an entrepreneurial or innovative manner?  What’s your definition?

By my definition, social entrepreneurs are pioneers and founders of businesses—either nonprofit or for-profit—with a social mission.

Like all entrepreneurs, they are endowed with an innate ambition to build enterprises around new and untested ideas, to risk, to mobilize others, and to fight tirelessly to succeed. But unlike traditional entrepreneurship, the goal of social entrepreneurship is not success solely for the sake of success, but rather for achieving social good.

Which of these stories moved you the most?

On a purely emotional level, I was floored by Taryn Davis’ story of losing her young husband Michael in Iraq, which eventually led her to found the American Widow Project, a nonprofit that provides a network of support for military widows all over the country. Taryn’s expression of her love for Michael, the pain of losing him, and the process of healing was so unvarnished and authentic, I found it impossible not be deeply affected. Embarrassingly, I recall having to mute my handset more than once during our phone interview to keep my emotions in check—it was a heartbreaking story with a beautiful and redemptive ending.

On the other end of the age spectrum is 77-year-old Roy Prosterman, whose organization, Landesa, has positively impacted 400 million people through its efforts to secure land rights for the rural poor. It’s a staggering number. Ironically, Roy has never owned a home or even a car himself! In the nearly fifty years he’s been fighting to elevate the lives of others around the globe, Roy has participated in and witnessed countless moments of great progress and change. He is guardian to a trove of inspiring and riveting stories and experiences, many of which he shared generously with me. Twice nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, Roy shows no signs of slowing down. When I asked him if he was growing at all tired, he answered me with his favorite quote from George Bernard Shaw, who continued to write well into his eighties, “I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live.” There is no greater living proof that one person truly can make a difference than Roy.

How does this experience compare to your last work, American Farmer?

Both books seek to cast a spotlight on an important but rarely recognized group of Americans.

Listening to peoples’ stories and learning the nomenclature and intricacies of a culture directly from the mouths of its members is an especially exciting form of edification. My publisher thinks of it as Studs Terkel-esque “truth-telling.”

Of course the entrepreneurs in Everyday Heroes were more practiced than the farmers at telling their stories and the stories of their organizations, which created a different challenge for me as the interviewer.

Ultimately, with both projects, I was reminded again and again of how unexpected and complex we each are; how hollow and dangerous stereotypes can be. There’s a line in Whitman’s “Song of Myself” that has became something of a North star for me when I embark on a new documentary project: “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”

Why did you choose the coffee table book format to do this book rather than a narrative?

The idea of putting a face on each of these organizations was always a fundamental part of my vision for the book—which was to make it as accessible to the greatest number of people possible. To do that, and to do justice to the spectacular portraits taken by Paul Mobley, it seemed both natural and necessary to make a larger-format hardcover with the high production values Welcome Books is renowned for.

What role does Arianna Huffington play in this project and why did you bring her on board to do the foreword?

Arianna has a distinctly global perspective and a personal passion for social entrepreneurship. Though she doesn’t work in the nonprofit sector, she has all of the attributes of the leaders celebrated in Everyday Heroes: confidence, fearlessness, intelligence, commitment, tenacity, and her own original outlook on the world. Like Everyday Heroes, Huffington Post seeks to give a voice and a platform to the leaders of many different sectors. Arianna’s mind is broad and nuanced, again mirroring the book. 

(Photo Courtesy of Welcome Books)

(Photo Courtesy of Subject)

To affect change, we need to appreciate cross-disciplinary models for creating new products and services.

In college you learn myriad subjects, build critical thinking skills, become better writers. What you DON’T do is see how that plays out in the context of teams, across cultures and under great time pressure in the “real world”. Extracurricular activities serve the purpose of giving you exposure to some of these dynamics but with the cushion of campus programming offices and a typically finite audience on the campus community.

What if you could take all of that to the next level? What if you could take your learning global and tackle some of the most intractable global challenges that exist today.

What if your work could be based on more than what we read in books, see in lectures or hear from friends? What if you could build something within a village on the other side of the globe as a true social entrepreneur this summer? Would you go?

When I was in college I was passionate about building organizations. I liked to start things. I never really called myself an entrepreneur; I just wanted to be involved in issues and opportunities on campus that really inspired me. At other times, I simply did what was necessary to move forward, gaining critical credits in topics I was traditionally pretty weak in (I’m thinking of foreign languages here).

I used to rove from one extracurricular meeting to another seeking the kind of learning I could never gain from a classroom. I was hungry to learn, but I was also wondering what was out there that would push me to a new level.

I wish I had known about social entrepreneurship.

