Beginning a Land-Based Non-Profit

Any group of people attempting to build support around a piece of land
has a distinct advantage because our land-base is what allows us to
live. People are excited about local community, local food, local
growers, local involvement in food production, good nutrition,
connecting with nature, etc.. All of these interests are connecting to
create stronger and healthier local communities.



If you are someone who is trying to convert or maintain some of your
community's land-base into a non-profit organization for means of
preservation, community-involvement, education, green space, etc., this
article is meant to give you suggestions along the way.

1. Define your mission clearly, with involvement from all necessary parties, but with no more than is necessary.
• No more than necessary hints to the fact that agreeing
  on a mission can be exciting, but also taxing if too many people are
  deciding. A better method is to create 2 or 3 different versions and
  bring those to a larger group for discussion and decision-making.
• Make sure you mission statement resonates with a
  disinterested 3rd party. Can they clearly state back to you your
  mission without explanation from you?
• Take
  time and look at the mission statement again in a few weeks? Can you
  live with it the next 10 years... 20 years... 50 years?
• Will the mission statement being able to grow in meaning with the organization?
  
2. Build support among the community.
   
• This
  is obvious, but sometimes
  groups are missed because not all interested parties are identified.
  Think of every group that may be interested in what you are doing:
• Local
  growers, local garden groups, local churches, local governments, local
  schools, national organizations, hospitals, retirement homes, parenting
  groups, politicians, historians, scout groups, neighbors, park
  districts, counties, state departments, business neighbors, UAW halls,
  etc.
• Building support most often means listening.
  Set forums for interested parties to simply share their thoughts. Make
  sure they know their input is valued and recognized in some way.
• After listening, communicate as often as you must to continue to build support.
  
3. Build a strong board.
• Experience,
  diversity, and desire will all determine how successful and helpful
  your board is. Think carefully about including the likes of: members
  with board experience, a teacher, an historian, an accountant, a
  marketing person, a visionary, a naturalist, someone in agricultural,
  business leaders, etc.
• You may not find all of these, but strive for a good mix of experience, diversity, and desire.
• A
  strong board understands their role. Take time to define the board's
  role in the beginning so there is no confusion later. This helps not
  only the board, but also staff members.
  
4. Take your time.
• I have seen first hand that rushing in the beginning will adversely affects what comes 4-5 years down the road.
• Take your time! The completion of initial planning may take 4 or 5 years.
  
5. Set a time line of events that is realistic, yet provides for surprises.
• Be proactive in determining what you want and when.
• Actively
  seek the input of others who have walked a similar path. This will
  increase your chances of time estimates being accurate.
6. Hire the best staff.
• The best means, the best. If you need to wait for those people, then do so.
• Do not hire the wrong people. Wait if you need to!
7. Passion.
• Passion is necessary at all steps along the way, as is practicality and
  perseverance.
  
• Though you may be mindful of everything, mistakes will
  still be made and can be exciting if you learn from them. Passion is accepting and growing with mistakes.
  
8. Remember your goals.
• What are you working for? Crystallizing your goals at all steps will help keep you focused and energized.
  
9. Stay connected to the land you are working with.
• Stop and breath; if you are not getting out and connecting, you will miss some of the most important information.
  
10. Succeed!
• Succeed because you must.
  

Don't Shake Life Off

Don't shake life off. There are moments in life when you see something, often in nature, that is inexplicably beautiful. Sometimes, though, your drive to work can give you peace, such as seeing the sunrise as I did today.
Actually, it's the 3rd consecutive day of the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen and it has given me such a sense of the wonder of life. But we tend to shake this feeling off and convince ourselves that this beauty in life is fleeting, when.... when in fact that beauty is the essence of life and is constant and comforting if you let it be.
We think that all the awful things we see, or think we see, are permanent, as opposed to the fleeting beauty we allow ourselves. We have things mixed up in our minds, in our hearts..."

Listening to a Tape

I did something I haven't done in years; I listened to a tape today, and that was really fun. I've forgotten how it's kind of nice to relinquish control of your listening experience... finding it cool to listen to a mixed tape someone put their love and time into for your listening enjoyment.

I remember making my own mix tapes and it was always something that you took your time to do and something you did for people who you really wanted to connect with. It took a lot of time and it wasn't a point click and burn kind of thing. It was taking the time to make sure that the tape was working right. Making sure you're on the right spot. Rewind, fast forward, getting just the right transition between songs...

Some of my closest friends in high school made me mixed tapes and there was something that we shared that I didn't share with other people because your choice of music is so defining. It seems a little different now, because everyone can check out everything at the click of a button, but even 10 years ago, you could share a tape and that was the only access to listen to someones eclectic tastes. It was like you found a tape and you found some person and her music you'd forgotten about and you really can't just get that at the click of a button.

It's less likely today that you or I might go to the record store and browse through the rack. I used to love to go to those used record places, view CDs and browse for an hour and poke at every mislabeled thing or ones without a label or one that were turned the wrong way and check out what that music was too cheap and hope it was something"good".

When I browsed those record stores it was always that sense of discovery that you were after. And that sense of discovery in the last few years has disappeared, when you can just search the internet. It's not a physical experience, it's a kind of a very disconnected experience, where if I put in the right search word I will get what I want and didn't have to work very hard for it. You and your friends aren't the ones putting their time into sharing music.

This ubiquitousness of music means that it is owned by everyone, which is good, but people like to have that sense of knowing something other people don't know or having that access that someone else doesn't have, which I think is now found by going to live concerts and saying, "Yeah, I've seen them live," and that live experience is becoming more profound for the very reason that you can't search and buy it on demand.

That live experience is what a lot of music people are talking about. And you can't replicate that on the Internet. You can't replicate that with a CD either. And so that's what bands are going to need to market and monetize, and to find their niches, with a their live show. And if you don't have a great live show, it might be hard to monetize your scene because once you post your music on the Internet, it's they're for everyone.

I believe then, that the experience of seeing the live show will define the music of the next generation, but probably ride right along side the experience of recorded music. They may well diverge in different way than we expected because of how drastically different listening expectations are now and will be in just a few years.

Remember The Milk, one...

Remember The Milk, one of the most beautiful to do list, if you have never tried out Remember The Milk try it out now, you just integrate it with the new g-mail and it gives the most useful task list that you can find in the interface is grade, there are multitude of options, you can categorize, you can even set it up to do project planning instead of just simple to do list. listen

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A Catcher for Christmas

This morning my son, who is 5, didn't want to go to school. He told me that it was because this girl, Maggie was bothering him. She didn't let boys play with her and made the rule, "No boys allowed." So, I asked my son what would make it OK for him to go to school today and he said, "If I had a catcher." I could not figure out what in the world he meant by a catcher. I asked him, "What kind of catcher," and he said, "A Maggie catcher."

Changing the Color of the Inbox Label in Gmail

I have read a ton of blog posts today about Gmail's new function of colored labels.

I was happy for two minutes until I saw this ugly gray box at the top of my email: "Inbox".

I realized that the default label for any email is "Inbox", but currently you cannot change the color of that label. Why did Google miss this function? Why did they pick such a horrible default color? I probably would not have even noticed the "inbox" lable if it had not been such a glaring eyesore on the otherwise beautiful GMail page.

I have already emailed Google with this issue. Hopefully, bringing it to their attention will get it fixed quick. If not, please write your own email to build up support.

Thanks!

Season versus Holiday...

Season versus Holiday Season versus Shopping Season. Why are so obsesses with what shopping season we are in? When we hardly pay attention to what season we're in and we only get excited about the weather when it's becomes a potential obstruction or listen

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