Tag Archives: circles usa

Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast

You cannot change the strategy of a community, an organization, or system – without focusing on culture and the beliefs people hold about how things work. Sometimes attributed to the business guru Peter Drucker, “culture eats strategy for breakfast” is an illustrative warning relevant to all of us working on the elimination of poverty.

At Circles USA, we’ve changed the culture of poverty by tapping the power of a culture of prosperity. Whenever people have an experience that contradicts a negative reality that they have been normalizing, healing occurs. For example, participants in poverty are called Circle Leaders, and they lead the process to achieve their own economic stability. Since a typical experience for those in poverty is to be dismissed and marginalized, there is a powerful healing that occurs through the acknowledgement that they are the poverty experts and must be at the planning table to find real solutions on behalf of the entire community.

The idea of a poverty reduction system is a powerful contradiction to executives who are immersed in the management of requirements for a fragmented and random array of community programs. There is genuine excitement about focusing on how to rearrange work into more clear pathways that actually lead people out of poverty and reduce poverty rates.

As more coherence is created in the sector of human services, we can find opportunities to enlist other sectors in ending poverty. For example, in workforce development, employers can challenge their mindsets about employees with backgrounds in poverty and implement responsive ways to do business in order to be more successful. Teachers can integrate pedagogies for engaging children from homes in poverty. Civic groups can question their hidden biases and rules that make it difficult for those in poverty to feel welcomed. Philanthropic organizations can analyze if their funding practices favor short-term wins at the exclusion of long-term gains. Whatever the challenges, transformational leaders engage crucial conversations that generate more cohesion towards a shared vision of ending poverty.

Are you leading Big View discussions on this topic? Share your perspective with us at Circles@CirclesUSA.org.

The content for this Blog Series is drawn from the Poverty Reduction Lab program, a collaboration with CQIU. The first post, “Can We Believe in Ending Poverty?” can be accessed here. Stay tuned for more about:

  • Dismantling the poverty management system
  • Leading your community through the four stages of change
  • Creating a pathway to end poverty

To receive subsequent blog posts, sign-up for The Big View Newsletter, our monthly bulletin about poverty research and policy change.

Warm regards,

Scott. C. Miller, Founder and CEO, Circles USA

Can We Believe in Ending Poverty?

I was in New York City a few years ago having a conversation with a former United Nations Ambassador about my first book, Until It’s Gone, Ending Poverty in our Nation, in our Lifetime. He asked me several questions about my assumptions regarding the nature of poverty and about my work at Circles USA. After thirty minutes of debate, he revealed what was really behind his questioning, as he said to me, “Jesus said the poor will always be with us. Is ending poverty going against the Bible?”

He’s not alone in this belief. For many in the nation, the biblical reference that “the poor will always be with us” is a strong suggestion that no matter what we do, we will always have poverty. Any attempt to eradicate poverty is a task that has no hope of success. Perhaps the best that can be hoped for is to manage poverty or maybe save a few people. But can we believe in ending poverty? Only if we change our mindset.

If one wants to change systems, one must put their energy into “high-impact strategies” that are aimed at changing the mindset that created the organization, or system of organizations. The mindset informs the goals that shape the programs of the organization. To change a system to end poverty requires that the system change its entire culture.

For example, when people don’t believe that the poverty rate can be reduced, let alone eliminated, a poverty management system is created. To change that system, we will have to place resources on affecting the deeper beliefs that are shaping the system’s culture. How can a dominating belief be challenged?

I took the Ambassador’s belief that “the poor will always be with us” to a theologian who works closely with a Circles chapter and discovered that the original teaching is taken out of context. If one googles “the poor will always be with us,” you will find evidence of this confusion, with warnings not to use this statement to discourage social action. Plus, there are many other beliefs in the Bible that provide a positive contradiction.

While this example from Christianity is a useful teaching tool, Circles USA partners with a range of secular and religious organizations. Circles USA’s inclusive, non-partisan community welcomes people from all faiths, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientations, and socio-economic classes. Understanding the beliefs of these diverse community stakeholders is key.

Do you personally believe we can end poverty? What dominant beliefs about poverty did you hear growing up? Share your perspective with us at Circles@CirclesUSA.org.

The content for this Blog Series is drawn from the Poverty Reduction Lab program, a collaboration with CQIU. Stay tuned for more about:

  • Dismantling the poverty management system
  • Leading your community through the four stages of change
  • Creating a pathway to end poverty

To receive subsequent blog posts, sign-up for The Big View Newsletter, our monthly bulletin about poverty research and policy change.

