Friday, November 27, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
A Nature State of Mind - From the Stanford Social Innovation Review
Ecotrust in the News
Stanford Social Innovation Review
August 20, 2009
By Spencer B. Beebe & Ian Gill
A Nature State of Mind
Systemic problems call for systemic solutions, which bioregions are best at delivering
In 2009, the federal government is taking important steps to restore both nature and the economy. Congress is developing global warming and energy legislation. President Barack Obama is prioritizing green projects in the nation’s economic recovery plan. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that greenhouse gases may endanger public health and welfare.
Yet true restoration — environmental and economic — will not come from congressional legislation, top-down stimulus money, or EPA rulings. Instead, restoration will come from a shift in the relationships between people and their ecologies, as well as from the businesses, policies, and cultural changes that will arise from this shift.
Today, people everywhere face a convergence of economic, energy, social, and environmental crises on a scale and immediacy never before imagined. And people in many places can use capital, technology, and policy to stabilize the economy, tighten energy security, alleviate poverty, and improve environmental conditions.
But reliable peace and prosperity will elude humankind unless we change our relations with each other and the environment. A good first step toward this lofty goal is to start thinking at the scale of “nature states.” Also called bioregions, nature states are defined by their social and geographic coherence, rather than by state or national borders. People organize themselves by nature states, such as the Pacific Northwest, the Mississippi Delta, and the Chesapeake Bay.
By recognizing each nature state’s distinctive environmental and geographic characteristics, its citizens can preserve those qualities while building businesses and organizations that take advantage of them. This nature state thinking has the potential to fuel more bottom-up local and regional innovations, which will in turn produce more of what our country really needs, not just more of what we think we want.
Nature states also provide a good scale at which to work. Only systemic solutions solve systemic problems. Cities, counties, and even most states are often too small for systemic solutions, and the world is almost always too big.
This article’s coauthor, Spencer Beebe, first learned about regional thinking in Central and South America while running the Nature Conservancy’s International Program, and later while founding Conservation International. It was here that he observed intact, ancient wilderness supporting regional economies — for example, regions of Costa Rica prioritized the smaller, long-term economic returns of sustainable forestry over the big, short-term profits of large-scale environmental destruction. Beebe then brought the thinking back to the West Coast, where he has refined it over the last 20 years at Ecotrust, a Portland, Ore.- based organization that helps local communities achieve what author Jane Jacobs called a more “reliable prosperity.” Bringing together public, nonprofit, and for-profit organizations, Ecotrust both develops and executes new solutions to poverty and environmental problems.
The idea of nature states is not new. Even the EPA talks about them, and organizations such as the Natural Step and the Resilience Alliance promote them as part of the larger idea that the more diverse and intimate the connections between nature, economy, and community, the more resilient all three might be.
What is new is the current opportunity to use nature state thinking. Down economies need fresh thinking to reinvigorate the market. Innovators who are bound together by a shared affinity for place may more readily supply the systemic solutions to the many challenges that all people now face.
The Northwest Experiment
Our nature state — an area comprising the temperate rainforest coasts of Northern California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska — has proven to be a fertile ground for regional business and cultural experimentation. Among Ecotrust’s innovations, for instance, is ShoreBank Pacific, a regional bank that prioritizes community building and stewardship of the environment in its lending. The bank, with $200 million in assets, remains resilient in the downturn.
In our nature state, entrepreneurs who respect nature and adopt a get-rich-slow approach are thriving, even now. One example is New Seasons Market, a chain of grocery stores in Portland that caters to the region’s reputation for friendliness and delicious locally grown food. The chain carefully chooses its employees, using a lone PhD to interview and hire each person. By understanding the region’s psychology and ecology, the business has developed an almost cultlike following.
New Seasons is not alone. Carbon sequestration businesses tied to our nature state’s forests, clean energy companies connected to our diverse climate, and green construction companies reliant on our abundant natural resources are prospering here. Even politicians and financiers are getting on board with bioregional innovation: A select group led by the governor of Oregon and calling itself “The Oregon Way” is promoting regional, nature-based innovation to leaders in Washington, D.C., with the very real result of green stimulus dollars coming back to Oregon.
The Nature State Rules
Although people are still writing the rules of nature state thinking, certain guidelines have emerged. One is to measure success in nature’s indicators, not dollars. The singular natural event that has defined the Northwest for thousands of years, for instance, is the return of the salmon — millions and millions of them. People and salmon codeveloped here, together with the forests and grasslands. Salmon decline tells us that our farming, fishing, forestry, transportation, and energy systems are eroding our ecosystems. When 15,000 to 30,000 big, healthy Chinook salmon die within days of entering the Klamath River, as they did three years ago, we know our shepherding of the region is failing.
A second known nature state rule is to build compact cities and towns based on “smart growth” principles and living buildings. Smart growth is an idea that first grew among architects and planners of the 1970s, and it is now a worldwide movement that promotes an ethos of quality housing for people of all income levels, distinct and walkable neighborhoods, compact building design, energy-efficient buildings, and open spaces. Many city governments have adopted smart growth principles and successfully reinvigorated their cities. Portland is a great example: The local government implemented smart growth more than two decades ago, and now Portland is booming. It is considered to be one of the most livable cities in the nation.
The third nature state guideline is to develop local sources of energy through major investments in a renewable, efficient, diverse, and distributed energy system. Our region — famous for hydropower — is also making major investments in wind, solar, and wave energy. Wind companies are filling Portland’s new-business docket, and wind towers are appearing on farms and open spaces throughout the region. Oregon now generates 20 percent of its energy from wind, with a plan to generate 50 percent by 2025. In addition, regional entrepreneurs and universities are aggressively pursuing wave energy to take advantage of the powerful ocean tides of the Pacific Northwest.
A final nature state rule is to restore entire landscapes and watersheds — not just pieces of them. Organizations such as the EPA and the U.S. Forest Service are now funding the restoration of entire marine and land habitats. Some of this land — particularly land that is close to cities — must also be restored or earmarked for organic and local farming. This will promote the rise of businesses that bring healthy food and products to market — particularly new online companies that matchmake farmers with restaurants, grocery stores, and individuals.
People in Place
In the midst of the current economic crisis, businesses and individuals who are embracing nature state thinking in our region are testing their own persistence and resilience. Growth for organizations such as New Seasons was modest in 2008. But at a time when the S&P 500 lost more than one-third of its value, any growth is a sign of health.
