Here you can find everything related to the design, economics, science, technology, philosophy, and politics behind the movement towards the creation of a more sustainable, equitable and prosperous world. The motto here is ”Invent. Invest. Implement.” Why? Because I believe that solving seemingly intractable problems requires that we put our minds (Invent), our money (Invest) and hands (Implement) to work in the direction of our goals.
Dreams and Realities
Written on 05/18 at 10:36 PM by Andy Posner
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We all have dreams that fiercely flicker in the darkest depth of our being; they envelope us like string made of sunlight, spilling through a forest canopy to recover something precious from the Earth. But always we awake to sights and sounds that take us away. We rise, we wash, we eat, we travel, we work, we worry. And always there is that something, that compost composed of all that humanity has discarded because they did not believe it could survive. And because we did not believe in its survival, this precious something seemed to die. And all around us there was injustice: a billion people living on a dollar per day; wars raging in jungles, in deserts, in mountains; millions of human beings languishing in jails for drug addiction, dying from curable disease, despairing of tomorrow, their today filled with sorry; hundreds of millions lacking access to clean air, clean water, information, health care, good governance, good schools, and hope; an environment stretched its limits, struggling to satiate a boundless hunger…
Oh, but even though we thought it dead, this precious something had instead been accumulating beneath our feet. The rivers, streams, beaches, oceans, and even the pavements, the parking lots, the abandoned plots of land strewn about the world, all contain the soil of hope, of justice, of love, of beauty, of truth, and from that soil can sprout the world we all have sought.
See the Trees AND the Forest
Written on 04/29 at 08:09 PM by Andy Posner
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I originally wrote this post for the Capital GREAT Blog.
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This morning, as I planted the above tree in my yard, I started thinking about the saying “you can’t see the forest for the trees,” which refers to someone who is so caught up with the details that they can’t see the larger picture. The saying felt especially pertinent as I have spent last week working on how CGF is going to go from 3 loans a week, to three loans a day, to 300 hundred a day and, so on. As I’ve pondered the challenges associated with achieving such significant scale, I have also kept my focus on those three loans a week--the loans to the low-income entrepreneur, to the disabled woman in need of a special chair, to the parent seeking to purchase a computer to help her child with homework--and so as I planted that beautiful little tree, as I showered it with water, with love with care...it occurred to me that when it comes to social good, you must see the both trees and the forest.
What I mean is that, when you plant a tree, or when you empower another human being, you are doing a wonderful thing. However, if all you do is serve one tree, one person at a time, then you are ignoring the scope of the broader problems facing earth and society, and you are also ignoring the broader social conditions that have disenfranchised the person and damaged the forest to begin with. In other words, even as you work, one gesture of kindness at a time, to better the world, you must also think about how to replicate, scale and increase the impact of your actions.
Oh The Lonely Heart
Written on 04/10 at 01:55 AM by Andy Posner
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Oh the lonely heart that yearns for days of yore,
A violin draped supine in its case
With taut strings that tremble music never more,
What bow can bring you a lover’s lost embrace?
Ah, but silence awes the muscles to clench
Like the salt of orgasm dissolved from a sea of tears;
Oh lonely heart, would that you could wrench
The wheels of time to quench the wound that sears!
No, I cannot relinquish what is not mine
Nor placate the past to unfurl tomorrow’s flag;
For in your repose you commit the crime
Of trading song for healing’s eternal gag.
So, oh lonely heart, do what you must!
Sing! Speak! Let loose the torrent
That stirred your romance and your lust,
And let not solace become a thing abhorrent
Addition vs. Duplication in Social Entrepreneurship
Written on 04/09 at 08:26 PM by Andy Posner
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(I wrote this article for the Capital Good Fund blog)
I think that one of the most important things for any social entrepreneur to ask him or herself--and, by extension, any social venture, be it non-profit or for-profit--is whether the work they are doing is additive or duplicative. There is no shortage of good-willed people, and organizations started by them, in this country; instead, what we lack are organizations that build upon the work of other players--governmental, for-profit, non-profit, community-based, faith-based, etc.--rather than duplicate that work. In our case, when we started thinking about how to tackle the $100 billion/year predatory lending industry, we realized that we could never replicate the brick-and-mortar infrastructure of payday lenders, check cashers, pawn shows, auto title lenders and the rest of the gaggle the preys on the poor.
Life
Written on 01/24 at 03:42 PM by Andy Posner
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Dizziness, exhaustion, balance.
Snow on fire, liquid leaves.
Blue gauze, blue blood.
A day poured from a samovar.
Mahogany dreams, forest nightmare.
Culinary whirlwind, fetid famine.
Distant sound, pressing silence.
Quest, rest, revision.
Take one, take two, the end.
I Am
Written on 11/29 at 01:46 PM by Andy Posner
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I am the moon that refused to rise,
The placid reflection of lunar eyes
Whose lurid stare, like rising tides,
Tickles the Earth and then subsides.
I am the leafless winter tree:
My leaves I shed reluctantly;
An autumnal gale just set me free
To shiver and long for eternity.
I am the damp crepuscular cloud
That hovers, dark, heavy and proud,
That dares to defy the solar shroud
In whose fabric all life is endowed.
I am the lone and lonely light
That, shining, gives sight,
Yet remains, for all its might,
Blind to the eyelid’s plight.
I trace the border of sea and shore
To keep at bay that endless war;
Yet the battle’s ceaseless roar
Says I am all this, and nothing more.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011 8:20 AM
Written on a train to New York City
- Green Microfinance: Advancing Social Equality and Environmental Sustainability in the United States (Ideas)
- Meet My New Folding Bike! (Poetry & Musings)
- Executive Summary of the Capital Good Fund Business Plan (Ideas)
- A Solution to the Limited Success of Micro-Credit in the United States? (Ideas)
- De camino a la Alhambra (Poetry & Musings)
Green Microfinance: Advancing Social Equality and Environmental Sustainability in the United States
Click here to download a PDF of my complete thesis. Questions and comments are much appreciated!
My masters thesis in Environmental Studies at Brown University looks at how microfinance--the provision of small…
A Solution to the Limited Success of Micro-Credit in the United States?
Micro-credit has undoubtedly been a runaway success in developing countries as a tool of both poverty alleviation and economic development. To date, some 100 million people have been reached by micro-loans, and Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank…
Tonight, the Oneness of Things
It is late and my mind should be drifting through the colorful abyss of deep sleep, yet instead i find that tonight sleep will not come. I am like a hungry flower who dreams of bees so ardently that all…