On Saturday, October 13th, more than 100 people came together at Prince Hall on Washington Street in Grove Hall to celebrate the marketplaces, conversations about quality and business plan work that Grove Hall residents did with Boston Rising over the summer. One of the great moments of that celebration was when we were able to announce the winners of our Q Contest. The businesses I named above were three of eight winners.

In a nutshell, the Q Contest was a business plan competition. We accepted applications over the summer for quality business ideas from Grove Hall entrepreneurs. Of the more than 30 applications we received, we invited 22 into a weekly workshop that we funded the Center for Women & Enterprise (CWE) to run for the competitors, helping them develop and refine their business ideas into business plans. It was a fantastic process, as it always is when CWE is involved. Ultimately, 18 competitors made it to the “pitch” round, where they presented to a panel of entrepreneurs for a chance to win seed funding from Boston Rising. Seven won either $5,000 or $10,000 in seed funding, and one received $1,000 in an honorable mention.

We ran the Q Contest for multiple reasons. Much of what we do at Boston Rising is focused on increasing social capital among those who care about rising and about Grove Hall, and on constantly demonstrating the reasons we should believe in the ability of Grove Hall residents to rise in the ways they choose. The Q Contest sought to do the same, while advancing one of the three tools for rising – a job that lets you build assets.

We could have sought to advance jobs in any number of ways. Doing it through a business plan competition made sense for a whole variety of reasons. To keep it simple, the Q Contest gave us a chance to support the dreams of some Grove Hall residents who know how they want to rise, while demonstrating that Grove Hall is a place that can produce entrepreneurs – people with a vision for a quality product, the imagination to innovate, and the will to bring it to market. While doing all of that, we were able to support a group of people with similar interests as they strengthened their ties to each other and developed a network of support.

I believe that every business that made it to the pitch round helped demonstrate why Grove Hall residents can rise in the ways they choose, and why we should invest in them. Those who didn’t win seed funding still advanced a business idea, and learned more about being an entrepreneur. They don’t intend to quit until they are ready for seed capital, too.

So please, join me in congratulating The Laundress, Niecy’s Nest, Fly Syndicate, Boston Recycling Cooperative, Fresh Truck, Fair Foods, Beyond Words Enterprises and Stepping in the Bean for their success. Their tenacity, belief and vision for themselves, their families and their community are what it’s all about. Boston Rising is thrilled to be part of this experience as the entrepreneurs lead the way.

Up we go!

Tiziana

Tiziana C. Dearing
Chief Executive Officer

When I say “big,” genius, I mean genius on the macro level.  Enter my friend and a colleague of Boston Rising, Maurice Lim Miller.  He is the founder of the Family Independence Initiative (FII).  FII started on the West Coast, and Boston Rising was privileged to help lead the funding charge to bring the program to Boston about three years ago.  On Tuesday, Maurice was named a MacArthur Genius for his work with FII.  We couldn’t be more proud for him.  Much of what we think about the central role of resident choice and control in breaking the generational transfer of poverty comes straight from Maurice and his team’s genius work.

That’s another great thing about FII, by the way.  Maurice is the papa genius, but that whole team thinks so far out of the box that they don’t even know what a square looks like.   Please take a minute to watch Maurice tell the story of what drove him to found FII on our RisingClass.org web site.  And please join us in congratulating him for this much-deserved recognition.

When I say “small” genius, I mean genius at the micro level. That’s what I think is happening in the first-ever round of grants given by the Grove Hall Trust Trustees.  They have formed a remarkable partnership with the residents of Grove Hall.  It’s a genius of the same kind – one born of a combination of willingness to lead, willingness to try, and a deep understanding of the small things that make massive difference in a neighborhood – and then executed a block at a time.  It is also an act consistent with Maurice’s understanding of residents having all drive and internal assets they need.  They just need investment and a supportive community.