We know that nature state thinking is not a model for everyone, but it can be profitable, better for the Earth, and better for local communities everywhere. Regional thinking, when matched with regional action, can be more powerful than data, science, money, and technology.
The goal today must be to participate — to innovate, invest, and inspire — in the redesign of regional economy and society. In the years and decades ahead, those communities that have a reliable water supply and access to local, cheap building materials; that encourage dense development within urban growth boundaries surrounded by open space, healthy forests, and productive farms; and that develop diverse, locally distributed sources of energy are the ones that will flourish.
Stanford Social Innovation Review
August 20, 2009
By Spencer B. Beebe & Ian Gill
A Nature State of Mind
Systemic problems call for systemic solutions, which bioregions are best at delivering
In 2009, the federal government is taking important steps to restore both nature and the economy. Congress is developing global warming and energy legislation. President Barack Obama is prioritizing green projects in the nation’s economic recovery plan. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that greenhouse gases may endanger public health and welfare.
Yet true restoration — environmental and economic — will not come from congressional legislation, top-down stimulus money, or EPA rulings. Instead, restoration will come from a shift in the relationships between people and their ecologies, as well as from the businesses, policies, and cultural changes that will arise from this shift.
Today, people everywhere face a convergence of economic, energy, social, and environmental crises on a scale and immediacy never before imagined. And people in many places can use capital, technology, and policy to stabilize the economy, tighten energy security, alleviate poverty, and improve environmental conditions.
But reliable peace and prosperity will elude humankind unless we change our relations with each other and the environment. A good first step toward this lofty goal is to start thinking at the scale of “nature states.” Also called bioregions, nature states are defined by their social and geographic coherence, rather than by state or national borders. People organize themselves by nature states, such as the Pacific Northwest, the Mississippi Delta, and the Chesapeake Bay.
By recognizing each nature state’s distinctive environmental and geographic characteristics, its citizens can preserve those qualities while building businesses and organizations that take advantage of them. This nature state thinking has the potential to fuel more bottom-up local and regional innovations, which will in turn produce more of what our country really needs, not just more of what we think we want.
Nature states also provide a good scale at which to work. Only systemic solutions solve systemic problems. Cities, counties, and even most states are often too small for systemic solutions, and the world is almost always too big.
This article’s coauthor, Spencer Beebe, first learned about regional thinking in Central and South America while running the Nature Conservancy’s International Program, and later while founding Conservation International. It was here that he observed intact, ancient wilderness supporting regional economies — for example, regions of Costa Rica prioritized the smaller, long-term economic returns of sustainable forestry over the big, short-term profits of large-scale environmental destruction. Beebe then brought the thinking back to the West Coast, where he has refined it over the last 20 years at Ecotrust, a Portland, Ore.- based organization that helps local communities achieve what author Jane Jacobs called a more “reliable prosperity.” Bringing together public, nonprofit, and for-profit organizations, Ecotrust both develops and executes new solutions to poverty and environmental problems.
The idea of nature states is not new. Even the EPA talks about them, and organizations such as the Natural Step and the Resilience Alliance promote them as part of the larger idea that the more diverse and intimate the connections between nature, economy, and community, the more resilient all three might be.
What is new is the current opportunity to use nature state thinking. Down economies need fresh thinking to reinvigorate the market. Innovators who are bound together by a shared affinity for place may more readily supply the systemic solutions to the many challenges that all people now face.
The Northwest Experiment
Our nature state — an area comprising the temperate rainforest coasts of Northern California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska — has proven to be a fertile ground for regional business and cultural experimentation. Among Ecotrust’s innovations, for instance, is ShoreBank Pacific, a regional bank that prioritizes community building and stewardship of the environment in its lending. The bank, with $200 million in assets, remains resilient in the downturn.
In our nature state, entrepreneurs who respect nature and adopt a get-rich-slow approach are thriving, even now. One example is New Seasons Market, a chain of grocery stores in Portland that caters to the region’s reputation for friendliness and delicious locally grown food. The chain carefully chooses its employees, using a lone PhD to interview and hire each person. By understanding the region’s psychology and ecology, the business has developed an almost cultlike following.
New Seasons is not alone. Carbon sequestration businesses tied to our nature state’s forests, clean energy companies connected to our diverse climate, and green construction companies reliant on our abundant natural resources are prospering here. Even politicians and financiers are getting on board with bioregional innovation: A select group led by the governor of Oregon and calling itself “The Oregon Way” is promoting regional, nature-based innovation to leaders in Washington, D.C., with the very real result of green stimulus dollars coming back to Oregon.
The Nature State Rules
Although people are still writing the rules of nature state thinking, certain guidelines have emerged. One is to measure success in nature’s indicators, not dollars. The singular natural event that has defined the Northwest for thousands of years, for instance, is the return of the salmon — millions and millions of them. People and salmon codeveloped here, together with the forests and grasslands. Salmon decline tells us that our farming, fishing, forestry, transportation, and energy systems are eroding our ecosystems. When 15,000 to 30,000 big, healthy Chinook salmon die within days of entering the Klamath River, as they did three years ago, we know our shepherding of the region is failing.
A second known nature state rule is to build compact cities and towns based on “smart growth” principles and living buildings. Smart growth is an idea that first grew among architects and planners of the 1970s, and it is now a worldwide movement that promotes an ethos of quality housing for people of all income levels, distinct and walkable neighborhoods, compact building design, energy-efficient buildings, and open spaces. Many city governments have adopted smart growth principles and successfully reinvigorated their cities. Portland is a great example: The local government implemented smart growth more than two decades ago, and now Portland is booming. It is considered to be one of the most livable cities in the nation.
The third nature state guideline is to develop local sources of energy through major investments in a renewable, efficient, diverse, and distributed energy system. Our region — famous for hydropower — is also making major investments in wind, solar, and wave energy. Wind companies are filling Portland’s new-business docket, and wind towers are appearing on farms and open spaces throughout the region. Oregon now generates 20 percent of its energy from wind, with a plan to generate 50 percent by 2025. In addition, regional entrepreneurs and universities are aggressively pursuing wave energy to take advantage of the powerful ocean tides of the Pacific Northwest.
A final nature state rule is to restore entire landscapes and watersheds — not just pieces of them. Organizations such as the EPA and the U.S. Forest Service are now funding the restoration of entire marine and land habitats. Some of this land — particularly land that is close to cities — must also be restored or earmarked for organic and local farming. This will promote the rise of businesses that bring healthy food and products to market — particularly new online companies that matchmake farmers with restaurants, grocery stores, and individuals.
