Climate change. Genetically-Modified Food. Cancer. Poverty. War. Sometimes it’s hard to get up in the morning and be fearless, to have courage and to care. That’s why I started interviewing women (and men) for the Big Vision Podcast, and my BlogHer Solutionary Women series on women who get up in the morning and have a big vision for a better world as their alarm clock.
After talking with Mary Brune, co-founder of MOMS (Making Our Milk Safe); Alli Chagi-Starr, co-founder of Art in Action; Ilyse Hogue, Campaign Director for MoveOn.org; and Anna Lappé, co-author of Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen and Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet, I’ve taken away six steps we can all take to make a difference.
1. Be passionate
What do you really care about and what would you really like to see change? It can be something big, like equal access to education, or small, like healthier lunches at the school down the street. What topics do you naturally want to learn more about? Mary Brune’s daughter, Olivia, keeps her motivated to do her work: “As a nursing mother, I find it unbelievable that there are toxic chemicals in my breast milk. Even so, I know that breast milk is superior to any other choice. But will that always be true if chemicals are allowed to remain unchecked and unregulated in our marketplace? I’m motivated to make sure that Olivia and all children of the next generation continue to enjoy the benefits provided by mother’s milk.”
2. Educate yourself
Learn about the issues you care about, volunteer at organizations related to your interest and make sure to ask the people you want to help what their ideas are for solutions. In her book, Paradigm Found: Leading and Managing for Positive Change, Anne Firth Murray, co-founder of the Global Fund for Women, said that when the Fund started, it was ahead of its time because, “We would listen to the women building these programs, and we would respond to them rather than set agendas for them to follow.”
3. Take small steps
We can’t all be Rosa Parks, Gloria Steinem, or Dr. Vandana Shiva. As Ilyse Hogue says, “Social change is about what you choose to do every day, how you interact with your neighbours, where you buy your groceries, who you’re voting for, where you keep your money in the bank, what kind of car you’re driving.”
4. Have a big vision
Many of today’s issues are long-term problems with long-term solutions. As Alli Chagi-Starr, Events Director for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights’ Reclaim the Future Program wisely notes, we need to realize “that we are seed planters. We are going to probably die before we see all those seeds become trees, and it doesn’t matter. You just have to keep planting and know that other people will come along and water those seeds and that those trees are for our children’s children.”
5. Find like-minded people to share your vision
Online services like VolunteerMatch, Idealist, Craigslist, and the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network make it easy to find volunteer opportunities and events near you. Giving circles like Dining for Women can help you combine having fun with doing good, and will allow you to raise more money for the causes you care about. Social networks such as the Omidyar Network can connect you with people who want to collaborate with you on your vision.
6. Believe that you can make a difference
Anna Lappé is often asked whether one person can really make a difference when the challenges we face are so huge. “People often say they feel like just a ‘drop in the bucket,'” Lappé says, “with the sense of futileness that the idea conveys. But it’s probably more accurate to say people feel they’re a drop in the desert—their drop dissipates before even touching ground. If you think about the idea of a bucket as a container that holds all of our drops, you’d sense how fast a bucket can fill and that—you never know—you could even be the one drop that pushes the water over the edge.”
It’s easy these days to get discouraged and say that we’re powerless to create change, but really, that kind of attitude is a luxury from a different time. Now is the time for all of us, in whatever small way, to get up in the morning with a big vision for a better world. Time’s a wastin’.
[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]by Britt Bravo
image: xJason.Rogersx via Compfight cc