Yes, Boston Rising started the Grove Hall Trust, but the ideas and this first round of grants are all theirs, and it is so exciting.  Let me give you just two examples.  For $850, the Trust is supporting a woman who self-identifies as disabled, but also as a resident of her block for more than 25 years.  She sees the need for stronger neighbor-to-neighbor connections, and is organizing a block party that will be the start of building a block association.  She has been going door-to-door on her street to engage neighbors.  She has a full plan and budget for the block party, and will run it with her fellow residents in the height of summer, when you need positive things to do on the block.  Block parties are fun, but they also can be transformational.  They reconnect people, create a shared sense of interest in the block, break down barriers to taking care of each other, and create the basis for forming a shared agenda.  All during a really fun BBQ.  How much would most people need to do this?  Where else can $850 produce so much?

For $600, a group of residents on another street in Grove Hall are going to really do Halloween for their children.  This time, the leader is a woman who has only lived on her block for two years.  She noticed that the trick-or-treating wasn’t active on her block, despite the fact that it is a long one with several families.  She remembered that, growing up, there were “safe streets” where you trick-or-treated, and unsafe ones where you didn’t.  She knew which one she wanted her block to be, so she decided to make it happen.

She is working with her neighbors to declare their street a “safe street” for trick or treating this year.  They have designed the entire undertaking, from decorations, to spooky films provided by Harvard and projected on the outside of one of the homes, to families to take the kids around.  Her goal is 10 safe, well-decorated, spooky stops on her long block for kids.  Do you remember Halloween as a child?  Bet you do.  Because it helped define for so many of us what it means to be a child.  Think of the transformation that will happen when that block knows it created a safe space for their kids to experience a childhood moment, together and by themselves.  There is likely to be so much more they’ll want to be able to do.

At Boston Rising, we recognize all of this as “shared  philanthropy.”  The Trust is providing philanthropy in the form of dollars.  The residents are providing their time and talent, which are equally valuable.  It is a true partnership, with residents in charge.  We don’t think of ourselves as genius here, but we feel really lucky to be surrounded by genius this week.

Up we go!

Tiziana Tiziana C. Dearing
Chief Executive Officer

Dear Tiziana,

Greetings!  I’m Mike Mather, the pastor from Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana who was visiting Boston Rising yesterday under the excellent stewardship and guidance of Imari and Audrey.  It was good to meet you yesterday on the street outside where the recent shootings and murder of those young women happened.  In many ways standing in the middle of that street – looking at the collection of stuffed animals that represent our faltering attempts at grieving…simply served as a reminder of the importance of the work that Boston Rising is doing.  Many of us have attended too many such memorials across the years (I don’t think there has been a year, in the last 30 years, that I have not stood and prayed at such places at least half a dozen times).

Reflecting on what I witnessed yesterday, I was reminded of how important building a citizenry that knows and understands the power it has to build up and upon the best among their neighbors.  The mutual aid of neighbors and friends is what has sustained all of us through years and through good times and bad.  The issue, of course, is poverty – that limits the capacity of people to recognize and know their own power – and also (in frustrating symbiosis) to call on those “above” them in the economic order to look at those with less money as somehow having failed – while they are (since the days of human slavery if not before) actually fulfilling the very role that the larger economy asks of them.

The work of Boston Rising as I saw it yesterday was to recognize people as human beings – who have dreams and desires and gifts to bring and to bear on their lives and on their neighbors lives.  I saw the people of Boston Rising – make the invisible, visible.  How did they do it – well, I know you saw it too, when people stood up in the room at the marketplace and told the story of how they had offered aid to a neighbor – or when someone asked others in the room for aid or advice in one form or another.

How rare such occurrences are these days and how absolutely vital and important.  What Boston Rising is doing is not planting seeds – it is fertilizing the seeds (that are present in the person of the citizens), it is singing to them, it is inviting the seeds to put down their roots and do the mysterious work that happens underground that ends up feeding and sustaining not only our bodies, but our spirits and our communities, as well.  It is such work that, like that of the plants that feed us, is invisible – it goes on underground, but it bears much fruit.  In fact, it’s often the only thing that really bears fruit that sustains and that makes us healthy.

