David Griesing | Work Life Reward Author | Philadelphia

  • Blog
  • About
    • Biography
    • Teaching and Training
  • Book
    • WorkLifeReward
  • Newsletter Archive
  • Contact
You are here: Home / Archives for Being Part of Something Bigger than Yourself

Let the Crowds Fund Your Work

July 5, 2012 By David Griesing 1 Comment

We all want to do work that matters. But, as often as not, you won’t find that kind of work in the want ads.  It’s rarely work that somebody else gives you to do.  As often as not, you need to give yourself the kind of work that will change the world.

Early on in my forthcoming book WorkLifeReward: Following Your Values to Fulfilling Work is the line:

 If you want the world to be a better place, you need to help it become that better place.

The main way to do so, of course, is through the work you do.  So if you don’t think the work you’re doing—that is, your selling whatever it is that you’re selling today—is making the world into the kind of better place you want it to be, maybe it’s time to think about working at something that will make that kind of difference.

These posts are about encouraging you to think differently about your work.  They aim to raise what I call “value awareness,” so you have a clearer view of the color and texture of the better world you’d like to encourage with your efforts.  Sometimes they aim to help you become the most effective spokesperson you can be while striving to achieve your goals.  And sometimes the discussion here is about ways to make the productive work you want to do easier.

This post is about one of those booster rockets. Something has gotten a lot easier.

SEED CAPITAL

Creating a business model for a better world, where you and your co-conspirators are doing work that matters, takes energy, creativity, vision, tenacity, luck.  And it takes money that either you provide, or that people investing in your vision of a better world put in your hands.

In the good old days the money came almost exclusively from your own bank account or from friends and family.  (It was the era when those who already had money were usually the ones making more of it.)  On top of that, only a tiny percentage of new ideas—whether promising to change the world or not—managed to find venture capital.  So if you or a rich uncle weren’t providing the cash, even your brilliance, best intentions and limitless energy were often not enough to overcome the funding constraints all new companies that produce work need in order to survive.

But there’s some good news.  It’s a brand new day!

Today, crowdfunding websites give you the ability to make a direct appeal to individuals or groups who may be interested in supporting what you’re doing—because your kind of work is work that matters to them too.

You tell your story.  You identify your goal. The crowd decides whether to invest in it.  Usually harvested in small dollar amounts, it is hundreds, even thousands of small investments funneled through the crowdfunding site that can put the financial fuel in a new company’s tank.

As an entrepreneur, you promise to give your investors a tangible return on their investment.  It could be a letter from a grateful child your company has helped, a picture of the tree planted “because you invested,” or, if you are producing a brave new product or service, periodic updates on solutions to problems no one had gotten around to tackling before.

You get the idea.

For providing the conduit between you and your new investors, crowdfunding websites like MicroVentures, peerbackers, and IndieGoGo are generally paid a small percentage of what you collect—sometimes as little as 5%, when you hit your fundraising target.

LINE UP YOUR INVESTORS photo/John Cooper

What’s news this week (according to the Wall Street Journal) is that crowdfunding has its first “poster child.”

The Cinderella story is about how a little company called Pebble Technology developed a “smart” wristwatch that can display apps and connect to your smart phone to notify you about incoming tweets and Facebook updates.  But 26-year old Eric Migicovsky was almost out of money, living and working with his only employee in a rented condo, and ready to call it quits.

He took his case for financing the manufacture of his smart watch to crowdfunding site Kickstarter, looking for $100,000.  The ROI: everyone investing $115 would get one of his watches.

In its first 28 hours on Kickstarter, Pebble raised more than a million dollars. By mid-May, it had taken in a total of $10.27 million from 68,929 people!  Now Eric’s problems involve things like working with a manufacturing facility in China to produce all those watches.  But it also looks a lot like his work dream has become a reality.

Everybody needs to make a living.

What sometimes seems like the impossibility of getting both a paycheck and fulfillment from your work makes many of us reluctant to leave our paychecks for work that gives us the opportunity to make a living and to truly live.

Crowdfunding is reducing that risk.

Filed Under: *All Posts, Being Part of Something Bigger than Yourself, Entrepreneurship, Introducing Yourself & Your Work Tagged With: business models for a better world, crowdfunding, fulfillment, more than a living, productive work, social entrepreneur, Thinking differently about your work, work that matters

On Having Courage and Dignity Under Fire

June 22, 2012 By David Griesing 1 Comment

You pursue work that matters because you want to leave the world a better place than you found it. By doing so however, you

inevitably run afoul of those who want to keep everything more or less like it is.

