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July 27, 2004 Issue 52



"You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea."
—Pearl S. Buck

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers."
—M. Scott Peck


Explore Outstanding Examples of Community Development

Explore organizations such as Greyston Foundation that are showing how collective agreement on mission can lead to extraordinary community development. When you order any of these products on our web site by August 31, TAKE 10% OFF the price. Just use priority code LP52NP when you check out through the shopping cart. (This discount will not appear in your web shopping cart total, but will be reflected in the charge to your credit card.)

Living Together Well: A Foundation for Changing the World with Molly Baldwin, Jasson Guevara, and Sayra Pinto, Roca, Inc.; Peter Senge

As a mission-, vision-, and values-based organization, Roca has succeeded in bringing multiple stakeholders--be they rival gangs, gang members and police, parents and children, youth and politicians, teachers and students--to the table to address their tough questions and help them create action plans based on the answers. In this presentation, Roca staff members tell of their own journeys and that of their organization in their urban Massachusetts communities of Chelsea, Lynn, and Revere.
Order #T0316C, CD, $22.95
Order #T0316, audiotape, $19.95
Order #D0304, DVD, 125.00
Order #V0304, VHS, 125.00

Creating Communities for Living and Learning with Steven Bingler

In this presentation, Steven Bingler, founder of Concordia Incorporated, shares a unique community planning and architectural design process that unites entire communities in systemically analyzing their resources, raising awareness of issues, and engendering solutions that meet the needs of diverse stakeholders. In particular, Steven discusses details of his work in centering communities around their schools—and schools around their communities.
Order #T0130, audiotape, $19.95

From Riots to Resolution: Engaging Conflict As a Source of Vision and Reconciliation by Jay Rothman and Chris Soderquist

This presentation discusses a year-long systemic intervention to heal the city of Cincinnati in the wake of the 2001 riots and foster a national model for reconciliation. It describes the "action evaluation" methodology that was at the core of the collaborative process and provides a systems model of the outcomes. Explore how to adapt this approach to address conflicts in your own life or work.
Order #T0211C, CD, $22.95
Order #130801, PDF article, $6.00

Societal Learning: Creating Big-Systems Change by Steve Waddell

Banks are teaming up with community groups to find ways to generate profits and support local economic development. Construction companies are working with nongovernmental organizations to produce income and develop sustainable water and sanitation systems for the developing world. These innovative patterns of working together to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes represent "societal learning." Learn how, through experiments with societal learning collaborations of government, business, and civil organizations, we have vastly improved our knowledge about how to develop and sustain them.
Order #121001, PDF article, $6.00

Greyston Bakery's Delicious Baked Goods

In addition to Greyston Bakery's good works, the company also makes amazing cakes and tarts. Check out the bakery's web site to learn more about the scrumptious array of desserts it offers. If you are overcome by temptation, you can even order a cake by overnight delivery!


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Pegasus Communications provides resources that help people explore, understand, articulate, and address the challenges they face in the complexities of a changing world. Since 1989, Pegasus has worked to build a community of practitioners through The Systems Thinker® Newsletter, books, audio and videotapes, and its annual Systems Thinking in Action® Conference and other events.
 


 

Editor's Note: This month's issue focuses on the work of the Greyston Foundation, an integrated system of nonprofit and for-profit organizations that serves as a model for linking business and social objectives. We hope you'll find inspiration for your own collaborative efforts. You may even want to try one of the Greyston Bakery's delicious cakes, featured in Pegasus Highlights!

 



FACE TO FACE
Greyston Foundation's Systemic Approach to Community Development: A Model for Successful Collaboration

PEGASUS CONFERENCE CORNER
Team Up at the 2004 Pegasus Conference

 



FACE TO FACE
Greyston Foundation's Systemic Approach to Community Development: A Model for Successful Collaboration
by Kali Saposnick

Greyston Foundation, considered a leader in the field of social enterprise, provides a wide array of services to its local community in Yonkers, New York, including healthcare, childcare, housing, community gardens, a technology education center, and an HIV/AIDS program. At the heart of the foundation is Greyston Bakery, a for-profit business that actively recruits and hires staff members with previous difficulty finding employment and that partners with and serves as a role model for other socially conscious companies. Leaders from Greyston will be giving a keynote presentation at the 2004 Pegasus Conference in December. In the following interview, David Rome, Julius Walls, and Wendy Powell discuss the organization's holistic approach to collaboration, based on the idea that community development is a systemic challenge and that many issues need to be addressed simultaneously in order for lasting change to occur.