I’ve recently been reading about the role of failure in successful design (in engineering – though I think that there are lessons to be learned in community building from it) and the author points out that cracks lead to breakthroughs!  While that is perhaps a too cute by half use of words – it does capture something that is important in community.  Despite all the plans one might make – we are working with human beings and we cannot stop random acts of violence, though we can work to build communities where such acts and/or their consequences are radically reduced.  And more important than that – we can use the failures that happen in community to lead us to breakthroughs…by encouraging each other to not only talk about this, but to acknowledge the presence of the failure and then to take the lessons that we can see from it.

Where does that begin?  It begins with what you are doing.  It begins by reminding people about the connections they have with one another (MLK, Jr. said “we are all tied together in an inescapable network of mutuality”).  Those connections exist – as evidence by the way in which strangers came together last night.

The other important thing that I saw in that (though I do have a bit of a warning to offer with it as well) is that I was glad to see that there were connections there to be made between citizens and groups representing institutions and associations.  In the low income communities I have been in we have taken a cue from the helpful insights women have offered when talking about “the glass ceiling” and thus pointed us toward the realization that what low-income communities have is concrete walls.

Often institutions, both for profit and not-for-profit, can wall themselves off from those they see as customers and clients.  While there are often rich, social networks within low income communities they are only related to as consumers or as “needy” outside of their communities.  Yet all of us know that what we have achieved in life is in part due to the others in our lives – to people who knew us – not as consumers, not as clients – but as neighbors and friends and family.  If you are in poverty in this country – you do not have a lot of those connections in the larger world and the ones you have you often do not see.  Why?  Because even people in the helping institutions often don’t want to relate to the people they work with as friends, because we worry about “boundaries.”

In the Gospel of John in the Bible Jesus says in some of his final words to the disciples: “I know longer call you servants, but friends.”  This is our work.  If we are in the community as friends and no longer servants – we know the boundaries of friendship and they are different than those of servant.

The warning I mentioned above is that as such processes go along – and particularly if they are successful…institutions can begin to take a more and more active leadership role that supplants the citizen leaders in the community.

I began this by talking for a moment about power.  So many of our communities are seen as people and places without power.  That sense of powerless is real…but there is real power there.  It does not need to be “em-powered” as it much as it needs to be recognized and celebrated (again – something I saw happen at Marketplace last night).

Keep Tellin’ the Story,

Michael Mather

Pastor, Broadway United Methodist Church

On Tuesday, Boston Rising launched a network-building initiative in Grove Hall for the summer. Our goal is to talk to at least 1500 residents on the streets of Grove Hall, learning directly from them what represents quality in their neighborhood, what is on their minds, what priorities they would like to see us hold here at Boston Rising, and what their own quality ideas are for Grove Hall.  We are combining these on-the-ground conversations with weekly “marketplace” meetings on Thursday evenings at the Grove Hall Community Center from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m., where we invite residents and Grove Hall nonprofit leaders, to engage more deeply with each other as well as share thoughts, ideas and resources.  We invite and encourage any friend of Boston Rising to join us at a marketplace this summer.  The food and conversation will not disappoint.

As I mentioned, Day 1 with the “Q” truck (see pictures on our Facebook page) was Tuesday, and I joined teams of my colleagues, graduate student interns and high school students from Grove Hall in walking the streets of the neighborhood, stopping residents to talk with them.  I personally got a chance to speak in-depth with 35 residents.  They were passionate about their community.  They appreciated their churches and their families, and were worried about violence, crime and jobs, among other things.  We expected a skeptical reception at best in the beginning, and instead found people openly and enthusiastically ready to discuss priorities, ideas and concerns.  We met children and seniors, mothers and teenagers, religious leaders, business owners and more.  The whole team was overwhelmed by the quality and depth of the conversations.  We are proud and excited to be in this dialogue with the neighborhood.

Toward the end of the day, just as we were warming ourselves not only in the glow of the afternoon sun, but also in the warmth of the energy we had experienced, one of our high school students got a call.  Someone close to her had been stabbed in an altercation in another neighborhood and was believed dead.  We shut down for the day, and she received confirmation of his death as I was driving her home to her mother.

