On Wednesday, February 10, we teamed up with Victoria’s Diner in Roxbury and some business friends to try something new.  It was an evening dedicated to Project HOPE’s lifesaving work in Haiti.  Brian MacQuarrie, a Boston Globe reporter and author of a recent story on the Globe’s front page about this work, spoke for about a half-hour on his trip, the people he had met, and explained some of the photos that accompanied his story.  Brian left us at about 6:45 to attend another event elsewhere, and the group stayed until 8:00 to talk about what we had heard, and how to solve the problem!

The group discussion was fascinating and enlightening, and I want to share it here for two reasons.  One, I hope someone will read it who has an idea of what to do about it, and with any luck we might find ourselves with a discussion in the comments section.  Two, I want to offer our experience as an example to other worthy charities who might consider the “awareness raiser” format.

I just want to thank a couple of our business friends who came together to purchase the appetizer buffet for the evening.  TechNetworks of Boston, which provides I/T solutions to businesses and nonprofits; Parents Forum, a grassroots organization concerned with family life issues; and Kristopher Callahan, a veteran political campaign manager, all came together to help put the event on, and I’m grateful to them.

Between questions for Brian and discussion after the event, the group was impressed by Project HOPE’s success getting volunteer doctors, facilities and supplies to and from Haiti.  But we were concerned by the sheer enormity of the problem and the apparent lack of other infrastructure outside the operating-room setting, as crucial as that work is.  Participants wondered whether mental-health professionals were working in Haiti, as well as other types of professionals whose expertise and volunteer time will be needed in the rebuilding of that country.  One interesting idea was whether idling U.S. construction professionals could be brought to Haiti, Project-HOPE-style, in an effort to help Haiti rebuild, and build in a safer way with better materials.  I thought this was a very worthy idea and wonder whether anyone reading this might have an idea.

We did not ask for money at the event, though we provided online “donation stations” for those who felt moved to give.  Direct fundraising was not the point of the evening.  We created community, gathered ideas, and engaged with each other in figuring out how we could best help.  Everyone felt like it was a very well spent evening.  Multiplied across an organization at scale, with volunteer management, this Awareness Raiser is one way to build a strong supporter base for a cause we can all believe in.

On Wednesday, February 10, at 6pm, we’re teaming up with Victoria’s Diner in Boston to host a neighborhood awareness raiser for Project HOPE.  Please come join us!  Enjoy some free appetizers and learn about Project HOPE’s lifesaving work in Haiti.  Brian MacQuarrie, who reported the Boston Globe piece on Saturday on Massachusetts doctors aboard the traveling hospital ship the USNS Comfort.  There is no door charge or particular fundraising request, but there will be an opportunity to donate.  If you wish, we’ll help you create your own fundraising webpage to help save lives.

• We’ll be at Victoria’s, 1024 Mass Ave, Boston, Wednesday night at 6pm.
• RSVP to info@grassrootsgivinggroup.com for free car shuttle service to and from the Andrew T stop on the Red Line!
• Download a printable PDF flyer here.
• See you there!

It looks like the neighborhood association has succeeded in bullying this worthy charity to sell one of its three brownstones for market-rate housing.  They’ve allowed the Inn to convert two of the brownstones it owns to affordable housing, while forcing the charity to sell the third brownstone for market-rate housing.  This coldhearted NIMBY opposition to affordable housing will result in the permanent loss of 11 units zoned for a lodging house — a zone that existed at 38 Upton Street when each and every one of the NIMBY neighborhood bullies bought their property.  Eleven formerly homeless people won’t be able to move into permanent apartment housing and get a leg up on society, because of what happened here.  These 11 people will continue to take up shelter beds, in turn leaving another 11 homeless people out on Boston streets in the dead of winter.

In the future, if this ever happens again (especially just a block from where I live!) I’d like for Grassroots Giving Group to be able to quickly deploy a fundraising website to enable the decent majority to easily donate and tell their friends, so the decent soul of our community can stand up to a few bullies with intimidating signs in their windows.  I just hate to see bullying succeed; it sets a terrible precedent for what organized and persistent NIMBY activists can accomplish to derail charitable uses of property.  I’m sorry that we weren’t ready, as a new business, to respond quickly enough to this situation.  In the future, I’d like us to be there helping fight for decency, good citizenship, and fairness.  That’s part of why I’ve worked so hard to own this business.

Those are future plans.  For now, see the Boston Globe’s coverage of this travesty of a settlement of a frivolous lawsuit, here.

I live in Boston’s South End, a nice neighborhood with mostly nice people.  Dogs wag their tails on the red-brick sidewalks outside coffeeshops nestled among the picturesque Victorian red-brick brownstones.  Our neighborhood was built to look like London in the 1850s in an attempt to attract the business-owning class to stay in Boston — and 150 years later it’s weathered business cycles and weather, to be the picturesque neighborhood it is today.

Speaking of weather, the winters are awfully harsh here in Boston, so it’s a good thing there are charitable organizations like the Pine Street Inn to help end homelessness in Boston.  Homelessness is a human tragedy that represents a failure of our collective responsibility as a society.  The Pine Street Inn is not far from us, and right on Upton Street, the block next to mine, they own three brownstones at 38-42 Upton Street, which they plan to convert into long-term affordable apartments for formerly homeless clients who are ready for a stable living environment.  The Pine Street Inn has several other affordable-housing buildings in our neighborhood, right alongside the fancy condos and “regular” apartments, with no significant impact on crime or quality of life at all.  These folks blend right in and have done for decades.

Sadly, some of our neighbors don’t feel our neighborhood is for everyone.  See the recent TV coverage at http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/19705850/detail.html — our neighborhood association has been taken over by people who oppose affordable housing for the poor, simply on the grounds that they don’t want poor folks living on their street.  This is terrible.  Several of our decent neighbors signed a majority petition supporting the Pine Street Inn, but still these neighbors fight the poor, with intimidating signs in their windows and spreading falsehoods on TV.  See my blog at http://www.CompassionateNeighbors.org/ for more information.

I’d really like for a company like GGG to be able to help issues like this by giving the vast majority of decent people an easy way to donate to an organization like the Pine Street Inn — say, for legal defense against frivolous lawsuits, or just to support their programs.  When rich neighbors intimidate a charity with their copious free time and funds for lawyers, there has to be a grassroots way to respond.  I’m frustrated, frankly, that my company doesn’t yet have the ability to quickly raise funds for news-cycle-responsive causes like this.  We’re still a very new company, and we will develop that ability.

For now, check out CompassionateNeighbors.org and stay tuned to this evolving issue.