The Pitch, Part One: Why This Work Matters

The Change Campaign’s Q3 board meeting was productive. My board members encouraged me to create a pitch for my work. Nothing long, and unafraid to state the value of an investment in the organization. In an effort to work through that, this will be my shortest post to date. 

The central thesis in our work is that healthy communities help build healthy people, and that healthy people help build healthy communities. Our view of health aligns with holistic wellbeing across all dimensions. We are facing challenges as a society that we can get through, but the only way that we will do so is together. The vast majority of people want our world to be okay and for life on earth to continue. To do this, we believe that we must develop a comprehensive strategy, rather than working in traditional siloes. We also believe that doing so will bring many people who currently see themselves as being on different sides together under a large tent. The movement that we are building is oriented in the belief that we live on a beautiful planet that deserves protection, that life is beautiful and deserves to be nurtured, and that we should orient movements in decency and dignity. Doing this, we can work across ideological divides. 

Our single largest effort is the development of a comprehensive policy agenda combined with on the ground implementation called The Full Press. The Full Press develops a strong social infrastructure to promote holistic wellbeing, which creates savings in public budgets that will be used to sustain and scale investments in what continues to drive ROI over time. In addition to helping individuals, families, and communities, we also believe that The Full Press is the best strategy to bring our society out of its debt crisis. The theory behind The Full Press has been developed, and while it continues to develop, we are working to implement it in Pennsylvania through our work with HEAL PA. This provides an opportunity to test the theory and let it evolve.

The same philosophy domestically is applied internationally as we are supporting global work to build population-level resilience to the impacts of climate change. As global temperatures continue to rise, so too are incidences of extreme weather events and ecosystem destruction. This is happening all around us in real time, and time and again we see how community is such a strong part of the answer. When disasters hit, climate or otherwise, people support each other across differences. We see neighbors helping neighbors in countless situations. With the right support and skills, we can promote regulation through adverse situations and build resilience by getting through it together. Without those supports, we can see stressors tear communities and people apart. Our work in this space is building community capacity to grow stronger over time.

An investment in The Change Campaign is not just an investment in an individual program. It is an investment in the belief that there is a better way that we can and must move forward. It is an investment in the belief that the answers we need lie within communities and with each other. 

This feels like an outrageously simple blog post. I am usually long winded, but in the effort to follow the guidance of my board, I am trying to start simple. I will continue building upon this, trying to make specific cases for the ROI in our work, but I felt an effort at a simple conceptual discussion of our work was a good place to start. Let me know what makes sense and what doesn’t. I am hopeful that in learning to simplify communications, we can invite more people in, increasing our resources, and therefore our ability to help create the change we need.