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Impact the World
Live Your Values and Drive Change As a Citizen Statesperson
Carrie Rich, Dean Fealk
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eBook - ePub
Impact the World
Live Your Values and Drive Change As a Citizen Statesperson
Carrie Rich, Dean Fealk
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About This Book
Supercharge your impact on global issues and drive transformative change in the world around you
Impact the World: Live Your Values and Drive Change As a Citizen Statesperson is your motivational guide to becoming a superpowered individual committed to improving your communityâand the worldâthrough your values and actions. You'll discover why the intersection of a renewed civic spirit and new technologies empowering individuals at the local level equates to an unprecedented opportunity to channel global impact.
From poverty and homelessness to violence and corruption, we often see challenges in the world around us and ask, "Why doesn't someone do something?" We look to people with more experience, or people with more influence, or people with more time or resources than ourselves to step up and find answers to some of our biggest problems. But what if we didn't wait for others? What if we stepped up, and looked for ways to employ our skills to solve the biggest and most complex problems of our time?
That's what leaders do. That's what citizen statespeople do.
This book is a call to action. From local to global, from the private sector to government, and to the frontlines of social entrepreneurship, authors Carrie Rich and Dean Fealk explore the benefits and challenges of becoming a citizen statesperson, showing how to pull together disparate threads to solve pressing social, political, and economic challenges. You'll also discover:
? The lifecycle of a citizen statesperson, including an enlightening discussion of how to build your personal brand
? Inspiring case studies of real-life citizen statespeople around the world
? Explorations of the new technologies that can be used to accelerate the impact of a citizen statesperson on the world
Simultaneously optimistic, inspiring, intensely practical, and engaging, Impact the World will earn a valued place in the libraries of civic leaders, activists, social justice advocates, business executives, politicians, volunteers, public servants, and anyone else looking for a way to magnify their influence and impact in any area that matters to them.
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Why Being a Citizen Statesperson Matters
Key Takeaways
- A citizen statesperson is a superpowered individual committed to improving the community and the world through values and activism.
- Three dynamics drive the need and opportunity for citizen statespeople at this moment: 1) loss of confidence in traditional institutions of power and influence, 2) technology that contributes to the capability of the superpowered individual, and 3) a new generation of impactâminded individuals committed to driving change in meaningful and multifaceted ways.
- Becoming a citizen statesperson starts at a local level, solving problems for local people. From there, citizen statespeople can make a global impact.
ABBEY WEMIMO WAS born in Nigeria and grew up in the slums of Lagos. He lost his father when he was two years old, and was raised by his mother and two sisters. Even as a child, he understood that his circumstances meant that he wouldn't be able to access everything he needed in life, and that his experience would prove challenging and at times disappointing. He was also a smart and motivated child, and his mother believed fundamentally in the importance of a good education. Excluded from the traditional financial system, Abbey's mother turned to rotational savings to pay for food and his school fees, and sent her son to one of the finest high schools in Nigeria. He took international exams to qualify for universities abroad, and at 17 years old, he was offered a onceâunimaginable opportunity: an education in the United States.
He and his mother emigrated together to Minnesota, but when they arrived, they struggled to survive. They tried to borrow money for Abbey's college tuition from one of the largest banks in Minneapolis, but the bank turned them away because they lacked a credit score or a financial history. Ultimately, in order to send Abbey to college, his mother was forced to pawn her wedding ring and borrow a few thousand dollars from a predatory lender at an interest rate of over 400 percent.
The experience had a profound impact on Abbey. He turned down an opportunity to play professional soccer, and instead focused on gaining an education in business and finding jobs in the financial sector, determined to learn about the system that had nearly destroyed his family and so many others across the United States. Along the way, he looked for opportunities to connect with leaders and innovators who were working to improve communities around the world.
Eventually, that work brought him to Samir Goel.
Samir's parents traveled from New Delhi, India, in search of a better life through the American Dream, but when they arrived in America, they quickly faced a colder and more challenging reality than they had anticipated. On their first day in the United States, Samir's father was robbed by a mugger, who took what little money he had brought with him. The place they had intended to stay was no longer able to shelter them. With no money, no credit score, and nowhere to live, Samir's parents struggled to surviveâa beginning that forced them to âwork miracles,â as Samir puts it, to give him the future that they imagined.
Samir took their experience to heart and worked hard to secure a good education and a career that could sustain him and his family. Samir simultaneously looked for ways to serve communities that had been left out and left behind. He gained experience in startâups and social impact ventures, and connected with other young people who were determined to make a contribution to the world around them.
Though Abbey and Samir came from different communities, they learned the same lesson: that for people without a financial historyâespecially people of colorâopportunities for advancement can be scarce. They saw beyond their parents' experiences to the millions of men, women, and children who were dogged by the same challenge. And when they met at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2014, they pledged to do something about it.
For a few years, they continued to work in corporate rolesâAbbey at Goldman Sachs and PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Samir at LinkedInâbut they kept discussing their families' shared experiences, and the need for a response to financial marginalization. They kept spinning out ideas for financial integration and opportunity. Finally, they were ready to move. In 2018, four years after they met, they launched Esusuâa financial technology company meant to help lowâ to moderateâincome renters use rent payments to build credit, establish a financial history, and make their way into the U.S. economy.
