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Empowering #BelovedCommunity (via ABCD)
In 1996, I had an epiphany (after encountering Jurgen Habermas and Jim Fishkin in grad school), about the possibility of replacing our two party plutocracy with deliberative democracy.
I thought then that it would take two years to communicate my epiphany to a critical mass of Americans, and politically empower our collective wisdom and compassion, to create an America that works for all.
24 years later, after sacrificing far more than I would have ever been willing to sacrifice (had I known what was ahead), I'm optimistically imagining that we can get to #WiserDemocracy by 2028.
I now believe that the Asset Based Community Development movement is the catalyst to "co-creating compassionate communities", a pre-requisite for deliberative democracy (which is a pre-requisite for a #CaringEconomy -- an economy that measures success in terms of #Sustainable #EquityForALL).
What follows is a slightly modified version of my LinkedIn article, "Empowering #BelovedCommunity", which is a deeper dive on the current state of my life work.
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LaQuisha Heath-Waheed, Gabriel Nagy, Howard Pepper and I are currently focused on rallying local (Chicagoland) leaders in the ABCD movement, to co-create two pilot Compassionate Community "incubators" (Will County; Southside Chicago).
Our shared mission:
Empowering Compassionate Communities (spiritually, culturally, educationally, economically, ecologically and politically), to expedite #Sustainable #EquityForALL.
We believe that collectively, the existing ABCD movement can rally 30,000 civic and faith leaders, and 30 million #CompassionateCitizens, in 10,000+ Compassionate Communities by Election Day, 2028.
It starts by finding a way to visibly bring #CompassionateCitizens together around myriad intersecting issues that affect the well being of those in the community -- effectively uniting "silos of compassion". We are currently launching "Meetup-enabled experiments", but are open to other platforms.
We are inspired by the global movement to Co-create Compassionate Communities:
International Campaign for Compassionate Communities
But we are also deeply inspired by five Christian organizations that could, with sufficient funding and in collaboration, rally tens of millions of Christians -- those who find ecumenical common cause in pursuing the Common Good (#BelovedCommunity; #Sustainable #EquityForALL):
https://resources.depaul.edu/abcd-institute [Asset Based Community Development Institute]
https://ccda.org/ [Christians transforming communities.]
https://parishcollective.org/ [Christians re-imagining the neighborhood]
https://www.breachrepairers.org/poorpeoplescampaign [#Sustainable #EquityForALL]
https://theinitiative.org/ ["that the love of Jesus might exceed all divisions"]
http://christianchurchestogether.org/ [The reconciling power of the Gospel, unleashed via ecumenism -- Christian Churches finding unity in diversity.]
We are currently inviting Christian leaders in Will County to co-organize Compassionate Will County, a Meetup-enabled experiment in empowering #BelovedCommunity. We are also inviting Christian leaders to launch a similar experiment in South Side Chicago.
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Below are summaries of the two discussions that follow:
- Empowering Compassion is a big picture look at the terrain, through the lens of Christian ecumenism, in recognition that 70% of Americans identify as Christian. Christians are as deeply divided, among themselves, as the rest of the population. I propose that the project of #EducationEquity (linked to #EducationForEquity) is an important issue arena where we can find common ground.
- Empowering a #Wiser Democracy is a discussion of our 2025-2028 mission, which involves rallying 30 million #CompassionateCitizens by 2028. This is probable critical mass to politically empower the collective wisdom and compassion of ALL voices (#WiserDemocracy).
Empowering Compassion: achieving #EducationEquity and #EducationForEquity, via Ecumenism
It is not enough to cultivate compassion, as important and foundational as that project is.
Two of the 3 "planks" of our social mission (#WiserDemocracy, #CaringEconomy), explicitly connect Empowerment to Education.
Educating #CompassionateCitizens about Deliberative Democracy (#WiserDemocracy) and the Triple Bottom Line (#CaringEconomy) is an imperative part of co-creating what Peter Block and John McKnight call Abundant Community.
#EducationEquity is arguably the second highest impact movement in America. I rank #WiserDemocracy higher only because I have firmly believed since 1996 that we can't expeditiously get to #Sustainable #EquityForALL without replacing our two party plutocracy with an empowered #WiserDemocracy.
Most of us embrace #EducationalEquity, if asked (though what that means, and how to get there, is widely contested). But "Education for what?" remains a critical question.
Are we educating the under-served so that they can get a bigger piece of a deeply flawed (consumerist, hyper-individualist) political economy, or are we educating citizens to co-create abundance for all (empowering #BelovedCommunity), so that they can transform an oppressive, inequitable system into one that centers instead on Compassion and Community?
Surely we also need to educate FOR equity.
So how do we reach 30,000 civic and faith leaders, who are committed to that transformation?
While #BelovedCommunity is fundamentally about radical inclusion, we have come to realize the critical importance of healing the partisan divide within Christianity, before we can heal our deeply divided nation. Hence our initial focus on:
#UnitingChristians, to empower #BelovedCommunity.
The members of https://www.christianchurchestogether.org touch over 100 million Christians, and are deeply aligned with the project of #UnitingChristians, to "Empower #BelovedCommunity". https://sojo.net is one of those members, and one of their authors is visionary Nicole Baker-Fulgham: https://sojo.net/biography/nicole-baker-fulgham.