Tuesday will always stick with me.  That one day represented all that is exciting and promising about our work with our Grove Hall neighbors, and all that we must yet do for residents to rise in the ways they choose.  I admit, for a moment it felt like the cycle of poverty itself was threatened by the energy, passion and openness to change, and needed to make its malignance known.  But of course, the death was much more senseless than that.  It always is.

We were out on the truck again on Wednesday and Thursday, and it was wonderful again.  It will continue to be, because people want to rise. All you have to do is ask them and they will tell you.

As for our young person, we will wrap the whole Boston Rising family around her.  She will know she has our love and support, and we will help her through her grief.  She is daughter to all of us, friend to all of us, student to all of us.  We will make sure she knows that she still can rise, and we will help her do it. We’re all in this together.

Up we go!

Tiziana
Tiziana C. Dearing
Chief Executive Officer

No, I didn’t travel there as with Cuba.  Indeed, the furthest I have been lately is Washington, DC.  But that is part of the mission moment.  Even in places as far away, and as far out of reach, as Afghanistan, the tools for rising remain the same.

You may have picked up from previous mission moments that I listen to a lot of public radio (with, I confess, a little sports radio mixed in).  This morning, I heard a story about what is happening to jobs for local Afghans as American aid is pulled away in the course of our withdrawal.  Not surprisingly, when funding goes away, regardless of the reason, so do services, along with businesses and jobs.

One international organization, CARE, laid off more than 450 workers as funding from US Agency for International Development (USAID) dissipated.  The reporter interviewed an Afghan named Zarif about losing his job with CARE.  Here’s what he said.

“I was able to find a job, based on my qualifications, can I say, or some relations that I had,” he says. “Without relationships, you’re not able to find a job.”

This being Boston Rising, that last part struck me.  Without relationships, you’re not able to find a job.  Halfway around the world, in a war-torn country among people with a dramatically different culture, getting a job still depends on who you know.

At Boston Rising, we always talk about the tools for rising – an education that gives you a shot at a job, a job that lets you build assets, and strong social connections.  Zarif was an educated man making a decent living.  When the tables turned, it was his social connections that helped him survive it.  One of his colleagues, a PhD, had weaker networks, and is still unemployed.

We at Boston Rising believe that supporting the growth of strong social connections is key to our work – connections from neighbor to neighbor and community to community.  Any support to a person trying to rise that either doesn’t include social connections, or suppresses or devalues them, will miss the mark.  Think about someone you know who got laid off or lost a job during the economic downturn.  What was the first thing that person did?  She probably started calling on her networks to help her find her next opportunity.  That’s partly why we are rolling out a huge network building effort in Grove Hall this summer that includes having more than 1500 conversations with residents, and offering them opportunities to connect with each other and residents outside of Grove Hall on issues important to them.  You will hear more about that work in the coming weeks.

The truth about rising is true no matter who you are, black, white or brown, American or Afghan. I find great comfort in that.  So, so many people rise in the ways they choose.  Even in the face of staggering odds.  We’re all in it together.

Up we go!

Tiziana

Tiziana C. Dearing
Chief Executive Officer

If you live in America, and not under a rock, you probably heard that the Fed announced earlier this week that U.S. wealth fell nearly 40 percent from 2007 through 2010. To be more specific, Bloomberg News explained it this way:

The financial crisis wiped out 18 years of gains for the median U.S. household net worth, with a 38.8 percent plunge from 2007 to 2010 that was led by the collapse in home prices.

There’s a lot behind those numbers. According to the Fed, nearly every demographic group lost wealth. That took nearly $50,000 in assets out of the average family’s “portfolio,” largely due to housing prices. We returned roughly to 1992 wealth levels.

I’ve said in these pages before that we are all part of one class looking to rise in the ways we choose — economically, socially, personally — and that the act of trying to rise is a shared experience. This data demonstrates the extent to which, in trying economic times, and despite best intentions and efforts, facing barriers to rising also can be a shared experience.

In light of that fact, this is the part of the blog where I say, “Can’t we all just get along?”

