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Dear Friends in FLOW,
Well, FLOW is definitely flowing. Here’s a brief update on the
following…
- FLOW Activation Circles
- Peace Through Commerce – Matching Grant Offer
- Empowering Women Entrepreneurs – Program & Events
- Women’s Empowerment Free Zones
- The new FLOW web site in progress – a glimpse
First, a quick alert:
As you may know, Whole Foods Market is defending its right to
acquire Wild Oats over the objections of the FTC. FLOW Co-founder John
Mackey (CEO of WFM) has published an extraordinary,
transparent account and defense of Whole Foods Market's proposed
acquisition on
his blog. We highly recommend reading it and encourage
you to support Whole
Foods Market and John as they stand up for
conscious, free market capitalism in the face of abusive government
intervention.
FLOW Activation Circles
The last round of FLOW Activation Circle meetings was focused
on “going deeper,” and we certainly did.
In Austin, we were fortunate to have facilitator Elad Levinson
with us to support going deeper, and we extended the time of
our small group process, which clearly allowed for deeper expression
and connection.
Building on that in San Francisco, we went very deeply into
our personal connection to FLOW and explored ways we can catalyze
more flow in our lives. George Kao, who hosts our meetings at
the Presidio MBA School and who has attended all but the first
meeting, commented “last night was my favorite of the FLOW meetings
so far!”
In New York, Adam Hansen, who facilitated the meeting with Susan
Niederhoffer, reported “The group energy was fantastic, and there’s
a strong sense of co-creation and wonderful things moving forward.”
And he provided an extensive list of prospective collaborative
actions the group is exploring, which you can review at http://www.flowidealism.org/FAC/NYC-June-2007-Action-List.html
In the next round of meetings we will continue this process,
and begin to more directly catalyze collaboration around FLOW
events we are producing this fall (more below). In NYC in July,
Emily Maher will share her experience in microlending in India.
Visit this page for
dates and times for the next meetings.
Peace Through Commerce – Matching Grant Offer
Our PTC program has received a big “thumbs
up” and offer of a $50,000 matching grant from a couple in NYC
who appreciate the program’s goal to “promote economic liberty
as the best way to foster peace and prosperity” and to reach
young people with this message. In the next few months we need
to raise an additional $100,000 to activate their grant and fund
the next phase of program development and production, which includes
developing television and radio programming, classroom curricula,
events, and more. For more information and to offer support with
the funding, please contact me at Jeff@flowidealism.org. You
can download a Peace
Through Commerce presentation here.
Empowering Women Entrepreneurs – Program and Events
Peace Through Commerce recently gave birth to Empowering
Women Entrepreneurs.
Catalyzed in part through dialogue and collaboration with Barbara
Barrett, who is heading a working group on Women’s Economic Empowerment
at the US Department of State, and by observing the growing success
and popularity of the Microfinance movement we recognized the
need and opportunity to celebrate and highlight the power of
Economic Freedom and Entrepreneurial Culture to combine with
Microfinance (and access to capital in general) to create a powerful
web of support for women entrepreneurs in developing communities.
We are producing a two-day Empowering Women Entrepreneurs event
on November 30th and December 1st at and in collaboration with
The Crossings in Austin, and are talking with Rotary International
and others about producing one in San Francisco this year as
well. Stay tuned for details.
We will also be funding program development for Empowering Women
Entrepreneurs to create an ongoing, integrated program.
Last week Michael and I presented the ideas behind the EWE concept
to the WEE working group, consisting of 20-30 Ambassadors from
around the world, at the State Department. Our presentation and
the introduction of the new head of USAID, Henrietta H. Fore,
to the Ambassadors, were the focus of the meeting and both were
extremely well received.
Women’s Empowerment Free Zones
During an April trip to DC to participate
in a meeting of the working group on Women’s Economic Empowerment,
FLOW CEO Michael Strong conceived the idea of creating Women’s
Empowerment Free Zones to Empower Women Entrepreneurs and to
provide funding and other support for women’s economic empowerment.
Michael recently drafted a concept
paper on WEFZs in
collaboration with our friend and colleague Mark Frazier of OpenWorld
(and recently appointed as president of the ZonAmerica Foundation
of the U.S. ZonAmerica may credibly be described as the "arguably
the best private free zone in the world"), which is receiving
strong positive response and constructive feedback from all quarters.
We aim to facilitate the establishment of one or more Women’s
Empowerment Free Zones in communities with developing economies
around the world.
New FLOW Web Site – In Progress
Sometime this Summer we will launch a
new wiki-based FLOW web site, to facilitate more collaboration
and interaction. You can peak at the interface
we are designing.
Please note that this is very much a work-in-progress, and not
yet connected to the wiki.
Lots more going on, but that is probably all that I can include
in a “brief” update.
Yours in flow,
Jeff Klein
Executive Director &
Chief Activation Officer
FLOW, Inc.
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