Crunch Time in All-America City Competition

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Crunch Time in the All-America City Competition

It was twenty years ago that Hartsville, South Carolina was named an All-America City in the National Civic League competition.  It was 20 years ago after some devastating things that happened around the community causing man who cared to do what Hartsvillians do – get involved.  Flossie Hopkins was mayor and Bill Bruton was city manager.  Lots of people who cared about the city had been doing lots of innovative things to solve problems and get jumpstarts on pressing issues.

The 2016 competition

Fast-forward to 2016. We enter this competition at the urging of Natalie Zeigler our city manager and Mel Pennington our mayor with strong support from City Council and other organizations in our city.  Hartsville is moving forward at a fast pace.  We have people who are involved in helping to create solutions to obvious problems. We have people who are involved in the daily grind of what some of us know as community building – working to make Hartsville an even better community today than yesterday and way – wayyyyyyyy better tomorrow and the next day.

Setting a high bar in community development

And that is one place the All-America City competition comes into play.  How is this dynamic, cosmopolitan small city in the Pee Dee of South Carolina doing in comparison with other growth, quality minded communities around the country.  In Hartsville we like to compete and we like to see the bar continually raised.  All-America City competition raises the bar.

Hard charging team of youth and adults

This year we have a team of nearly 25 individuals heading out to Denver, Colorado to help tell the stories of how we have been working to make our community a much better place for youth at all levels. Hartsville has recently begun a social media campaign themed #IAMHARTSVILLE to begin building visibility for this initiative that has been going on for nearly seven months with intense collaboration over the past six weeks.  The team, which includes six youth, has been practicing and rehearsing to consolidate the Hartsville story into a ten minute presentation and a ten-minute Q&A with judges.  Mary Catherine Farrell, who has been in charge of pulling this project together, says the team has been working very hard and she thinks they are ready.

Empowering youth is the 2016 theme

The overall theme of the competition is empowering youth. The Hartsville story is one of pulling together from a variety of devastating incidents to developing a wide array of successful programs helping empower youth and aid their school performance.

The Byerly Foundation aided many of the programs with seed funds and other funding. The people of Hartsville have done the work and while we already believe we live in an All-America we hope the team is successful in the competition so we have that outside validation!  Go Hartsville!

Fundraiser Provokes New Thinking for Non-Profit Industry

I have recently finished a thought-provoking book on philanthropy. Jimmy LaRose wrote this book to encapsulate the advice he has been giving his clients for a number of years. It is advice that does not go down easy and it is advice that does not always make him popular in the non-profit industry. LaRose, who is based in Lexington, S.C., titled the book RE-IMAGINING PHILANTHROPY.  His is a challenging message that I have to believe has received a good bit of blow back in much of the non-profit world.

Why the blow back? Well, LaRose is telling non-profits they need to do a better job of serving their primary clients while at the same time telling them the primary client is not the person receiving the non-profit’s services but the person and the people supplying the funds to sustain the non-profit’s work.

Throughout his book and the videos and other materials in which he shares his ideas, which are bed rocked in the statement, “Money is more important than mission (or Ministry).” (p 30)

With his unblinking focus on money, which he terms the oxygen of the non-profit system, he then concludes that “donors are more important than causes or people.” (p 33)

                                                Who is the actual "client"/ "customer?"

And as he continues to build his argument in that first chapter of his book, his next major position is that the customers, clients or non-profits are not those who are served but those whose money pays for the services. His in-your-face statement in positive terms is: “Successful nonprofits understand that donors are the object of their mission and must be served before people in need.” (p34)

Reading this as the executive director of a grant makingorganization (a donor organization) it immediately struck me that LaRose was choosing a very provocative frame around which to discuss how philanthropy might work. As a donor organization we work with non-profits to help them achieve amazing goals and succeed in making a positive difference in the life of people and the structure of community. I am not sure we have ever thought of ourselves as the customers of the non-profit.

As I process the information from this book, I am still not sure on which side I come down but I can say it provokes thought and new ideas for strategy and tactics in both fund raising and organization management.