Warm regards,

~ Scott. C. Miller, Founder and CEO, Circles USA

AARP Well-Being Champion, Scott Miller

End PovertyI am honored to be named by the AARP Public Policy Institute, along with 9 other community leaders (all of whom are 50+), as an AARP Well-Being Champion. AARP is showcasing the impact Circles USA  has had in building a “Culture of Health” in America’s communities. Today, 10/25/18, AARP launched the Website and social media (Twitter & Facebook) campaigns promoting the Circles model which fosters well-being and economic stability. To learn more, read the AARP booklet outlining the programs and work of the 10 champions of change in 2018. 

 

Video:

Dorothy, Circles, and The Hero’s Journey

Circles USA Founder & CEO, Scott C. Miller speaking at the Circles USA International Conference, “This is your call to adventure!”

 

Sometimes the worst time of our life sets us up for the best time of our life. By looking at mythological stories from around the world and throughout history, Joseph Campbell mapped out the universal story that all humans live and called it the Hero’s Journey. The Wizard of Oz is an iconic Hero’s Journey.

The journey begins with the call to adventure. Dorothy decides to leave home. She then refuses the call—after being fooled by the soon-to-be-wizard– to go back home. But as life would have it, she is tossed into the air by an unexpected tornado, her familiar world now completely upside down. She is dropped into the unknown world of munchkins, witches, and a yellow brick road.

With no seeming ability to return home anytime soon, she receives guidance from Glinda, the witch of the north. Dorothy sets off on the yellow brick road. She soon meets her circle of allies—scarecrow, tin man, and lion. Metaphorically, they are brains, heart, and brawn. But doubt lessens each of them as Dorothy and her allies make their way to see the wizard to claim their brains, heart, brawn and the way back home.

We all know how the story ends. Dorothy meets the wizard only to see that he was not the way home she thought he was to be. Instead, her guide the good witch Glinda shows up to tell her she always had the power inside herself to return home.

The Wizard of Oz contains all of these main chapters of the Hero’s Journey: Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Assistance to Accept the Call, Trials and Tribulations (as in the wicked witch of the west), Guidance, The Emotional Reward (treasuring home and family in the case of Dorothy), and Returning Home with more wisdom and a desire to share the lessons learned with others.

As people’s homes come spinning down into our Circles’ communities, they are often very distressed, disoriented, and reluctant to walk on the new road. As they continue to walk into the unknown, their allies show up, guidance is given, and the emotional reward that can only come from taking up the adventure makes the experience worth it all. Sometimes the worst of life can become the beginning of the best of life. So it is for everyday heroes.

Scott Miller

 

The Tipping Point & Poverty

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The Tipping Point & Circles USA’s Role

Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. 

“When the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent, there is no visible progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority. Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame,” said SCNARC Director Boleslaw Szymanski, the Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor at Rensselaer.

Inspired by this provocative research, The Circles USA Board of Directors has approved a major, high-impact strategic plan to achieve a 10% tipping point in the United States to eradicate poverty! By 2021, we plan to have Circles in 10% of all counties (300 of 3000 counties) and 30 of the 300 major cities.

Circles USA will engage with communities interested in the tipping point by supporting these four stage of development:

  1. ASSESSMENT—Asking questions: “Is Circles right for our community? Do we have the leadership and resources to start a Circles program in our community?”
  2. CIRCLES IN THE MAKING—Getting started: If your community is ready and willing to start Circles, you will enter into a planning agreement with Circles USA (CUSA) to lay the foundation.
  3. CIRCLES DEMONSTRATION—Taking action: You are now implementing Circles to support families out of poverty, collecting data, and assessing outcomes. You are asking, “How is it working in our community? Do we like the results we are getting? Have we been able to secure resources to sustain and grow the Circles program?”
  4. SCALING TO A TIPPING POINT—Moving forward: You are happy with the results and can see the potential of growing Circles in your community to end poverty.

As Circle Leader graduate Rebecca says, “We have changed our lives so profoundly that we will not move back into poverty again.”

How many more children do we have to raise in poverty before it is gone? How many more families will we let live with the constant anxiety of not having enough money to meet their basic needs? It’s overwhelming and we can end the suffering so that everyone has a real opportunity to get out of poverty and thrive.

The time has come to intentionally pursue the end of poverty in our nation, in our lifetime!