For all the fame the sector has achieved today, it was not even close to my vocabulary when I was college. Today I am on a mission to make sure that every student has an opportunity to do something remarkable with their personal journey through college and, frankly, learning in general.

I would say that a revolution in applied learning is underway that might just upend the traditional educational structures, as we know them. Imagine if the courses you took in college from political economics to physics to geography had immediate relevance in your life? Would you care more?

If grades were the outcome of a really deep understanding of the material and how it could be useful in the real world, not how you studied previous year’s exam questions, would you be more energized to learn?

The answer as I have heard from hundreds of college students, who have gone with my organization to Africa for their summers, is a resounding, “Yes!”

Let me be more specific. When I was in college I avoided math and science courses with a special vigor. I did this on the false presumption that the coursework at Johns Hopkins in those subjects was going to be too difficult (never mind that math was my preferred subject in high school). So I set out to avoid entire fields of study. I wish I hadn’t done that, and if I had gone on ThinkImpact’s Institute, which didn’t exist back then, I may not have. The whole world would have looked dramatically different to me.

Which brings me back to my earlier thought that I wish I knew about social entrepreneurship in college. If I had, I may have understood the potential for doing big things across academic disciplines to solve problems and improve lives. Effective social entrepreneurship leads to truly sustainable enterprises that find great ideas through financial tools, engineering savvy, business know-how and yes, communication and politics.

That’s why to create impact, we need to integrate cross-disciplinary models into learning.  We need to extend the classroom into the field, we need to connect the dots between theories and humanity better, we need to have more ‘real-world’ applications of our knowledge.

Saul Garlick is the CEO and Founder of ThinkImpact, Colorado-based social enterprise, which takes students to Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda or South Africa to engage with local communities, test ideas, and build social ventures for the future.  

By Lindsay Hebert

Last week, Encore.org announced this year’s Purpose Prize winners, five social innovators over the age of 60 who will receive $100,000 for their contributions to society.

Dowser speaks with Jim Emerman, Encore.org’s executive vice president.

D: What is the advantage of motivating social innovators over 60?

There are two sides to this.

One aspect is what the prize does for people who are in their encore stages of life. It gives them the opportunity to engage their passion about making the world a better place with what their lifetime experience has taught them and given them the capabilities to do.

On the other hand, social change-making benefits from the quotient of experience, especially in people who have reached a certain age and have a spectrum of experience. People see the limitations of the systems they have been working in and start to see different approaches to the same kind of work. This can really transform the context and allow for greater effectiveness.

Did you notice any themes among the applicants this year?

Every year, themes emerge that reflect the major issues of our time. Over the last few years, we’ve seen a lot addressing the financial crisis and the economy, which you can see in our winners. One of the things we see is the concern and care of people at this stage of life for the younger generation. Probably 20 to 30 percent [of entries] have to do with addressing young people.

Two of this year’s winners experienced complete turnarounds in their lives. Thomas Cox went from representing banks to fighting for consumers, and Susan Burton leverages her personal experience in jail to assist former inmates. What inspires these turnarounds?

Tom Cox literally wrote the book on mortgage financing. After he left that work he saw the damage the industry has done and had the knowhow to identify what was going on. For Susan Burton, the damage she did was to herself and her family, but once she came out of prison, her own personal experience really animated her to make a change.

In many ways, these are redemption stories. [Cox and Burton] followed a certain path through their career-building years and something happened to them in which they started to realize that maybe there is something they’ve done that they want to reverse. They had the opportunity to redeem their own personal legacy.

What other stories came forth with this year’s winners?

This stage of life awakens in people a sense of their own mortality. They still have a good amount of time left, but it’s not endless. What are they going to do for future generations?

For Lorraine Decker, the disruption that happened around 9/11 made her rethink, “What am I doing? What’s really important to me?” It wasn’t necessarily a personal redemption, but it was a wake up call to think about how she was going to spend the rest of her life.

For future nominees, what are you looking for in Purpose Prize winners?

We look for characteristics that we think will change the way that society views the talents of older adults.

The Purpose Prize was created in some ways as a refutation of the notion that creativity is something that is exclusive to 20, 30 and 40-year-olds.

We wanted to prove that devising strategies for social change doesn’t have an age limitation, so we’re looking for that in every case. We also want to see that they’ve demonstrated the value of their own experience and are using their talents to address the most important and challenging issues of our day. We’re looking for the degree of passion, drive and dedication people have for their work – and that they’re planning to continue. This is not a lifetime achievement; they’re just getting started.

Note: Encore.org, formerly Civic Ventures, has served as a fiscal agent for Dowser.org. Dowser founder David Bornstein was a screener for this year’s Purpose Prize.