That’s too drippy, I know, but this kind of data does make one ask, are we really so different? We have a long history of separating the middle class from the “poor” or “lower class.” In fact, we’re desperate for that separation. We “escape” poverty. We rise into the middle class, and if we lose some ground, we’re “falling” into something we culturally consider shameful.

In addition, hundreds of articles and columns over the last two presidential cycles have noted that we won’t even talk about poverty any more. We focus on the middle class when we talk about the economy. When was the last time you actually remember poverty being the economic issue in a debate? A campaign ad? A riveting, memorable speech? I remember the last time I saw it. It was Tony Blair. In 1999.

Don’t get me wrong. A vibrant middle class is an essential piece of our economic engine. And I do not seek to propose poverty as some other economic option. Poverty is malignant. It prevents people from fulfilling their dreams and expressing who they really are and want to be. Over time, it can grind hope right out of us, and trap us in a cycle of learned helplessness in the worst cases, and learned hopelessness in so many more.

An 18-year loss in wealth teaches us something that the very poor have known for a long time. A crummy setback largely or completely outside of your control can have an overwhelming impact on your future, your children’s futures, and your ability to live your dreams.

A 40 percent loss in wealth reminds the rest of us of a truth that those born into poverty (and therefore more likely to stay there than at any time in about 50 years) live with every day. Even if you work really hard, play by the rules and live within the system, you may not break out of your place, despite that the American promise is supposed to be that you can do just that. Indeed, thePew Center on the States has shown that growing up in a neighborhood with extreme poverty dramatically increases your own likelihood of downward mobility, even despite your own income level.

Why the call for Kumbaya followed by the Debbie Downer litany? In this crazy time where the American political poles are growing at 100 times the rate that the actual poles are shrinking, this data actually gives us a chance to feel like we’re all in this together. Because we are.

And we’re never better than when faced with a common threat. The threat here is a complex, broken economy that is going to require all of our collective best thinking to fix. As we fix it, we can reverse not only what’s ailing the middle class, but potentially also that which has kept the generationally poor in an economic jail for at least three generations.

Lately, it sure seems that we can’t all just get along. But we’re all struggling along together. Sure wish we could act like it.

Tiziana

Tiziana C. Dearing
Chief Executive Officer

Although this was years ago and the numbers are different today, wealth inequality has grown over the last decade. The Gini Index, a standard economic measure of income inequality, lists the United States as the country with the most income inequality. What would the United States look like if instead we each averaged about $200,000 a year? This basically means that everyone would be upper middle-class. No one would have enough to live outrageously lavishly, but no one would be poor or even struggling either.

Imagining a fair, or at least income equitable world, is frame shifting. What would the economy look like if we each had enough to eat well, live well, be well educated, work well, and relax and replenish well? How would we interact if we couldn’t differentiate ourselves financially and rank against each other in this way? Would we still have race, class, and gender issues? What would our work look like if we only produced what we needed? Would we have less junk clogging up our lives and planet and more time to enjoy each other and develop as people? Would it generate a renaissance? This is where my mind goes as someone who grew up working class.

At Boston Rising we flip the poverty framework by proposing that rather than some people being poor, we are all in different phases of rising. One intention for this frame is to begin to blur the sharp class distinctions by reminding us that people move in and out of economic conditions, and that they don’t necessarily make us different types of people. This frame also allows us to identify where this road in and out of economic realities has obstacles and that the majority of these are systematically placed to keep people locked in the economic reality into which they are born. It is a frame that invites connection with people who are economically different. It pushes us to realize that much of what we think we earned is actually ascribed to us by our society. In Banerjee and Duflo’s new book Poor Economics, they “show why the poor, despite having the same capacities and aspirations as anyone else, end up with entirely different lives.”

If there is enough money for all of us to live well, and if we all have the same capacities and aspirations, what creates these radically different lives? It’s the way we value each other. Poor people work very hard, but they don’t get paid well. Their labor is not valued because they are not valued. We all do that. It’s part of being aspirational, identifying with those above us in the various hierarchical structures in which we live.