People in Place
In the midst of the current economic crisis, businesses and individuals who are embracing nature state thinking in our region are testing their own persistence and resilience. Growth for organizations such as New Seasons was modest in 2008. But at a time when the S&P 500 lost more than one-third of its value, any growth is a sign of health.
We know that nature state thinking is not a model for everyone, but it can be profitable, better for the Earth, and better for local communities everywhere. Regional thinking, when matched with regional action, can be more powerful than data, science, money, and technology.
The goal today must be to participate — to innovate, invest, and inspire — in the redesign of regional economy and society. In the years and decades ahead, those communities that have a reliable water supply and access to local, cheap building materials; that encourage dense development within urban growth boundaries surrounded by open space, healthy forests, and productive farms; and that develop diverse, locally distributed sources of energy are the ones that will flourish.
Nation's First All-Christian prison from OneNewsNow
Nation's first all-Christian prison
Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 11/10/2009 5:00:00 AMPlans are underway for a 600-bed Christian prison to be built in Wakita, Oklahoma, a town of 380 residents near the Kansas border.
The unique facility is the brainchild of Bill Robinson of Corrections Concepts Inc. in Dallas, Texas, a nonprofit prison ministry. Robinson himself is an ex-con and prison minister. He hopes to open the facility in about 16 months.
Private prisons are not a new concept, and numerous prisons have Christian or faith-based units, but Robinson says he does not know of any with an all-Christian staff. He envisions a staff that will see their work as ministry.
“All of the employees will be Christians,” Robinson says. “We have an opinion letter from the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] that says we can do that.”
The facility would house only prisoners who want to transfer there. They will not be required to go to church or Bible study, but will be required to sign an agreement to participate in some prison programs. Inmates will be offered classes in literacy, GED requirements and life skills.
“It’s a faith-based, work ethic, corrections initiative where we take men in their last 12 to 24 to 30 months before their earliest release, and they have to volunteer to come, which makes us constitutional,” Robinson says.
He says no public funds will be used in the $42 million project. A bond backer who underwrites and does revenue bonds for Christian-related ventures has agreed to finance it.
Robinson believes there is great support for the facility which will work to change the hearts of inmates and help them stay out of trouble upon their release.
Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 11/10/2009 5:00:00 AMPlans are underway for a 600-bed Christian prison to be built in Wakita, Oklahoma, a town of 380 residents near the Kansas border.
The unique facility is the brainchild of Bill Robinson of Corrections Concepts Inc. in Dallas, Texas, a nonprofit prison ministry. Robinson himself is an ex-con and prison minister. He hopes to open the facility in about 16 months.
Private prisons are not a new concept, and numerous prisons have Christian or faith-based units, but Robinson says he does not know of any with an all-Christian staff. He envisions a staff that will see their work as ministry.
“All of the employees will be Christians,” Robinson says. “We have an opinion letter from the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] that says we can do that.”
The facility would house only prisoners who want to transfer there. They will not be required to go to church or Bible study, but will be required to sign an agreement to participate in some prison programs. Inmates will be offered classes in literacy, GED requirements and life skills.
“It’s a faith-based, work ethic, corrections initiative where we take men in their last 12 to 24 to 30 months before their earliest release, and they have to volunteer to come, which makes us constitutional,” Robinson says.
He says no public funds will be used in the $42 million project. A bond backer who underwrites and does revenue bonds for Christian-related ventures has agreed to finance it.
Robinson believes there is great support for the facility which will work to change the hearts of inmates and help them stay out of trouble upon their release.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Local Stock Exchanges and National Stimulus
Local Stock Exchanges and National Stimulus By Michael Schuman
Editor's note: Readers may recognize some of the ideas below from previous blog entries. The issue is still relevant and urgent. The following piece was just featured in the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco's Community Development Investment Review.
Since the global financial system unraveled in 2008, U.S. policymakers have struggled heroically to improve the performance and oversight of global banks and investment firms. But these actions have been largely unresponsive to the growing number of Americans who would like to remove their hard-earned retirement savings from these high financial fliers altogether and invest their nest eggs in their community. Might it be time for policymakers to consider the potential stimulus payoffs from nurturing micro-equity investments?
One reason for growing public interest in local investment is the spread of “buy local” campaigns, a movement that is more than just local hucksterism. Consider the title of an article in a recent issue of Time: “Buying Local: How It Boosts the Economy.” Cutting-edge economic developers (except at the national level) increasingly recognize is the importance of strengthening locally owned, small businesses.
Growing evidence suggests that every dollar spent at a locally owned business generates two to four times more economic benefit—measured in income, wealth, jobs, and tax revenue—than a dollar spent at a globally owned business. That is because locally owned businesses spend much more of their money locally and thereby pump up the so-called economic multiplier. Other studies suggest that local businesses are critical to tourism, walkable communities, entrepreneurship, social equality, civil society, charitable giving, revitalizeddowntowns, and even political participation.
Despite this overwhelming body of evidence, the national stimulus efforts have proceeded with no specific attention to local businesses. Yet even some very simple reforms that opened up local businesses to local investors could make a huge difference.
Consider two anomalies of the current financial system (even if the latest reforms work exactly as planned). The first is that locally owned, small businesses constitute about one-half of the private economy in terms of output and jobs, but they receive almost no investment from the nation’s pension funds or from mutual, hedge, venture, or any other kind of investment funds. In a well-functioning financial system, roughly one-half of the investment should go to roughly one-half of the economy. Today, every American, even stalwart advocates of community development, are overinvesting in the Fortune 500 companies and underinvesting in local businesses key to local vitality. This is a colossal market failure.
Does this occur because local businesses are less profitable than global ones? Hardly. According to the Statistical Abstract, sole proprietorships (the legal structure chosen by most first-stage small businesses) are nearly three times more profitable than C-corporations (the structure of choice for global businesses).
Moreover, several global economic trends are now making U.S. local businesses increasinglycompetitive. Rising energy prices make local production for local consumption more competitive against Wal-Mart production in China. The falling dollar revitalizes U.S. manufacturers.As Americans shift their spending from goods to services, a trend that has been occurring for 50 years, local businesses will see more competitive opportunities still, given that most of their services depend on direct, personal, and ultimately local relationships.