                                                          Example of Mission Statements Changing

In this blog I am not going to try to provide all the arguments or assess the arguments. In this communication my goal is to make you aware the argument is out there.  And to show you a little about the direction the argument takes here is an example LaRose gives of a typical mission statement: “Harvest Town Food Bank exists to provide our community’s hurting, hungry, and homeless the clothing, food, and nutritional care they so desperately need.”  (p 35)  Now, here is that mission rewritten with a new audience as focus:  “Harvest Town Food Bank provides donors, volunteers, and advocated the organization they require to serve our community’s hurting, hungry and homeless.”

                                                              Opening New Discussion

Once you begin to see what reimagining philanthropy means in terms of mission it begins to make more sense and lead onto multiple paths of discussion – if not understanding – that may need to be part of building stronger, more sustainable non-profit organizations.

I have an extra book and am willing to share with anyone who would like to read it. And, you can find much of the Jimmy LaRose message in video on his website www.JimmyLaRose.com.

Primary election day and most say, "What?"

...and those who are not saying what are often saying, "what's the use," and that leaves often a minority of us voting. In his weekly blog today, Rich Hardwood discusses some of the antipathy of voters. In addition, he gives an idea or two about how to start reversing this antipathy. It is his idea that sparked the thought of this post.

Harwood says we need to do something disruptive to the the business as usual. He then says we need to take that narrative and get people to hear it, to discuss it and to think how they can become part of the positive disruption.

I am a bit of a polyanna but I was thinking that Hartsville has a variety of narratives that are disruptive to the 'business as usual' types of activities that are angering voters here and around the country. We have some narratives that need to get more of a hearing.

Narratives like the Team Foxes Learning Academy -- an effort by the Hartsville Middle School partially funded by a grant from The Byerly Foundation to help turn around students who have a history of not succeeding in school.

Or, in another vein it could be the individual and team effort that is going into the production of the Hartsville Idol event on summer Saturday evenings in downtown Hartsville. A few thousand enjoyed the event this past Saturday.

The narrative could be a combination of stories of people in the Hartsville community like Nancy Myers and Teresa Mack, who make things happen like the Hartsville Community Market and the growing Community Garden or the South Hartsville Community Association.

And, the narrative might be the amazing work being done in the Darlington County community with very active of building Habitat for Humanity for homes. Now we have multiple homes going up regularly when only a couple of years ago it was one or so a year.The idea for narratives can go on but you can begin to see there are disruptions to the status quo and these "disruptions" can give us something to continue building on as we start setting forth a vision to put Hartsville at the top of the list of small cities that people want to live in.

Team Foxes Learning Academy Honors Achievements

It was a bit emotional to view. A seventh grade student called up to present flowers to a homeroom teacher calmly took the microphone. Then, he turned to face the seventh grade teaching team. 'I want to thank you for the way you helped me deal with my problems and learn to deal with people.' You can see a single quote mark, because I wasn't taking notes. His message was one of appreciation and was most impressive because seventh grade boys don't regularly make demonstrations of appreciation. His gesture was heart felt and it was a gesture of someone who had felt true support in his school life. he quickly went back to his script and presented the homeroom teacher the flowers but that was a powerful moment.

The Team FOXES Learning Academy is a program that began with eighth graders in 2008 and has been expanded to sixth, seventh and eight graders with support of the Darlington County School Board and a significant grant from the Byerly Foundation. The story referenced above appears to be representative of some of the major strides this program is making in helping students get back on track for school success in these Middle School Years. The hope of the Byerly Foundation when the Board approved the three-year grant for about $1.5 million was that this would be a program that could help students turn around their feeling for school. The honors program on Thursday night made it feel like that is happening.

Coordinating Council is important for collaboration, communication, cooperation

The Darlington County Coordinating Council is a loose organization of representatives from many of the social service type of agencies that serve the people of Darlington County. The Council meets monthly in Hartsville or Darlington. And, very importantly, the group has a web presence at darcocc.org.

Last week, July 9, the group had its meeting in Hartsville with about 17 people in attendance -- a relatively light crowd but some pretty heavy discussion. One of the key issues that arose was what appears to be an increasing incidence of teenage pregnancy in the Pee Dee. Kathy J. W. Smith of DHEC was doing the monthly organization presentation and she distributed some 2006 statistics on Teen Pregnancy. That handout started some intense discussion around the table and was one of the issues used as the reason for a need of more collaboration among agencies and service providers. The statistics on the page were provisional data for 2006 but they said that Darlington County has a 41.4 teen pregnancy rate, that is calculated per 1000 female population for the specific age group. For comparison, the overall South Carolina rate is 29.6.

