Day 28: Chris Golden

October 28, 2009 at 12:01 am, Category: Inspiration

“We really think that people can be changed and touched by the power of an individual story.  And if we can help people in service to realize that they have the potential to touch others and to have the impact of their work be larger than themselves, I think that is a tremendous resource and profit to them.”

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Toni Reece: Okay, Chris, we are officially recording for the Get Inspired! Project.  Thank you so much for agreeing to part of this project and before I ask you the questions, can you introduce yourself?

Chris Golden: Thank you for this opportunity.  My name is Chris Golden.  I am the cofounder of MyImpact.org.

Toni: In your organization — or even personally — Chris,  the first question that we start with is, when you think about inspiration, who do you inspire and then how do you do that?

Chris: At MyImpact.org we seek to inspire young people, the millennial generation, to realize that they can make a difference through their work, in their communities to solve problems at the societal and national and even international levels.  We believe that if they can identify problems that they see as existing and then come up with solutions to those problems, that bottom-up approach, really the citizen at the center is the way that real lasting change can come and solve the problems that our generation has inherited.

We think that the way to do that is by providing a platform, an online resource, something that uses the common language of the day; using social media and Web 2.0 to give resources to young people and the organizations that they serve with.   Again, using those familiar tools to share their own stories of service to provide them with the larger context to tell their stories and to inspire more young people to become involved with service and volunteerism.

We seek to advance the notion of service as a solution to problems.  We seek to engage more young people in service, and we seek to extend the life cycle of service from an individual action on a specific day of the week or on a designated service day to something that lasts longer; something that is seen as a civic responsibility, even a civic obligation.  Something that we do for the betterment of our democracy, and to help people understand the full impacts of their service.   Again, all doing this so that we can inspire more people to become involved.

Toni: So the inspiration that you are hoping to achieve is that full impact of getting people involved, telling their stories, and  helping their communities, and I understand from that ground up.  When you do this?  And when you’re inspiring others to be a volunteer or to have that impact of service, how does that translate then into helping them either explore potential in themselves or explore potential in others?

Chris: Sure.  Basically, we say to somebody “We know that what you’re doing is great.  We know that your work probably makes you feel good; it has a tremendous intrinsic value and feeling.  But if we can take that story, that feel good story, that probably is fulfilling enough for you and say, “Your story, your experience, if we put it online we use social media to tell your story, do a picture, a video, a blog post, maybe; maybe somebody else will see it and they too will be inspired, become involved, and then your impact isn’t just for you anymore.”  Now you’re getting more people involved.  You’re growing the cause that you care enough about that you would commit your time to in the beginning.

We really think that people can be changed and touched by the power of an individual story.  And if we can help people in service to realize that they have the potential to touch others and to have the impact of their work be larger than themselves, I think that is a tremendous resource and profit to them.

Toni: Not only to them, but to those that they’re involving, I would imagine.  When you talk about sharing the impact that someone that’s done a service, their story, and how that may impact others, will they know?  How will you close that loop?  Will I know if I’m one of those people that I’m going to share my story and how my level of service and my activities have helped others?  Will there be a way for me to know that that impact has occurred?

Chris: Many times, you’ll be challenged by one of your friends.  Our tagline “My impact, what’s yours?” is saying that this is what I have done.  Now, challenge your friends on your social networks.  And that’s what so cool about this new technology, the fact that we are all connected to our friends virtually online, so it makes tracking that impact a lot easier; and it might be as simple as seeing somebody’s Facebook status.  It might be as personal as receiving a direct message challenge on Twitter, being like, “This is what I did today; now, what are you doing?”

Toni: It sounds very much like a pay it forward mentality.

Chris: You know what, I like to think of it that way also.  Pay it forward.  But again, the reason that we’re doing all of this is because this is what formed the framework of our country.  We’ve always had a neighbor-helping-neighbor mentality.  We’ve always been a society where if the barn is burning down you form a fire line to put it out, and everybody in the community gets involved.

Sometimes we think — or skeptics think – “That is lost with my generation, the millennials.”  But I don’t agree with that.  We grew up in the wake of September 11.  We endured the worst economic recession since the Great Depression.  We’ve had two wars.  It’s not been easy for our generation, but yet our volunteer rate is the highest among all.  Half of new volunteers last year were young people, and over 9.8 million millennials donated 1 billion hours – with a “B” – of service in 2008.  This is nothing to take lightly, and this is really a trademark of our generation.

Toni: It’s amazing.  I didn’t realize those statistics either.  When you are doing this type of work and setting up this organization, Chris, what do you need to keep inspired yourself?  What do you seek for inspiration?

Chris: As a social entrepreneur, it can be difficult sometimes — especially starting a new organization given the current economic climate and all of those factors — but I’m inspired when I see somebody working to solve that problem that they have and not waiting for government or a corporate grant or somebody else to do it, but saying “This is the problem, I’m going to solve it on my own.”