A more plausible explanation for the absence of local business investment is the absence of market-clearing mechanisms that would allow local investors to find, buy, and sell local securities, essentially local stock exchanges. Interestingly, smaller stock exchanges, primarily facilitating intrastate transactions, were quite common until the securities reform acts of the Roosevelt era. Some were poorly designed and fraught with fraud and inefficiency, but others were reasonably successful. Once the national exchanges became reliable and widespread, however, businesses and traders alike gravitated away from the state exchanges. Today, only a half dozen public exchanges still operate in the United States.
Given a market-clearing mechanism exists on a limited scale, one must ask why local businesses do not use it. Without sacrificing their local character, for example, local businessescould issue nonvoting preferred shares of stock for national investors and trade them over the counter on existing exchanges. There is certainly no technical reason this could not be done. Prosper.com and Kiva.org have demonstrated how small businesses seeking microloanscan be vetted, listed, and exchanged efficiently.
The real reason small public offerings and local stock exchanges do not flourish today is that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has essentially banned them. Existing laws place huge restrictions on the investment choices of small, “unaccredited” investors—a category in SEC vernacular that includes all but the richest two percent of Americans. The regulations prohibit the average American from investing in any small business, unless the firm is willing to spend $50,000 to $100,000 on lawyers to prepare private placement memorandum or public offering—thick documents with microscopic, ALL CAPS PRINT that no human being has ever been observed actually reading.
Which brings us to the second anomaly of today’s financial system. Suppose you wished to play blackjack in one of the more than one thousand casinos operating across the United States. Do you first have to prove that you’re an accredited gambler? Must you read a thick disclosure statement letting you know the risks of blackjack before you place your first bet? Everyone understands that these would be silly requirements.
We have two fundamentally contradictory legal regimes operating today. One, called gambling, allows every adult, irrespective of income, to risk everything for a probable loss. Another, called small-stock investing, prohibits 98 percent of us from investing in the local businesses that are essential for the well-being of community, unless businesses pay prohibitivelyexpensive lawyers’ fees to prepare the unreadable disclosure statements.
Something is deeply wrong here. Outdated federal securities laws have left Main Street dangerously dependent on Wall Street, and overhauling them may well be a key to economic revitalization.
The good news is the local businesses could get a huge investment boost with some modest securities reforms that would cost little or nothing. One easy reform would be for the SEC to exempt from its usual expensive disclosure requirements any low-risk public ownershipof locally owned microbusinesses. By low-risk, I mean that no person can hold more than $100 worth of any one stock—which means that we’re freeing up people to engage in the risk equivalent of a nice dinner for two. By local ownership, I mean that only residents within a state can buy, hold, and sell stock shares. And by microbusinesses, I mean any businesswith a total stock valuation on issuance of less than $250,000.
A related reform would be for the SEC to set simple rules for the setting up of internet platforms for trading the exempt securities above. The few remaining national players, such as the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ, have enough authority now to launch a product that would enable states, regions, or municipalities to set up trading portals. But because they do not see large profit opportunities—a mistaken judgment, in my view—it will probably fall to new entrepreneurs, such as Mission Markets, to redesign local exchanges for smaller, slower transactions. The SEC should streamline its regulations to enable more such exchanges to get off the ground at an affordable regulatory price.
Here are a few other legal reforms that would be helpful:
Micro-investment funds. Let’s allow small investors to pool their money in backyardinvestment funds (again, up to $100 per person) that in turn invest in diverse portfolios of local stocks. (Only the super rich can invest in such funds now.)
Co-op investment funds. Let’s allow cooperatives, most of which are owned by workers or consumers living in a single community, to set up investment funds empowered to make local investments on behalf of their members. (Currently, they can only invest members’ capital in businesses owned and run by the co-op itself.)
Pension fund participation. Let’s allow any pension fund that places as much as 5 percent in local securities, either directly or through microbusiness investment funds, to meet legal standards of “fiduciary responsibility.” (Current regulations define the term in a way that directs virtually all such investments must go to global companies.)
New community-based funds, securities, and exchanges, of course, still need oversight to prevent fraud and ensure accountability. However, given that nearly all local investment is, by definition, intrastate, these new rules could be left to the existing securities departments in the 50 states. Once state-level laws are put into practice, many of the absurd requirements of the SEC expensive audits and lengthy legal filings might finally disappear.
Were these reforms enacted nationally, literally trillions of investment dollars could begin to move into the local business economy. Entrepreneurs, hungry for new capital in the post-meltdown credit crunch, would begin to restructure their businesses to receive microcapital. Investors terrified about betting all their money in the global firms with a checkered past would start shifting their investments to local businesses they know, trust, and can visit and “ground-truth” with tough questions. The result will be a nation of stronger local economies, with American investors increasingly placing more of their money into backyard businesses.
Two final points about these ideas. First, the experimentation opened up at the state level will invite other grassroots engagement, invention, and competition that will help demonstrate the viability of simpler, cheaper, more transparent investment regulatory frameworks. Second, and most significantly, all these regulatory reforms will cost almost nothing. Instead of spending billions more in federal taxpayer dollars to prop up dubious big financial institutions, why not create for free a system that is more stable, safe, lucrative, and democratic?
By Michael H. Shuman
This piece was originally published in the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco's Community Development Investment Review Volume 5, Issue 2, 2009.
Editor's note: Readers may recognize some of the ideas below from previous blog entries. The issue is still relevant and urgent. The following piece was just featured in the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco's Community Development Investment Review.
Since the global financial system unraveled in 2008, U.S. policymakers have struggled heroically to improve the performance and oversight of global banks and investment firms. But these actions have been largely unresponsive to the growing number of Americans who would like to remove their hard-earned retirement savings from these high financial fliers altogether and invest their nest eggs in their community. Might it be time for policymakers to consider the potential stimulus payoffs from nurturing micro-equity investments?
One reason for growing public interest in local investment is the spread of “buy local” campaigns, a movement that is more than just local hucksterism. Consider the title of an article in a recent issue of Time: “Buying Local: How It Boosts the Economy.” Cutting-edge economic developers (except at the national level) increasingly recognize is the importance of strengthening locally owned, small businesses.
Growing evidence suggests that every dollar spent at a locally owned business generates two to four times more economic benefit—measured in income, wealth, jobs, and tax revenue—than a dollar spent at a globally owned business. That is because locally owned businesses spend much more of their money locally and thereby pump up the so-called economic multiplier. Other studies suggest that local businesses are critical to tourism, walkable communities, entrepreneurship, social equality, civil society, charitable giving, revitalizeddowntowns, and even political participation.