In most organizations, collaboration means "the act of working together." At the Greyston Foundation, employees take this meaning to a whole new level. Set up as a mandala, the Buddhist word for circle or system, the foundation operates as a collaboration of businesses, programs, and services that address community renewal and poverty issues. Collaboration takes place within the organizations among staff members and clients, among the organizations, and with the surrounding community. This framework links the parts to each other and to the larger system.

A Collaboration Unfolds
How did this unique type of collaboration unfold? Greyston's roots began with the founding of the Greyston Bakery in 1982 by Roshi Bernie Glassman, a Jewish Zen Buddhist priest with extraordinary persistence, commitment, and a strong entrepreneurial spirit. Once he decided to locate the bakery in a depressed neighborhood of Yonkers, New York, he perceived the need to create jobs for people in the community who were "hard to employ," including those with spotted employment histories, prison records, past substance-abuse problems, or homelessness issues.

From its inception, the bakery instituted an "open hiring" practice that continues today, in which anybody who applies for a job has an opportunity to work, on a first-come, first-hired basis. Employees who make it through the three-month apprenticeship—during which they have to show up for work on time, perform the job, and have a reasonably appropriate attitude—are automatically made permanent employees. According to David Rome, senior vice president of planning at Greyston, "The idea is that we judge people based on their performance in the operation, not on their background. The bakery now has about 60 employees, all but 5 of whom came in through that open-hiring process, some of whom are now senior or mid-level managers in the company."

As the bakery expanded so did Greyston's services to both its workers and the larger community. Bernie and his followers found that providing jobs to the community wasn't enough—workers and others also needed housing. With much struggle and ingenuity, they figured out how to acquire funding and get governmental agencies to work together in a way that allowed Greyston to build permanent housing and a childcare center for formerly homeless families. Because of the ongoing expansion of the organization's mission, in 1993 the Greyston Foundation was formed as an umbrella for all of the Greyston organizations, with the goal of providing them with centralized management, fundraising, real-estate development, and planning services.

Sharing a Purpose
Greyston now comprises four interrelated organizations: the bakery, healthcare services, child and family programs, and real-estate development. According to Julius Walls, CEO and president of Greyston Bakery, core to the collaborations' success is people's agreement on a collective purpose. For example, he points to the bakery's biggest business success, its 15-year relationship with Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc., which was forged from the two companies' shared sense of social mission. Greyston is the sole supplier of the brownies for one of Ben & Jerry's top-selling flavors, Chocolate Fudge BrownieT Ice Cream and Frozen Yogurt. A majority of the bakery's sales comes from that single product; in turn, the bakery historically has contributed a portion of its earned income to the support of the foundation.

Continue reading the interview

Learn more about Greyston Bakery

Find out more about the 2004 Pegasus Conference

 



PEGASUS CONFERENCE CORNER
Team Up at the 2004 Pegasus Conference

 By popular demand, we are once again offering a special team program (at no additional charge) to intact teams attending the 2004 Pegasus Conference, Building Collaborations to Change Our Organizations and the World: Systems Thinking in Action®," to be held on December 1–3, 2004, at the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This unique program builds on the conference content and experience, and enables your organization to get more value for your investment by starting to implement new ideas before you even get back to the office.

Beginning with an orientation session on Tuesday evening, November 30, teams are paired with coaches—senior business leaders and consultants—to establish your team's conference learning plan and post-conference goals. Then, throughout the event, you reconvene as a group to check your progress, re-evaluate your learning plan, and share your learnings. Finally, on Friday afternoon at the end of the conference, you meet together and design a practical take-home plan for implementing your new skills and next steps.

Teams who have participated in this program in the past have raved about the opportunity to take the conference's conceptual underpinnings and put them into practice immediately. Team discounts are available for groups of four or more. Call Carrie Ruchin at 1-781-398-9700 or e-mail carrier@pegasuscom.com for details. Not only do you get the added value of participating in this exciting program, you get a discounted price on your registrations!

Download the preview brochure PDF.

REGISTER NOW for the conference at $1095—and save $500 off the standard rate! Register on our web site, or call 1-800-272-0945.

SPECIAL OFFER! When you register, you will receive 10% off Pegasus products purchased on our web site, from the day you register until the conference starts on December 1, 2004. (This offer is not applicable to other conferences or newsletters.) The sooner you register, the sooner you'll start saving on your Pegasus purchases, so sign up today!

 



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