The 2nd installment of perspectives on peace and non-violence for a ChangeMakers project funded by the Kalamazoo Community Foundation. This project is also supported by Skyridge Church of the Brethren. 

By Scott Spicer, founder and Senior Partner of Spicer's Consulting and its private social venture Reaching Inward and Seeking Empowerment.

When trying to make social change, we are often faced with the ongoing challenge of organizing people around a particular issue that everyone has a different interpretation of. Often times it may be very clear and logical to you regarding what exactly you are intending to change, how you'd like to accomplish it and what steps need to be taken in order to obtain a measurable success. Yet, as we all learn outside of the bubble of theory that the actual practice of this effort is much more complicated; creating an opportunity for beauty and chaos all within the course of one initiative. 

I reflect in particular on this related to a new project I've started that is our current and first funded campaign for RISE. Having the opportunity to bring youth and adults together to talk about promoting peace and non violence is an amazing one and it is so, for many reasons. The most significant one is the learning experience that this will bring and for myself, the organizer as well in a unique way. What makes this different and applicable to the topic of this entry is that the focus for this initiative on social change takes the traditional learning model one step further. This is exactly what community organizing in today's era coupled with social change, entrepreneurship, social media and evidence based social marketing strategies can and will do. 

source: google images via socialchangequotes.wordpress.com

So, while working on a way to effectively accomplish our goals on the topics of peace, non violence and cross generational dialog, we must remind ourself that although we need to acheive outcomes it is about the process. Sometimes this can feel like herding cats, but unless we intend to make everyone do things the way we want by functioning as a wolf in sheep's clothing, the negative side of these analogies will never change. 

Instead, we can focus on the excellent group of individuals, agencies and community leaders who are helping to make this project a success. We can capitalize on the opportunities to host a 2 hour workshop where we will generate ideas and strategies based on RISE's model which are created by the people who live and understand the issue and not the machine that drives the social change engine. Stay tuned for more updates as our workshop is happening soon and we hope to share all the great ideas that came about right here on this site and through our social media networks. The culminating activity will be a billboard ad, running in August. Happy early Independence Day.