Despite this overwhelming body of evidence, the national stimulus efforts have proceeded with no specific attention to local businesses. Yet even some very simple reforms that opened up local businesses to local investors could make a huge difference.
Consider two anomalies of the current financial system (even if the latest reforms work exactly as planned). The first is that locally owned, small businesses constitute about one-half of the private economy in terms of output and jobs, but they receive almost no investment from the nation’s pension funds or from mutual, hedge, venture, or any other kind of investment funds. In a well-functioning financial system, roughly one-half of the investment should go to roughly one-half of the economy. Today, every American, even stalwart advocates of community development, are overinvesting in the Fortune 500 companies and underinvesting in local businesses key to local vitality. This is a colossal market failure.
Does this occur because local businesses are less profitable than global ones? Hardly. According to the Statistical Abstract, sole proprietorships (the legal structure chosen by most first-stage small businesses) are nearly three times more profitable than C-corporations (the structure of choice for global businesses).
Moreover, several global economic trends are now making U.S. local businesses increasinglycompetitive. Rising energy prices make local production for local consumption more competitive against Wal-Mart production in China. The falling dollar revitalizes U.S. manufacturers.As Americans shift their spending from goods to services, a trend that has been occurring for 50 years, local businesses will see more competitive opportunities still, given that most of their services depend on direct, personal, and ultimately local relationships.
A more plausible explanation for the absence of local business investment is the absence of market-clearing mechanisms that would allow local investors to find, buy, and sell local securities, essentially local stock exchanges. Interestingly, smaller stock exchanges, primarily facilitating intrastate transactions, were quite common until the securities reform acts of the Roosevelt era. Some were poorly designed and fraught with fraud and inefficiency, but others were reasonably successful. Once the national exchanges became reliable and widespread, however, businesses and traders alike gravitated away from the state exchanges. Today, only a half dozen public exchanges still operate in the United States.
Given a market-clearing mechanism exists on a limited scale, one must ask why local businesses do not use it. Without sacrificing their local character, for example, local businessescould issue nonvoting preferred shares of stock for national investors and trade them over the counter on existing exchanges. There is certainly no technical reason this could not be done. Prosper.com and Kiva.org have demonstrated how small businesses seeking microloanscan be vetted, listed, and exchanged efficiently.
The real reason small public offerings and local stock exchanges do not flourish today is that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has essentially banned them. Existing laws place huge restrictions on the investment choices of small, “unaccredited” investors—a category in SEC vernacular that includes all but the richest two percent of Americans. The regulations prohibit the average American from investing in any small business, unless the firm is willing to spend $50,000 to $100,000 on lawyers to prepare private placement memorandum or public offering—thick documents with microscopic, ALL CAPS PRINT that no human being has ever been observed actually reading.
Which brings us to the second anomaly of today’s financial system. Suppose you wished to play blackjack in one of the more than one thousand casinos operating across the United States. Do you first have to prove that you’re an accredited gambler? Must you read a thick disclosure statement letting you know the risks of blackjack before you place your first bet? Everyone understands that these would be silly requirements.
We have two fundamentally contradictory legal regimes operating today. One, called gambling, allows every adult, irrespective of income, to risk everything for a probable loss. Another, called small-stock investing, prohibits 98 percent of us from investing in the local businesses that are essential for the well-being of community, unless businesses pay prohibitivelyexpensive lawyers’ fees to prepare the unreadable disclosure statements.
Something is deeply wrong here. Outdated federal securities laws have left Main Street dangerously dependent on Wall Street, and overhauling them may well be a key to economic revitalization.
The good news is the local businesses could get a huge investment boost with some modest securities reforms that would cost little or nothing. One easy reform would be for the SEC to exempt from its usual expensive disclosure requirements any low-risk public ownershipof locally owned microbusinesses. By low-risk, I mean that no person can hold more than $100 worth of any one stock—which means that we’re freeing up people to engage in the risk equivalent of a nice dinner for two. By local ownership, I mean that only residents within a state can buy, hold, and sell stock shares. And by microbusinesses, I mean any businesswith a total stock valuation on issuance of less than $250,000.
A related reform would be for the SEC to set simple rules for the setting up of internet platforms for trading the exempt securities above. The few remaining national players, such as the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ, have enough authority now to launch a product that would enable states, regions, or municipalities to set up trading portals. But because they do not see large profit opportunities—a mistaken judgment, in my view—it will probably fall to new entrepreneurs, such as Mission Markets, to redesign local exchanges for smaller, slower transactions. The SEC should streamline its regulations to enable more such exchanges to get off the ground at an affordable regulatory price.
Here are a few other legal reforms that would be helpful:
Micro-investment funds. Let’s allow small investors to pool their money in backyardinvestment funds (again, up to $100 per person) that in turn invest in diverse portfolios of local stocks. (Only the super rich can invest in such funds now.)
Co-op investment funds. Let’s allow cooperatives, most of which are owned by workers or consumers living in a single community, to set up investment funds empowered to make local investments on behalf of their members. (Currently, they can only invest members’ capital in businesses owned and run by the co-op itself.)
Pension fund participation. Let’s allow any pension fund that places as much as 5 percent in local securities, either directly or through microbusiness investment funds, to meet legal standards of “fiduciary responsibility.” (Current regulations define the term in a way that directs virtually all such investments must go to global companies.)
New community-based funds, securities, and exchanges, of course, still need oversight to prevent fraud and ensure accountability. However, given that nearly all local investment is, by definition, intrastate, these new rules could be left to the existing securities departments in the 50 states. Once state-level laws are put into practice, many of the absurd requirements of the SEC expensive audits and lengthy legal filings might finally disappear.
Were these reforms enacted nationally, literally trillions of investment dollars could begin to move into the local business economy. Entrepreneurs, hungry for new capital in the post-meltdown credit crunch, would begin to restructure their businesses to receive microcapital. Investors terrified about betting all their money in the global firms with a checkered past would start shifting their investments to local businesses they know, trust, and can visit and “ground-truth” with tough questions. The result will be a nation of stronger local economies, with American investors increasingly placing more of their money into backyard businesses.
