In
Baltimore, the first cool days of the impending fall season bring about a
wonderful moment in my house, the first time in a long time where the air
conditioner goes off and the windows are open. The turning of a season is a
beautiful thing. And it's a great time
for me to take make a small change in this digital depository of inarticulate
rumblings.
To date,
this space has been filled mostly with issues relating to mission based
enterprises, particularly how we can build them, run them and fund them better.
That won't change. The improvement of the human condition through innovation
and entrepreneurship is my calling in life. It's what gets me up in the morning
and keeps me going when the world seems to be all uphill battles. But from time
to time I want to take a step back and talk about why we do this work. This is
one of those stories.
The other
day I rolled up to an intersection and was met by a female panhandler – an increasingly common sight in what used to be a
predominantly male undertaking. She looked to be in her late 40’s although life had shaken her up enough that it was hard
to tell. She seemed to be just getting ready to take her place. Her hand
lettered sign with the ubiquitous “God Bless” at the end of her written plea was still folded under her
arm. What caught my eye was that, as she took her place, she stopped to comb
her hair. I rolled down the window to hand her a dollar and told her to hang in
there. Her response brought tears to my eyes. She looked at me and said “I’m just trying to get up the
courage to do this”.
It occurred
to me that she had clearly been dealt a bad hand and was truly left with no
other alternatives. Now I know that all the theorists and experts can tell you
that folks who panhandle are dealing with multiple issues, and that giving them
money is often just enabling other bad behaviors. I’ve found myself over the years giving folks information on
shelters and missions that might be able to help them. One time, I had a half a pizza in a box and handed it out the window. Lately I’ve taken to the practice of giving them money, telling them
to hang in there, and saying a prayer as I drive away. A prayer that they find the
help they need and the grace to accept it, and a prayer that I never take my
incredibly blessed life for granted.
A good
friend of mine had an epiphany moment a while back when he realized that the soup kitchen he
was running was not sufficient, and that what he needed to do was work toward
helping folks find a way to self-sufficiency so that they could get off the
soup line. If our work as social
entrepreneurs is ever going to amount to more than just another social program,
we need to be thinking the same way. We need to be working to run ourselves out
of business. It’s not enough to meet social
needs. We need to be solving social problems. We need to be working not to give
another dollar to that woman on the corner, but to find ways to get her off the
corner.
I told
her she was the bravest person I’d met today. And I found
another 10 bucks in my wallet.
The
significance that this posting is going up on 9/11/12 is not lost on me, and I
cannot go without remarking on the bright blue sky overhead today. Not quite as
bright, literally or figuratively, as it was 11 years ago; but bright
nonetheless.
Courage
takes many forms. The courage to go
running into a burning building when all logic says you should be running out.
The courage to hold up a sign in front of unfeeling strangers because you have
no other place to go to find the money to feed your family.
May we
find the courage to take on the big challenges of solving social problems. And may we do so not to build an empire, to
see our name on a press release or to get an award for innovation. May we do it so that woman won’t have to find the courage she spoke of that day.
