The Realist Idealist

Making good things (actually) happen is hard.
On any large scale, trying to make the world a bit better place is messy and complicated and almost always full of the same back-room shenanigans chronicled throughout the political, business, and tech sectors, but with one not-so-small difference: everyone involved acts like it’s not, and almost no one [...]

[Read more →]

On December 5th, I was at a White House gathering for International Volunteer Day where Global Giving and Volunteers for Prosperity announced a public-private partnership that creates an incentive (by providing matching grants) to those Americans who want to volunteer abroad. It was exciting then to be sure, but like most things, we knew [...]

[Read more →]

I just learned about this unusual day - PARK(ing) Day - that takes place annually in San Fracisco as a project of the Rebar Group.
(thanks, Meg!)
Pretty awesome. A great example of thinking a bit (or far) outside the box and making something (actually) happen around it.
http://www.rebargroup.org/projects/parking/index.html

[Read more →]

I’m in San Diego this weekend for one of my quarterly meetings on the national board of directors for Hostelling International.
(Yes, the weather is insanely gorgeous.)
One of the incredible programs run by HI is called World Travel 101.
They are conducted in REIs and hostels and all kinds of places around the country, and I was [...]

[Read more →]

My favorite blog for the last several months is 5 Minutes of Caring on CoolPeopleCare.org.  It’s often the most useful thing I get all day.
That is to say, it’s almost always something I can actually do.  And on top of that, it’s fun!

[Read more →]

You probably won’t be able to request paid time off on March 12, but on Favorday that’s not the point.

[Read more →]

Getting people engaged in their communities is something I’ve been working on for quite a while - or at least it seems like quite a while to me. From using alternative spring breaks as a catalyst to Active Citizenship with college students to working with company networks to increase corporate volunteerism to doubling the [...]

[Read more →]

Original HuffPo post - jake brewer
Forget Condi Rice, Colin Powell, James A. Baker, and the rest. If you’re like most Americans, you already have anyway.
The best diplomats the United States has are citizens who travel abroad and serve in communities as volunteers.
Policy, negotiating, trade, intelligence gathering and the like is of course best left [...]

[Read more →]