Two final points about these ideas. First, the experimentation opened up at the state level will invite other grassroots engagement, invention, and competition that will help demonstrate the viability of simpler, cheaper, more transparent investment regulatory frameworks. Second, and most significantly, all these regulatory reforms will cost almost nothing. Instead of spending billions more in federal taxpayer dollars to prop up dubious big financial institutions, why not create for free a system that is more stable, safe, lucrative, and democratic?
By Michael H. Shuman
This piece was originally published in the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco's Community Development Investment Review Volume 5, Issue 2, 2009.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
Social Enterprise and Government- from SEA blog
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
SoCap09
I'm at the Social Capital Markets conference with 1000 other attendees, up from 600 last year. As opening speaker, Sonal Shah talked about the role of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, which she directs. In doing some research recently I've come to realize what a big difference the formation of the SBA made in helping develop a robust small business sector in the U.S. It's clear that Obama's interest in social innovation may represent a similar kind of window for fostering social enterprise. The Office of Social Innovation's role right now seems to be the important one of cultivating a new culture of social innovation, by supporting grassroots innovations, accelerating what works, and mobilizing philanthropy, business and government to work together on this agenda. What I'm hearing from other leaders in social innovation is we need to engage ourselves in this effort in a different way than we might have worked previously. Social enterprises need to talk to government about what we do. Social enterprise innovations don't just feed the hungry and shelter the homeless, for instance - they create residents, homeowners, jobs, college graduates, etc.. What government needs to hear is how you do this, what it costs, what it saves in expenditures government might otherwise incur, how your enterprise helps sustain your programs, how you impact your clients, your neighborhood, the community, etc. We need a host of political champions at all levels of government who get what we do and see the value of supporting this approach amidst other competing priorities - in order to effect a sea change and move the dial on key social challenges. If every social enterprise spends 10% of its budget on this kind of advocacy and with SEA representing your interests in Washington, we can make strides toward a robust social enterprise sector.
Posted by Kris Prendergast at 7:46 AM
Labels: social capital, social enterprise, social innovation, White House Office of Social Innovation
SoCap09
I'm at the Social Capital Markets conference with 1000 other attendees, up from 600 last year. As opening speaker, Sonal Shah talked about the role of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, which she directs. In doing some research recently I've come to realize what a big difference the formation of the SBA made in helping develop a robust small business sector in the U.S. It's clear that Obama's interest in social innovation may represent a similar kind of window for fostering social enterprise. The Office of Social Innovation's role right now seems to be the important one of cultivating a new culture of social innovation, by supporting grassroots innovations, accelerating what works, and mobilizing philanthropy, business and government to work together on this agenda. What I'm hearing from other leaders in social innovation is we need to engage ourselves in this effort in a different way than we might have worked previously. Social enterprises need to talk to government about what we do. Social enterprise innovations don't just feed the hungry and shelter the homeless, for instance - they create residents, homeowners, jobs, college graduates, etc.. What government needs to hear is how you do this, what it costs, what it saves in expenditures government might otherwise incur, how your enterprise helps sustain your programs, how you impact your clients, your neighborhood, the community, etc. We need a host of political champions at all levels of government who get what we do and see the value of supporting this approach amidst other competing priorities - in order to effect a sea change and move the dial on key social challenges. If every social enterprise spends 10% of its budget on this kind of advocacy and with SEA representing your interests in Washington, we can make strides toward a robust social enterprise sector.
Posted by Kris Prendergast at 7:46 AM
Labels: social capital, social enterprise, social innovation, White House Office of Social Innovation
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
We received this email from our friend Bud Hancock, Providence International
Charles Krauthammer: Fix torts, taxes to cut health costs
In 1986, Ronald Reagan and Bill Bradley created a legislative miracle. They fashioned a tax reform that stripped loopholes, political favors, payoffs, patronage and other corruptions out of the tax system. With the resulting savings, they lowered tax rates across the board. Those reductions, combined with the elimination of the enormous inefficiencies and perverse incentives that go into tax sheltering, helped propel a 20-year economic boom.
In overhauling any segment of our economy, the 1986 tax reform should be the model. Yet today's ruling Democrats propose to fix our extremely high quality (but inefficient and therefore expensive) health care system with 1,000 pages of additional curlicued complexity - employer mandates, individual mandates, insurance company mandates, allocation formulas, political payoffs and myriad other conjured regulations and interventions - with the promise that this massive concoction will lower costs.
This is all quite mad. It creates a Rube Goldberg system that simply multiplies the current inefficiencies and arbitrariness, thus producing staggering deficits with less choice and lower-quality care. That's why the administration can't sell Obamacare.
The administration's defense is to accuse critics of being for the status quo. Nonsense. Candidate John McCain and a host of other Republicans since have offered alternatives. Let me offer mine: Strip away current inefficiencies before remaking one-sixth of the U.S. economy. The plan is so simple it doesn't even have the requisite three parts. Just two: radical tort reform and radically severing the link between health insurance and employment.
1. Tort reform: As I wrote recently, our crazy system of casino malpractice suits results in massive and random settlements that raise everyone's insurance premiums and creates an epidemic of defensive medicine that does no medical good, yet costs a fortune.
An authoritative Massachusetts Medical Society study found that 5 out of 6 doctors admitted they order tests, procedures and referrals - amounting to about 25 percent of the total - solely as protection from lawsuits. Defensive medicine, estimates the libertarian/conservative Pacific Research Institute, wastes more than $200 billion a year. Just half that sum could provide a $5,000 health insurance grant - $20,000 for a family of four - to the uninsured poor (U.S. citizens ineligible for other government health assistance).
What to do? Abolish the entire medical-malpractice system. Create a new social pool from which people injured in medical errors or accidents can draw. The adjudication would be done by medical experts, not lay juries giving away lottery prizes at the behest of the liquid-tongued John Edwardses who pocket a third of the proceeds.
The pool would be funded by a relatively small tax on all health-insurance premiums. Socialize the risk; cut out the trial lawyers. Would that immunize doctors from carelessness or negligence? No. The penalty would be losing your medical license. There is no more serious deterrent than forfeiting a decade of intensive medical training and the livelihood that comes with it.
2. Real health-insurance reform: Tax employer-provided health care benefits and return the money to the employee with a government check to buy his own medical insurance, just as he buys his own car or home insurance.
There is no logical reason to get health insurance through your employer. This entire system is an accident of World War II wage and price controls. It's economically senseless. It makes people stay in jobs they hate, decreasing labor mobility and therefore overall productivity. And it needlessly increases the anxiety of losing your job by raising the additional specter of going bankrupt through illness.
