Good Works and Almsdeeds

  " Remember who you are! Make great choices! CTR! I love you " .. are the words that I would hear Tori Sue Jacobson shout to her teen kids as she dropped them off at high school.  The main idea this week  is that making good choices  is based on understanding priorities, trade-offs, and e mploying design thinking.  T he basics of business finance and sustainable funding  is valuable in order to pursue best matched capital sources.   To create social change one must think differently-- not just to find solutions, but to fund solutions.  A sustainable social venture model is how the social venture solves the social problem and does it in a sustainable way.  This week's reading teaches that the most common roadblock in social innovation is funding, specifically, nonprofits struggle to create sustainable income and often become dependent on grants and donations. If the money stops, impact stops. Therefore, sustainability is an important com...

The main idea and topic of this past week focused on “ Solution & Impact Evaluation”     Social innovation impact must be measurable and proven.   It’s not to measure impact in order to entice donors and investors, instead, evaluation of solutions and impacts  is for the benefit of the people in whom the program was intended to claim to help .  One of the most difficult social innovation roadblocks in verifying that a solution actually works and doesn’t create more problems.   Reflecting on the article “Hurling and Community Service” and how to go about setting goals . I  was taken back by the negative outlook & attitude of the article “Starfish Hurling and Community Service”. I had heard the story before, but in the context of individuals worth in a religious setting— and simply took away from it that each person matters versus looking at it from the perspective of an approach to solving “world problems”.  Despite the negative tone, ...

Today is Hannah's birthday. My heart is full and my emotions run close to the surface.  She's truly a gift.  I am fumbling to say more --to capture my many thoughts --retell one of the many stories of her life that I hold in my heart --to put these emotions into words... I type then erase... I type then erase...  nothing satisficing/good enough  … I can though tie all of it to one word, Love. She has given  love to her daddy, sisters and I. She has a gift for words-- she absorbs them to this day. She is gifted with a beautiful singing and engaging speaking voice. She has always been quick to vocally stand for justice and for her Faith.  HUG happiest birthday my luv.  ==== For the past four weeks or so I have been mentally-emotionally fighting an intense internal battle over the idea of remaining in school...    I do not feel like others do. Instead of feeling like I am getting closer to my goals, I feel further from those th...

    Having just celebrated Mother’s Day, the reading about the impact that one mother, Erzsebet Szekeres had on turning around assisted living for the disabled in Hungary, really made an impact on me ( chapter 9: "What Sort of Mother Are You?", How to Change the World  textbook ).      Szekeres experienced isolation in raising her son, Tibor, who was severely mentally and physically disabled,   young, and needed constant care. Her husband, family, and friends were ashamed of Tibor, served judgement, and offered little support. When she took her son to be examined, she was not given information or even allowed to view medical records or reports.  The state’s solution for severely disabled was institution for life in systems that were inhumane and ignorant. The disabled in institutions experienced sexual, physical, and emotional abuse.        Benchmarks that Szekeres experienced started with when Tibor turned ...

Doctrine and Covenants Section 6  33  a Fear not  to do  b good , my sons, for whatsoever ye  c sow , that shall ye also reap; therefore, if ye sow  d good  ye shall also reap good for your  e reward .  34  Therefore, fear not, little  a flock ; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are  b built  upon my rock, they cannot prevail. The gospel and social innovation are powerful and effective tools.  In order to more effectively design and implement a social solution, I need to first focus on how to consider the problems through two constraints:  One, that the solution must address a legitimate social issue and two, that the solution is determined by root cause analysis.   In this week's course material "Root Cause Analysis Tracing a Problem to its Origins" an example shared brought the concept into tangible view and sparked my interest, "In medicine, it's easy to understand ...

I am really enjoying the reading in this course's book " How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas".   This week in  chapter three  I was gripped by journey and impact F. Rosa made in rural electrification in Brazil. Rosa saw a huge injustice that was creating a multiple problems for both those in the cities and those in rural areas. He had an idea and made it his life's purpose to bring it to reality. Rosa ultimately changed the direction. He improved the lives of others and impacted the world.  Truly, was this not the example our Savior set. He was faced with opposition and he channeled his focus on the purpose of His life as the 'central mover'.  The main ideas this week centered on where "I" --each of us-- fit into social innovation. There's a pyramid of  types of persons in social innovation. At the top and in a narrow margin are  Social Entrepreneurs. They see a problem, have a solution, and make solv...