A big thank you for the calls, emails and texts I got in support of my last posting. In just a short week, I've had to remind myself several times of the lessons of the moment. It is hard to hold yourself to carefully selected words. More than a few times this week I feel like I didn't extend as much grace as I could have or used words in the moment that later I regretted even having taken a position on. Its a learning process, and I'll be my own critic. This year I will make progress.. better yet- this week I will make progress. I should surround myself with all things Swiss and breathe in the refreshing air of neutrality. Unfortunately, my passion and quick response are things I'm still learning to master.
On another front, we met with a guy named Joel today. This was our official first meeting between capstone team and the party we're going to be "working" for. Right now, the project's still not completely solidified, and I think we left feeling that putting together a strategic plan would be a big enough project in and of itself. As a stretch- I question as to whether we could walk this group through the launch of a nonprofit (and somewhere deep inside I shudder as that sounds like nails on a chalkboard to one who knows this market is already overly saturated with nonprofits), and the detailing of an MOU between this new org and the organization Joel has officially approached to help launch the project.
The reasons I suggest considering the nonprofit status is it allows for a little more independence and creative freedom than being under a national banner that has to keep some policies in place just cause thats how you protect your branding. At the same time, to a project that has the opportunity to span out from this org's dedicated mission, it could lead to conflict and limit potential, had this project been given free reign to take on its own life. I think it needs this organization in its infant state, and thus would not even consider branching this project into its own org without the backing of this well rooted charity.
Course, then again- this project could potentially serve as a product, and thus a nonprofit isn't exactly a good match either. It would have to be some sort of quasi organization... more research needs to be done. We have a research project in my Business, Society, and Public Policy class- so, I think I've made a match and will begin on my capstone in this semester by researching options for establishement for the project.
Stay tuned- I'll try to walk through the development of our capstone in the case you can learn anything from our example/ mistakes.
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