Making Change: Getting Involved in Helping Others

As seen in the Washington Times Communities

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This blog will feature stories of people who are actively working to make a difference for others.

How are people using leadership tools to make change? Read stories about people getting involved to make real change for the benefit of others.

Jul 30, 2010, 4-H: Learn. Serve. Lead.

4-H involves over 6 million young people and 518,000 volunteers. Read about one family’s experience.

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Jul 30, 2010, Growing leaders for agriculture

A program focused on enhancing leaders for vital rural organizations and small towns. Over thirty states offer such programs as well as Canada and Australia

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Jul 13, 2010, Eastern Europe: Changes from 1988-2010

After perestroika and the fall of the Berlin Wall, what change is visible to a tourist in cities in Eastern Europe? A tourist shares her impressions on change and continuity.

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Jun 17, 2010, Volunteer? Lots of people do.

The Corporation for National and Community Service released a report on Volunteering in America 2010. Across the country, 63.4 million Americans volunteered to help their communities in 2009. This was an additional 1.6 million volunteers when compared to 2008. Their contribution of 8.1 billion hours of service has an estimated dollar value of nearly $169 billion.

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Jun 8, 2010, Assets for independence

Buy a home. Start a business. Get an education. Check out this program that helps these dreams become reality.

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May 29, 2010, Public Affairs students take on tough issues

This week I was inspired by the thirty graduate students who enrolled in my course at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. Their motto is… Learn here, lead everywhere. And they are.

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May 21, 2010, Neutrality: A key to productive public meetings?

There is often a neutral facilitator on hand when work sessions are engaging and show results.

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May 14, 2010, Boomer heavy: Millennial light?

This week I facilitated a futures conversation with a statewide organization. They are ‘boomer heavy’ and ‘millennial light.’ Many employees were born from 1946-1964. Few employees were born since 1980. They have made a commitment to involving the younger generation in shaping the future of their organization.

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May 5, 2010, Difficult Groups: What Makes Them Tick?

This is a story of a difficult public group and an analysis of why it was tough.

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Apr 27, 2010, Working with difficult groups?

Help has arrived. It is called “The Handbook for working with difficult groups: How they are difficult, why they are difficult, and what you can do about it.” “Facilitating Multicultural Groups” is the title of “our chapter” – number four. It was co-authored with my colleague Mary Laeger-Hagemeister and improved with help from Joyce Hoelting. It is a case study about forums convened between a United States regional health care system, and new residents who were immigrants from Somalia and Mexico.

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