The health care benefit exemption is the largest tax break in the entire U.S. budget, costing the government a quarter- trillion dollars annually. It hinders health-insurance security and portability as well as personal independence. If we additionally eliminated the prohibition on buying personal health insurance across state lines, that would inject new and powerful competition that would lower costs for everyone.
Repealing the exemption has one fatal flaw, however. It was advocated by McCain. Obama so demagogued it last year that he cannot bring it up now without being accused of the most extreme hypocrisy and without being mercilessly attacked with his own 2008 ads.
But that's a political problem of Obama's own making. As is the Democratic Party's indebtedness to the trial lawyers, which has taken malpractice reform totally off the table. But that doesn't change the logic of my proposal. Go the Reagan-Bradley route. Offer sensible, simple, yet radical reform that strips away inefficiencies from the existing system before adding Obamacare's new ones - arbitrary, politically driven, structural inventions whose consequence is certain financial ruin.
Write Charles Krauthammer at letters@charleskrauthammer.com
Friday, August 7, 2009
HealthCare reform
I received an email today forwarded by a local social worker - in response to a series of other forwarded emails regarding health-care reform:
"So before you vote, campaign or whatever it is you may do against abortion, first ask yourself, these questions:1. How many children without a family to love them have YOU adopted.2. How many children that you have seen that needed help, in one way or another, have you turned your back on; because it wasn't any of your business? BEFORE we debate if abortion is right or wrong, shouldn't we be sure that all the children that are already here in this world, wanting love from anyone that will give it, is given a home and a family. After we have fed, clothed, loved all the children that have already been brought into this world and there are still people willing, and able to take in more children, that the parents are unable to care for or simply cannot care for, then lets debate abortion. For now I want the choice to me mine. I can't imagine that you cannot trust me with a choice, and yet you would trust me with such a precious thing as a child! Obama is offering the country a way"
This hit too close to home - I felt compelled to reply, as follows:
Unwanted, neglected and abused children are certainly a huge concern for our community and nation as a whole. I would love to have a positive dialog on how we can help these children, and partner social services with citizens to help these children and families break the cycle. I'm quite certain, however, that abortion is not a viable alternative to positive action, nor its legalization is a worthy means of reducing abuse. According to our Bill of Rights, there are 'certain inalienable rights that are bestowed by the Creator'.... I can't see the right to abortion being one of them. However, the question here is not only about whether abortion is right or wrong, but additionally, whether we, as free citizens, should be forced to pay for someone else's 'choice'. I once had a choice to make, that personal choice would have forced California taxpayers to pay for my irresponsibility. When I was 17 years old (35 years ago), I got pregnant and went to planned parenthood. They gave me a pregnancy test and automatically scheduled an abortion, giving me the paperwork necessary to apply for MediCal, even though I was still a dependent on my parents' medical plan. Thanks to the providence of God, I was given information by BirthRight about what abortion actually involved, something Planned Parenthood did not have the courage to tell me. I decided not to abort, got married instead, and 35 years later have 4 children and 6 grandchildren. I lost my job last year, and am now self-employed because I couldn't find a job. I am the primary breadwinner - my husband (yes, same guy from 1974) is a stay-at-home Dad to our 12 year old. I lost my health coverage with my job, so now we pay $500 per month for a high deductible plan for our family. It is an HSA compatible plan, so if we happen to have some extra money, we put it into our health savings account in order to pay for any future doctor visits. Since we keep the money we don't use, there is an incentive to understand what our health care is costing us and to keep those cost to a minimum. We go to the doctor when we need to, not for every little sniffle. If more people became concerned with the cost of their own health care decisions, then health care costs would most likely come down. As direct payers to Doctors and other medical providers, we in a sense decide how much they get paid. By taking responsibility and paying for our own family's health care, we don't need to concern ourselves if we are paying for procedures that we object to, perhaps a faceless and nameless 17 year old somewhere getting an abortion..... Again, I would love to have a constructive and positive conversation about how to truly help abused, neglected children and assist needy families to obtain health care. I among many others believe we as citizens and neighbors need to step up to the plate and take action to contribute time and money directly to our local community needs, not through bureaucratic government systems where much of the end benefit is eaten up along the way. Blessings to all, Connie Schmaljohann
"So before you vote, campaign or whatever it is you may do against abortion, first ask yourself, these questions:1. How many children without a family to love them have YOU adopted.2. How many children that you have seen that needed help, in one way or another, have you turned your back on; because it wasn't any of your business? BEFORE we debate if abortion is right or wrong, shouldn't we be sure that all the children that are already here in this world, wanting love from anyone that will give it, is given a home and a family. After we have fed, clothed, loved all the children that have already been brought into this world and there are still people willing, and able to take in more children, that the parents are unable to care for or simply cannot care for, then lets debate abortion. For now I want the choice to me mine. I can't imagine that you cannot trust me with a choice, and yet you would trust me with such a precious thing as a child! Obama is offering the country a way"
This hit too close to home - I felt compelled to reply, as follows:
Unwanted, neglected and abused children are certainly a huge concern for our community and nation as a whole. I would love to have a positive dialog on how we can help these children, and partner social services with citizens to help these children and families break the cycle. I'm quite certain, however, that abortion is not a viable alternative to positive action, nor its legalization is a worthy means of reducing abuse. According to our Bill of Rights, there are 'certain inalienable rights that are bestowed by the Creator'.... I can't see the right to abortion being one of them. However, the question here is not only about whether abortion is right or wrong, but additionally, whether we, as free citizens, should be forced to pay for someone else's 'choice'. I once had a choice to make, that personal choice would have forced California taxpayers to pay for my irresponsibility. When I was 17 years old (35 years ago), I got pregnant and went to planned parenthood. They gave me a pregnancy test and automatically scheduled an abortion, giving me the paperwork necessary to apply for MediCal, even though I was still a dependent on my parents' medical plan. Thanks to the providence of God, I was given information by BirthRight about what abortion actually involved, something Planned Parenthood did not have the courage to tell me. I decided not to abort, got married instead, and 35 years later have 4 children and 6 grandchildren. I lost my job last year, and am now self-employed because I couldn't find a job. I am the primary breadwinner - my husband (yes, same guy from 1974) is a stay-at-home Dad to our 12 year old. I lost my health coverage with my job, so now we pay $500 per month for a high deductible plan for our family. It is an HSA compatible plan, so if we happen to have some extra money, we put it into our health savings account in order to pay for any future doctor visits. Since we keep the money we don't use, there is an incentive to understand what our health care is costing us and to keep those cost to a minimum. We go to the doctor when we need to, not for every little sniffle. If more people became concerned with the cost of their own health care decisions, then health care costs would most likely come down. As direct payers to Doctors and other medical providers, we in a sense decide how much they get paid. By taking responsibility and paying for our own family's health care, we don't need to concern ourselves if we are paying for procedures that we object to, perhaps a faceless and nameless 17 year old somewhere getting an abortion..... Again, I would love to have a constructive and positive conversation about how to truly help abused, neglected children and assist needy families to obtain health care. I among many others believe we as citizens and neighbors need to step up to the plate and take action to contribute time and money directly to our local community needs, not through bureaucratic government systems where much of the end benefit is eaten up along the way. Blessings to all, Connie Schmaljohann
