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MARCH 4, 2010

Welcome to On Our Minds Twice a month we enjoy sharing what WolfBrown consultants are reading, thinking, and talking about - what's On Our Minds. It's our way of staying in touch with valued friends and colleagues, and passing along some worthwhile ideas.

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Pepsi Refresh Project
by: Joe Kluger

Personally, I prefer Diet Coke to Diet Pepsi.  But, an exciting new grant program from Pepsi is causing me to reconsider.  The Pepsi Refresh Project is giving away $1.3 million every month through January 2011 to individuals and organizations that develop innovative programs which have a positive impact on their communities.  What is unique - at least for now - about the Pepsi initiative is the way it uses the empowering principles of social media technology to determine grant awards.  Other corporations - including Western Union, Microsoft, Target, and J.P. Morgan Chase - have occasionally used interactive technology to solicit applications and user recommendations for corporate contributions.  Pepsi has taken the concept further, by leveraging its resources with the democratic principles of such user controlled philanthropy incubator sites as kickstarter.com, chipin.com, and kiva.org.  Pepsi accepts grants in six categories (Arts and Culture, Health, Food and Shelter, The Planet, Neighborhoods, Education) and awards several in each category at the end of each month, based on the number of votes submitted for each application by members of the public.  In these challenging times, it is nice to see a company spend over $15 million on a program to improve its corporate image, which also provides resources that support good causes.  While the Pepsi project will quickly become very competitive and not solve any one organization's financial problem, the real value of this innovative project would be if their use of social media principles had a viral impact on other corporate, foundation, and government grant making processes.


Arts Education Matters
by: Dennie Wolf 

In a recent series of visits to schools and after school programs, I had the chance to remember why this work matters.  In many classrooms, no activity lasted more than three minutes.  Classes opened with short "do-nows," followed by mini-lessons, then practice, then small groups, then reading journals, then assignment notebooks.  Children and adults knew and moved through their routines - with Buzby Berkeley-like precision.  No one loitered.  No one faltered.  There were no "side conversations" allowed.  Then in one primary classroom, a teacher opened and read a beautifully illustrated book.  Everyone - adult and children alike - spent time "just" inspecting the pictures.  Slowly, they shared what they each noticed, producing a lattice of possibilities.  Children remembered, connected, and re-visited earlier stories they had read together.  For an entire half an hour, something developed, grew more complex, acquired meaning - and hung there to be admired.


Implementing Community Cultural Plans
by: Marc Goldring

Much of my work at WolfBrown revolves around community cultural and creativity planning.  These processes often take nine months or longer to complete and implementation generally happens over 10 or more years. So being able to engage the cultural sector and a broad spectrum of community leaders - and keep them engaged - is vital to success.  It's inspiring to me to see how community members are energized by our participatory processes and how leaders can build on that energy over the course of the long years of turning a plan's vision into reality.  Look, for example, at the Richmond Virginia region, where WolfBrown completed a plan in 2008.  Among an array of important accomplishments, they've completely retooled their arts council to lead the implementation process.  In Long Beach, California, where I recently completed an update to the city's 1996 cultural plan, the City Council has approved five proposals inspired by the plan.  Even in smaller communities, like Lafayette/West Lafayette, Indiana (home of Purdue University), we are seeing some initial action on the plan I completed there barely a year ago.  The work of engaged and passionate community members makes all the difference.
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