The name of the organization itself offered a look at their motivations and their plans to make change. The word esusu describes a traditional form of informal financing that originated in Nigeria, helping individuals and communities band together in savings and credit associations. The notion is that by working together in partnerships, people without a formal financial identity can help each other live and work in a mutually beneficial way.
That's the idea Abbey and Samir brought to the table when they participated in The Global Good Fund in 2019. The notion was a novel one, but it made sense; millions of people who are lowâincome in America make rental payments on time every month for decades without establishing a credit score. Meanwhile, landlords have no way of knowing which tenants are good bets. Esusu brought these communities together, partnering with landlords through a rent reporting service and helping lowâincome renters build credit by reporting monthly payments to credit bureaus. The organization even created a rent relief fund to help struggling tenants stay in their homesâa part of the company that quite literally saved lives during the worst days of the COVIDâ19 pandemic. Ultimately, the project was good for everyone: for renters, who could build credit; for landlords, who could ensure reliable tenants; and for the United States economy, which gained an influx of participants who could land jobs, pay taxes, and start their own businesses.
Getting Esusu off the ground wasn't easy. As Black and Brown business leaders, Abbey and Samir faced resistance from a venture capital community that overwhelmingly funds nondiverse entrepreneurs. They were forced to grapple with unfair assumptions about their competence and decisionâmaking, and about the ability of a business focused on the racial wealth gap to survive. But with extraordinary drive and persistence, Abbey and Samir were able to forge their vision into a reality.
Today, Esusu is thriving, drawing investors from The Global Good Fund II to tennis superstar Serena Williams's Serena Ventures. The families that rely on its services are flourishing. Abbey and Samir continue pressing to expand their reach and uplift communities across the country, one rental payment at a time. According to Samir and Abbey, âWhere you come from, the color of your skin, and your financial identity should never determine where you end up in life. Today there are over 45 million adults in America with no credit score, the vast majority of whom are immigrants, minorities, and lowâ to moderateâincome households. The benefit of the Esusu platform is that everyone wins. It's a win for renters, property owners, and society at large.â
In many ways, the story of Samir and Abbey is one of improbable success. It is a story of perseverance, hard work, and creativity; of connecting people and ideas in order to promote a cause that serves humanity.
It is the story of citizen statespeople.
The Road Ahead
It can feel difficult to make a difference. That's because it is difficult to make a difference.
The world faces enormous challenges and existential threats. An international health emergency impacts every country on the planet. Climate change causes extreme weather events that claim lives and livelihoods. Wars and violent conflicts spur refugee crises and population shifts. Economic inequality is growing, leaving millions of people in poverty in the shadow of a wealthy few. From proliferation of nuclear weapons to the hardening of political polarization and an increase in racial and social injustice, people in the United States and around the world face a dizzying array of complex and dangerous threats.
These concerns are deeply felt. According to a 2019 Pew Research survey,1 most Americans expect income gaps to widen over the next three decades. Nearly half anticipate that the standard of living in the United States will get worse by 2050, while just 20 percent believe it will improve. Almost 60 percent say the condition of the environment will deteriorate. Nearly twoâthirds of Americans expect political divisions to intensify, making it even more difficult to solve problems together.
Exacerbating these challenges is the fact that, in many cases, people have lost faith in the institutions charged with supporting and guiding us towards progress. According to a series of Gallup polls in 2021, just 38 percent of Americans have âa great dealâ or âa lot ofâ confidence in the presidency. Big business scores lower, at just 18 percent. The media fares just as poorly; only 21 percent of Americans feel confident about newspapers, and 16 percent say the same of television news. Confidence in Congress, meanwhile, sits at just 12 percent.2 Nearly every institution of note in the United Statesâfrom our lawmaking bodies to our executive powers to our economic engines and the arbiters of our public forumsâis viewed with suspicion and doubt.
These low scores translate into realâworld impacts. When people lose confidence in politics and political institutions, for example, they tend to gravitate towards behaviors and ideologies less likely to lead to cooperation and more likely to create dysfunctional systems. They might decide not to vote at all, producing an electorate unrepresentative of the community as a whole and a government that doesn't take their needs into account. They might drift towards extreme political views offering a scapegoat to blame or a place of refuge for disenchanted individuals. At the furthest end of the spectrum, they could lose faith in democracy as a whole and instead submit to authoritarian individuals or agendas. These results, in turn, breed further alienation and more dysfunctional politics.
The same kind of result is possible in other areas. A lack of confidence in the news media may prompt individuals to avoid learning about current events, or to dismiss facts, or to embrace fringe broadcasters with extreme viewpoints. Distrust of financial institutions or businesses could discourage individuals or communities from meaningfully participating in the economy, calcifying poverty, and walling off populations from economic growth. Over time, our cynicism can contribute to an age of inflamed tensions, widespread division, hypernationalism, and xenophobiaâwithout trust in institutions, we are left with limited avenues for progress. We are regularly confronted by problems, but we don't believe our existing power structures will effectively step in to address them.
That's the bad news.
Here's the good news: even as we grapple with entrenched challenges and deteriorated institutions, we simultaneously live in an age of superpowered and superâengaged individuals. The Internet and mobile telephony have brought onceâobscure information to our fingertips, enabling people to learn about problems and dig deep into tools for solutions. Technology lowered the barriers to entry for starting a company, supporting a cause, and spurring a social movement. Increased connectivity is making it easier for a person not only to take action in their own community, but to scale their efforts quickly and effectivelyâallowing good ideas to find larger audiences and create broader global impact.
The intersection of these...