Let me give you an example.  I’m here in Washington, D.C., and in the northeast part of the city, which is one of the poorest quadrants of the nation’s capital, there is a woman named Sylvia Robinson.  And she lives on Euclid Street which is by Howard University, and there was a beautiful Victorian era home on Euclid Street which was completely run down, drug infested, really an eyesore in the neighborhood.  And she was determined to do something about it, so she raised the money to purchase the home, which was foreclosed, to clean it up, to kick the druggies out, to make it into a community art center.  It’s now called the Emergence Community Arts Collective, and it’s a community home.

She runs this all by herself.  She lives upstairs, and she hosts community events and she engages school children at the high school across the street.  And I was fortunate to go with a  group of students from my university, American University, on the other side of the city, to volunteer for 3 days as part of their freshman service experience trying to introduce new students to areas of the city and problems that they probably would not have encountered in their education otherwise.  And they were able to hear Sylvia’s story, and they were able to help her out by rebuilding a deck on the back of the Arts Center that she needed redone.  They actually proposed to the University for a grant and were accepted to help her revitalize the garden in front of the Arts Center to make it a more inviting place for the neighborhood.  It’s just that story and the many different elements that are involved there which lead me to become very inspired.  And that’s on the local level.

On the national level — and this is kind of going along with my passion, which is using new technology and new ways of communication to make a difference — there is a great organization which is just starting called The Extraordinaires.  And the problem that they saw was, well, everybody has these cell phones, these i-phones, these smart technology on their hips, and everybody has time in the day that they are trying to kill, whether that’s waiting in the doctor’s office or waiting for a bus, or just trying to pass the time.  So they said “Why not use that time plus this technology to do something good.?  So, they pioneered the concept of micro-volunteering; and that is doing something that only takes a minute, and you can do it right from your phone.

Let me give you an example.   If you have a specific skill in translating to a foreign language, and there is a nonprofit organization with a website in an ethnic community that needs their content translated in a  language to better serve their community but they don’t have the resources to hire a translator, but you can do a paragraph, do a page right from your phone; it takes you a minute, that’s something that you can do to help them which goes outside of the concept of traditional going to volunteer and having a set number of hours, have an assignment.  You can do this on your own when you have the time.  And those type of things really inspire me, and they lead me to want to make MyImpact.org answer specific needs that we feel are out there in the national community service field so that we can help volunteers and we can engage more.

Toni: It sounds as though what inspires you is that sense of pioneering and it is … my definition of ownership is taking personal control, and it sounds as though that sense of ownership is truly what you try to keep inspired so that your organization can do what it needs to do.  When you are exploring your own potential, Chris, what do you do and what do you seek?  What tools might you use?

Chris: I have been fortunate to be offered a lot of great opportunities, and so I really have come to determine that what I need to grow and to explore my potential is just being given a chance.  Being given a space.  Being given the time to take chances, to grow, to develop, to take risks.  Some might fail.  I don’t like to fail very often, I like to morph things into something different.  And okay, I’ll admit it,  ** that was the grand plan from the very beginning.  I just need to be in a situation or an environment that allows me that.  And I think that is the trademark of entrepreneurship, and it’s a trademark of a social entrepreneur to seek that and to not want it for profit and to want to do it to make a difference and to solve a problem.  And I have been fortunate to have been offered those opportunities and that space to really begin to make a difference.

And so it would be a great goal and a driving force going forward that I would extend that to other people and to make sure that if I’m ever in the position to give somebody else an exciting idea, just a chance to try it out, to make mistakes, and to grow in it, that I do that and not try to micromanage them.  Because that learning experience I have been fortunate to receive, and I think everybody should be fortunate enough to have that.

Toni: I can tell you, Chris, that there seems to be a running theme in a lot of these interviews with the Get Inspired! Project — and I’m hearing one with you as well — that what you need to explore your potential is to be given that opportunity, to be given a chance so that you can explore potential and explore impact.  And that way that you explore your own potential has absolutely transferred into your organization as far as allowing others to explore their areas of impact and how they can make a difference and to give them a chance; so, the two of the personal going into your organization I’m hearing definitely there’s a correlation there.

Chris: And let me just add that sometimes you have to build and break down barriers and build your own opportunity and really fight for it, but it’s a whole lot easier if somebody gives you that.

Toni: Absolutely.  But again, there’s that taking personal control, isn’t it, and that pioneering spirit.  Well, Chris, your snapshot of what you are doing with your organization, what inspires you and keeps you going to build your momentum and move this thing forward will benefit others, and others will learn from what you’re doing.  And we so appreciate that you have agreed to be part of this project, and I can’t thank you enough for your time.

Chris: Well thank you, and thanks again for the opportunity to tell my story.

Toni: You’re absolutely welcome, and good luck to you and your organization.

Chris: Thank you.

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For more information about Chris Golden:   www.myimpact.org

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