Letter to BirthRight
July 26, 2009
BirthRight Concord
3106 Clayton Rd.
Concord, CA 94521
Dear Friends,
This is a letter I have been meaning to write for years. But it was the 35th birthday of my daughter-in-law this month that finally brought it to a head. You see, it was because of BirthRight of Concord and the providence of God, that in July 1974, my boyfriend, Michael (now husband) and I decided not to abort our son, the very week that his future wife was born.
I was barely 17 and pregnant, attending summer school at Concord High, so that I could graduate a semester early (this is yet another story.) It was a Government class that all seniors are required to take. The teacher of this class normally taught ‘Social Issues’ during the school year, so although we covered the Government topics, mostly we discussed social issues. We had two options for our class project: write a report on a current issue or invite a guest speaker. One of my classmates invited a representative from BirthRight to speak during the third week in July.
Back in 1974, there were no over-the-counter pregnancy tests. Planned Parenthood in Walnut Creek, however, offered pregnancy tests for $5. During the second week of July, Michael drove me there. We went to get a pregnancy test – we left with an appointment for an abortion, and the instructions on how to apply for MediCal so that all we’d have to pay was $50. There was no counseling; no other options were presented. The ‘procedure’ was scheduled for the fourth week of July.
God intervened. I don’t really remember what the BirthRight speaker said. I do remember the pictures – of a six week aborted fetus (I was six weeks pregnant). Yes, they were traumatic for me – to say the least. But… they saved my son’s life.
We were married on August 31, 1974. A traditional ceremony at First Lutheran Church on Concord Blvd. and a reception at my parents’ home. Our son, Jeffrey Michael Schmaljohann, was born March 2, 1975. I attended Concord High the 1974 fall semester, completing all the required classes to graduate with my class on June 11, 1975, my 18th birthday. My husband and I went on to have 3 more children, in 1977 (Jolene Heather), 1979 (Justin Daniel), and 1997 (Jayman Joseph). (Yes, the last one was a bit of a surprise.) Our sixth grandchild was born last week.
Jeff and Willow Schmaljohann were married October 23, 2004, and have two daughters, Marisa (3) and Hailie (8 months). Willow was born on July 24, 1974. Although I cannot remember the exact dates of those critical events, I can definitely draw a parallel between Jeff and Willow, affirmed in the scripture “Before I formed you in the womb I knew and approved of you, and before you were born I separated and set you apart.”
We firmly believe that none of our children would exist, that our lives would have gone a completely different path, had it not been for God’s intervention through BirthRight.
We are truly blessed beyond measure, and wanted to let you know how your ministry impacted us – not just during those critical moments in July 1974, but for our whole lives.
Blessings to you all,
Connie (and Michael) Schmaljohann
16831 China Gulch Dr.
Anderson, CA 96007
connie@mercyswing.org
BirthRight Concord
3106 Clayton Rd.
Concord, CA 94521
Dear Friends,
This is a letter I have been meaning to write for years. But it was the 35th birthday of my daughter-in-law this month that finally brought it to a head. You see, it was because of BirthRight of Concord and the providence of God, that in July 1974, my boyfriend, Michael (now husband) and I decided not to abort our son, the very week that his future wife was born.
I was barely 17 and pregnant, attending summer school at Concord High, so that I could graduate a semester early (this is yet another story.) It was a Government class that all seniors are required to take. The teacher of this class normally taught ‘Social Issues’ during the school year, so although we covered the Government topics, mostly we discussed social issues. We had two options for our class project: write a report on a current issue or invite a guest speaker. One of my classmates invited a representative from BirthRight to speak during the third week in July.
Back in 1974, there were no over-the-counter pregnancy tests. Planned Parenthood in Walnut Creek, however, offered pregnancy tests for $5. During the second week of July, Michael drove me there. We went to get a pregnancy test – we left with an appointment for an abortion, and the instructions on how to apply for MediCal so that all we’d have to pay was $50. There was no counseling; no other options were presented. The ‘procedure’ was scheduled for the fourth week of July.
God intervened. I don’t really remember what the BirthRight speaker said. I do remember the pictures – of a six week aborted fetus (I was six weeks pregnant). Yes, they were traumatic for me – to say the least. But… they saved my son’s life.
We were married on August 31, 1974. A traditional ceremony at First Lutheran Church on Concord Blvd. and a reception at my parents’ home. Our son, Jeffrey Michael Schmaljohann, was born March 2, 1975. I attended Concord High the 1974 fall semester, completing all the required classes to graduate with my class on June 11, 1975, my 18th birthday. My husband and I went on to have 3 more children, in 1977 (Jolene Heather), 1979 (Justin Daniel), and 1997 (Jayman Joseph). (Yes, the last one was a bit of a surprise.) Our sixth grandchild was born last week.
Jeff and Willow Schmaljohann were married October 23, 2004, and have two daughters, Marisa (3) and Hailie (8 months). Willow was born on July 24, 1974. Although I cannot remember the exact dates of those critical events, I can definitely draw a parallel between Jeff and Willow, affirmed in the scripture “Before I formed you in the womb I knew and approved of you, and before you were born I separated and set you apart.”
We firmly believe that none of our children would exist, that our lives would have gone a completely different path, had it not been for God’s intervention through BirthRight.
We are truly blessed beyond measure, and wanted to let you know how your ministry impacted us – not just during those critical moments in July 1974, but for our whole lives.
Blessings to you all,
Connie (and Michael) Schmaljohann
16831 China Gulch Dr.
Anderson, CA 96007
connie@mercyswing.org
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)