Tips for Solutions Based Advocacy

Poverty is a tough, gnarly, complex problem.  It has been resistant to countless efforts, strategies and expenditures over decades, even centuries.  It has befuddled many many sharp, smart people.  The poverty activists I pay attention to are those who start … Read More

Burma will be in the news over the next few weeks.   November 7th is the 'official' election day – an election in which the party that won the previous election (1990) is both boycotting and ineligible to run.  This … Read More

  "Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line." – B. Mandelbrot Benoît Mandelbrot died this month.  Most won't know him but he … Read More

Since the 1990’s the federal government and most provincial governments have eliminated 'in- house' policy units. If you want to get government to do something you have to learn to do public policy yourself.   Sean Moore Stacey Corriveau at the … Read More

This is another riff on Adam Kahane's delicious new book, Power and Love – A Theory and Practice of Social Change.  (Incidentally Adam is speaking at Robson Square, Vancouver on Monday November 1st.  Details below.) In an earlier incarnation as … Read More

Here's a great story of persistent advocacy and creative strategy.  Canada announced last week it has formally added BPA ( Bisphenol A) to the list of toxic substances.  BPA is found in clear hard plastic containers and toys, the lining … Read More

Can you imagine a catcher without a pitcher? Lennon without McCartney?   A working functional democracy without a responsive, talented public service?  I can't. One of the many weaknesses of my early advocacy career was ignorance about  the individuals who make … Read More

When the Keilburger brothers, Craig and Marc, were born they probably fixed the broken cribs in the nursery, persuaded all the mothers to buy some rocking chairs and rallied all the babies into a cry against infant formula. All mere … Read More

 "You say you got a real solution.    Well, you know, we'd love to see the plan. You ask me for a contribution. Well, you know, we're all doing what we can. But if you want money for people with minds … Read More

Ah bureaucracy – the institution we love to make fun of, to ridicule, to denounce.  Paradoxically it is attacked for its abuse of power and its bungling inefficiency.  Yes there is red tape,  yes there is insensitivity, yes there is … Read More