Nicole Baker-Fulgham is the founder of http://www.expectations.org. Hers is truly an ecumenical project, as she seeks to enlist leaders from all 300,000+ congregations to expedite #EducationEquity: https://ccda.org/justice-initiatives/education-equity.
Nicole's Expectations Project is an opportunity for millions who theologically embrace compassion to cultivate and empower our compassion, which is surely the best way to bear witness to our faith.
To return to the question of "Education for WHAT?"...
CCF seeks to Empower #BelovedCommunity, by organizing and educating #CompassionateCitizens about interconnected movements, focusing on these three:
1. Asset Based Community Development. See: https://ccda.org, https://parishcollective.org and https://resources.depaul.edu/abcd-institute/Pages/default.aspx
2. Wiser Democracy. See https://www.uniteamerica.org, https://healthydemocracy.org and the 100+ organizations at https://www.bridgealliance.us/
3. Local Living Economy. See https://www.commonfuture.co/, https://democracycollaborative.org/, and the 210+ organizations at https://neweconomy.net/
A #CaringCulture, centered on #BelovedCommunity, enables the civic renewal necessary to empower a #WiserDemocracy
#WiserDemocracy entails politically empowering our collective wisdom and compassion.
A #CaringEconomy (one that works for ALL) is the fruit of co-creating a #CaringCulture and empowering a #WiserDemocracy.
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Empowering a #WiserDemocracy in the U.S. by 2028
By 2025, we envision the co-creation of 10,000+ Meetup-enabled Compassionate Communities across America, catalyzed by leaders from the Christian Community Development movement. It remains to educate and empower 30 million #CompassionateCitizens by Election Day, 2028.
30 million is probable critical mass for empowering Deliberative Democracy in the U.S. This is less than 20% of the Americans who latently support #WiserDemocracy projects like https://www.uniteamerica.org and https://healthydemocracy.org.
Most of those 30 million #CompassionateCitizens can be enlisted by reaching the supporters and spheres of 3 "macro-silos of compassion":
1. #CaringCulture: supporters of the 50+ orgs at The Revolutionary Love Project, and the Compassionate Communities campaign at Charter For Compassion.
3. #CaringEconomy: supporters of the 210+ orgs at the New Economy Coalition, and the growing Asset Based Community Development movement (c.f., The Christian Community Development Association, The Jubilee Impact Fund, Parish Collective and the ABCD Institute).
3. #WiserDemocracy: supporters of the 100+ orgs at Bridge Alliance.
See Compassionate Citizens Foundation website for more, including bios on us and our advisors.
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Funding the movement
To "market" and financially support the #BelovedCommunity movement, we believe that we can eventually generate and estimated $8 billion of top line revenue, and $1-2 billion a year of impact investment, from the $80 billion U.S. residential brokerage industry:
2020 goal: One Econometric Home Valuation consultant, working with 4 apprentices, to prove a pilot that can be quickly scaled across the country.
2025 goal: A new Benefit Corporation, with 10,000+ Econometric Home Valuation consultants touching 2 million households a year -- evangelizing the #BelovedCommunity movement, while adding significant financial value to home sellers.
Funding Engine Pilot
I am the actuary (FSA, 1993) who blueprinted $500 million of wealth creation for the already wealthy owners of Zurich Direct, before I decided (on Easter Sunday, 1995) to devote my life to tackling the systemic obstacles to a compassionate world that worked for ALL.
I was immersed in residential brokerage from June, 2002 to April, 2019, evolving a blueprint that can tap that $80 billion a year industry, to fund the #BelovedCommunity movement (uniting the movements working on cultural, political, economic, educational, and ecological transformation).
While I can provide interested co-founders and impact investors a far deeper dive on that blueprint, it starts with proving that a team of 5 Econometric Home Valuation consultants (myself, plus 4 Realtor apprentices with a grasp of Statistics 101 and Economics 101) can cost effectively get to capacity, and provide value added services to 800 home sellers a year, projected to generate $3.2 million of top line revenues in Chicagoland.
Once the pilot is proven, we will secure impact bonds to scale the pilot around 2500 times nationally ($8 billion of projected top line revenue; $1-2 billion of projected funding).
There are 4 marketing venues (3 for the Foundation; 1 for the B Corp) that are projected to generate 800 closed listings a year for the pilot, at capacity.
1. Calling on home owners who are actively selling by owner, inviting them to join their local Compassionate Community Meetup, and telling them about the valuable free services offered by Connection Realty, to movement members (e.g., on average, a 3% higher sale price -- $7500 on a $250,000 home).
2. Co-fundraising partnerships with various 501c3s and faith orgs who support the #BelovedCommunity movement, and who communicate it (and Connection Realty) to their supporters.
3. Media attention for the #BelovedCommunity movement
4. A mission aligned residential brokerage, with adequate coverage of Will County and Southside Chicago, for whom we will help raise $500K of impact investment (seed capital) to profitably "buy market share". I expect (and will make the case) that this is enough to bring marketing costs (as a percentage of revenue) to 25% or less. This partnering realty will be the chassis for a new, ecosystem aware B Corp (cf. Theory U), which will be quickly scaled nationally, once proven.
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If any part of the above resonates, reach out to me:
Norlyn Dimmitt
630-362-4663
norlyn@sbcglobal.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/norlyn/