Complex Challenges Demand Greater Collaboration

Leaders from Corporate, Nonprofit/NGO, Government, and Academic Sectors will Gather at greaterthan >, July 26 – 28, 2009, Portland, Maine, to Explore New Models of Partnership

On May 4, 2007, a massive tornado leveled the town of Greensburg, KS, destroying 95% of the structures, killing 11 people and leaving the rural community of 1600 in the heart of Kansas wheat country, in devastation. And, even though Greensburg had previously begun a planning process for economic development in the 21st century, this small farming community could not have known that just two years after its unimaginable disaster, it would not only be in the midst of becoming America’s first, master-planned LEED-certified green city, but it would also become a role model for a new era of cross-sectoral collaboration and partnership.

At the greaterthan > conference, planned for July 26- 28 in the historic seaport city of Portland, Maine, thought leaders and innovators from the corporate, nonprofit, governmental and academic sectors will meet to explore new models of cross-sectoral collaboration, to address complex challenges related to the environment, economic development, poverty and social justice. See: www.greaterthanconference.com

Chuck Banks, former State Director for the USDA in Kansas, and one of the key contributors to the Greensburg master planning and collaborative rebuilding program, has been working for a decade on a model of public-private collaboration and comprehensive planning that saw its most urgent and broad-based application in Greensburg. Banks will share the stage at greaterthan > with Dave Jeffers, manager of Retail Experience for John Deere, whose agricultural equipment dealers in the Greensburg area were wiped out by the tornado, putting scores of people out of work and destroying millions of dollars worth of agricultural equipment at a time critical for area farms.

Around the world today, recognition is growing for the need to bring leaders and organizations from the for-profit, nonprofit and governmental sectors to bear on some of society’s most pressing issues. In the words of Dr. Jon Fink of the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University, “Today’s global challenges are too complex for any one discipline or sector to solve.”

Dr Fink will share, at greaterthan >, several examples of collaborative projects that bring academic research, corporate investment, nonprofit organization field teams, and governmental support and facilitation to address urgent and long-term sustainability concerns. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Cisco Systems is working with NASA and city government to help citizens measure, in real time, their environmental impact to implement behavior-changing programs at the neighborhood and community level. Fink is also working with several Israeli and Jordanian universities, NGOs and government agencies to use ecological research as a vehicle for promoting peaceful cooperation.

In developing regions of the world, partnerships and collaboration are essential to begin to build sustainable economic development and meet the long-term social and economic needs of local populations. Randall Kempner, Executive Director of the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE), an affiliate of the renowned Aspen Institute, is focusing on bringing financial and technical support to the small and growing businesses which will become the key to sustainable local communities in places like Africa, South America and Asia. ANDE is a membership-based organization comprising organizations such as The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Acumen Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Citi Foundation, the Omidyar Network and many other foundations and technical support providers.

In many major American cities, the long-entrenched challenges of poverty, low educational attainment and unemployment have found new hope with programs like City Year, AmeriCorps, Teach For America and today, a new-found interest in addressing environmental and economic issues by creating a broad-based, green-collar work force.

Michael Brown, Co-Founder and CEO of City Year, will bring to greaterthan > the perspective of 20 years of developing long-term, committed partnerships with leading corporations to support economic and educational opportunity. City Year, – founded on the belief that “young people can change the world” – has brought over 20,000 mentors and young leaders to inner-city schools and is said to have been the role model organization that inspired the Clinton Administration to launch the highly effective AmeriCorps program. Today, AmeriCorps places some 75,000 young people each year into vital roles of service to disadvantaged communities. Joining Michael Brown, will be Comcast Executive Vice President, David Cohen, discussing Comcast’s long-term partnership with City Year and its collaborative engagement in urban affairs, economic opportunity and higher education.

Melissa Bradley-Burns, senior strategist at Green For All, sees a direct connection between America’s environmental crisis and its economic injustices and poverty. Green For All was founded by Van Jones, now President Obama’s Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. Bradley-Burns will bring insights from this dynamic nonprofit organization that has been working in collaboration with the business, government, labor, and grassroots communities “to create and implement programs that increase quality jobs and opportunities in green industry – all while holding the most vulnerable people at the center of its agenda.” The mission of Green For All is to help solve two of our most compelling challenges (our ecological crisis and persistent poverty) with one solution – greening our inner cities first, with the help of a newly activated and trained green-collar workforce. This powerful concept is now finding its way into the new Administration’s policies and initiatives.

There are many forces and factors that give rise to the kind of innovative and powerful examples of partnership and collaboration to be highlighted at greaterthan >. A growing consciousness among citizens that their immediate and long-term health, well-being and economic survival depends on the quality of our environment and the transparency and responsiveness of our government and institutions. The proliferation of access to the Internet has sped the adoption of new beliefs and standards of behavior. And, the scientific community, through many of the same communications mechanisms fueling consumer or citizen engagement, has rapidly coalesced around certain ideas, such as global warming or disease management, thus opening the door for cross-sectoral initiatives backed by the endorsement of analytical or technical expertise.

As societies around the world wrestle with powerful and urgent challenges, it is becoming clear that no one sector ¬– not corporations, not NGOs, not governmental agencies, not academic institutions ¬– can amass the talent, the team or the resources to address issues on the scale needed. The greaterthan > conference is focused on “catalyzing collaboration” and fostering new models of partnership to bring far more power and much greater pace to such challenges, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

For more information about greaterthan >, see: www.greaterthanconference.com
or contact: mfairbrother@greaterthanconference.com


Posted by David Swardlick, June 21, 2009