SERVICES SUMMIT is September 10, 2009
One of the major announcements at this meeting was that the Services Summit for the county will be at Lakeview Baptist Church Fellowship Hall on September 10. This is an opportunity for service providers to get to know even more about each other's services and provide opportunities for people to meet one another to make coordination of service activities more realistic.

(Interest of full disclosure -- The Byerly Foundation has provided a multi-year grant for the Darlington County Coordinating Council to lay a solid foundation for improved communication among the various service providers. I am the executive director of The Foundation.)

REPRESENTATIVE JAY LUCAS TO COORDINATE
Representative Jay Lucas is going to be the Legislative Delegation's connection to the Coordinating Council. Many of the issues that arise from social service agencies are issues that are governed by state law and all of the issues affect people. In communities where a state legislative delegation takes an active interest in what is happening with social service providers it seems the social services are both more effective and more efficient. In fact, this group had a great deal of impetus a few years ago from State Senator Gerald Malloy, who gave one of the key notes at the first Summit.

NEXT MEETING
The next meeting of the Darlington County Coordinating Council is August 13, 2009 at the McLeod Medical Center - Resource Center in Darlington. Anyone wanting more information on this group can go to the web site, call Kathy Baxley, executive director of the Darlington County Free Medical Clinic, Dr. Nick Nicholson at the Darlington County Community Action Agency or Todd Shifflett at Care South.

Patience and Persistence two Community Building Tools

New Vision Development CDC demonstrated the power of positive persistence and positive patience this noon time as they hosted the kick off luncheon for the New Vision Development Cafe at the New Vision Community Center on Bethlehem Road in the north section of Hartsville.

Pastor Calvin Daniels is a visionary leader who has been persistent in his quest to improve the quality of life among those who don't have as much in the vast area of his church's reach in what is also known as the Byrdtown Section of Darlington County. Pastor Daniels also heads New Hopewell Baptist Church and New Vision is a non-profit Community Development Corporation that Pastor Daniels and others developed years ago to try bringing new ideas and new sources of funding to the quality of life quest.

Okay, where is the patience and persistence? This morning the members of the New Vision CDC had the grand opening for their new cafeteria, which, beginning next week will become an eat-in restaurant in this northern part of Darlington County. Severalyears ago The Byerly Foundation provided New Vision with a grant to help enhance the kitchen area of the Community Center in hopes of helping it quality for Kids Cafe, a program of Harvest Hope. The CDC was able to install the new hood by then they were hit by a variety of delays that required other significant upgrades. They persisted and with some grant funds that they obtained with some assistance from Senator Gerald Malloy, they were able to accomplish the upgrades, quality for the Kids Cafe and also envision using this modern kitchen as a way to help sustain a variety of other projects ongoing in this Community Center. Non profit groups trying to do good have steep mountains to climb. They are about the business of doing good but doing good is often expensive in terms of both time and treasure. Doing good often takes much longer than many people would like or that many people have the patience to sustain. Congratulations to New Vision for having the patience and most importantly the persistence. You will be hearing more from this group as they find new and different ways to continue improving life in this rural area of Darlington County. Darlington County Superintendent of Education Rainey Knight was among those who were at this special opening luncheon. One of the missions of New Vision has been to help the children of this area understand the need to get a strong education so they can help continue improving the quality of life.

Patience and persistence -- two important community building tools that are not always in adequate supply. Dr. Calvin Daniels can help other groups understand how to put these virtues to work to accomplish more than most would ever dream.

Photo shows Pastor Calvin Daniels talking with Henry Counts of the Harvest Hope Kids Cafe and in the foreground are LaShonda and Mia, also with Harvest Hope.

Photo shows some of the New Vision CDC volunteers as they work in the kitchen to prepare for the grand opening luncheon.

Photo shows some of the people celebrating the grand opening of the New Vision Cafeteria.