Attracting controversy also pushes you into the spotlight. With the lights in your eyes and a welter of voices clamoring around you, the heat of the moment calls upon you to say and do things that can either advance your goals, or set them back.

How you’ll respond at such times is important. It’s helpful to think about it, start visualizing how you want these moments to play out before they arrive.

While there are many who have handled these situations badly, there are also those who have summoned up the kind of amazing grace we can learn from. This past week brought just such a lesson.

Margaret Farley is a nun, a member of the Sisters of Mercy, and the emerita professor of social ethics at Yale Divinity School, where she has taught for 40 years. Throughout, she has been a celebrated teacher as well as the author of numerous books and articles, including Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics (New York, 2006).

Last week, after concluding an investigation that had lasted 3 ½ years, the Vatican’s Magisterium (or Teaching Office) condemned Just Love, because it “affirms positions that are in direct contradiction with Catholic teaching in the field of sexual morality” and therefore “cannot be used as a valid expression of Catholic teaching, either in counseling or formation, or in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue.”

In other words, the views Margaret Farley expressed in her book put her outside the boundaries of her faith. Her teaching itself—through argument and discussion in her book—was found to be an improper path for believers to follow in seeking either truth or understanding.

A half century ago, Margaret Farley chose to commit her life to a religious vocation of teaching within the Church. Since then, her work and her life have been united by this spiritual purpose.

Given her choices, the judgment she received last week is different than the rebuke of an employer, on the one hand, or the criticism of vested interests you are challenging, on the other. In each instance, what she has faced is more extreme.

The leaders of her own community of believers have publicly found that her work is incompatible with those shared beliefs. They have defined her as standing separate and apart from them. For a citizen, the word would be “traitor.” In a community of believers, it is usually “heretic.” Imagine standing where she stands today.

My aim here is not to take a side in this controversy but to comment on how Margaret Farley has conducted herself and continued her work in the midst of it. It is her courage and dignity—not her scholarship—that is teaching us today.

Her response was: Simple. Straightforward. Clear. Amidst a blizzard of media commentary (including in the New York Times and Washington Post) Margaret Farley issued one statement and gave one interview. She said her book was never intended to express “official Catholic teaching” but rather to help people “think through their questions about human sexuality.” It was an effort to move away from “taboo morality” and bring “present-day scientific, philosophical, theological, and biblical resources” into the discussion.

Not Angry or Contentious, but Disappointed about issues never addressed and opportunities lost. The Church said: “Sister Farley either ignores the constant teaching of the Magisterium or, where it is occasionally mentioned, treats it as one opinion among others.” She, in turn, asked: “Should power settle questions of truth?”

If we come to know a little more than we knew before, it might be that the conclusions we had previously drawn need to be developed, or even let go of. [To say that wasn’t possible] would be to imply that we know everything we need to know and nothing more need be done.

Not Seeking the Spotlight, but Standing her Ground once she was in it. Because the Church “is still a source of real life for me, it’s worth the struggle. It’s worth getting a real backbone that has compassion tied to it.”

Margaret Farley was my teacher at Yale. I know her as humble and earnest: engaged like the best teachers, careful like the best scholars. I sense enormous reluctance in her notoriety: for her to be taken as a champion for divorce or gay marriage, or even as a spokesperson for believers who are drifting from their Church because of its difficulties addressing questions of gender and sexuality. But her reluctance does not preclude her resolve—and this is where we find her today.

Once Margaret Farley was thrust into the spotlight, she knew what to do.

Filed Under: *All Posts, Being Part of Something Bigger than Yourself, Heroes & Other Role Models Tagged With: alive, better world, capable, clarity, controversy at work, empowered, grounded, inspiration, potent, productive, purpose- driven work and life, role model, social ethics, visualize, vocation

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23

About David

David Griesing (@worklifeward) writes from Philadelphia.

Read More →

Subscribe to my Newsletter

Join all the others who have new posts, recommendations and links to explore delivered to their inboxes every week. Please subscribe below.

David Griesing Twitter @worklifereward

My Forthcoming Book

WordLifeReward Book

Search this Site

Recent Posts

  • The Democrat’s Near-Fatal “Boys & Men” Problem June 30, 2025
  • Great Design Invites Delight, Awe June 4, 2025
  • Liberating Trump’s Good Instincts From the Rest April 21, 2025
  • Delivering the American Dream More Reliably March 30, 2025
  • A Place That Looks Death in the Face, and Keeps Living March 1, 2025

Follow Me

David Griesing Twitter @worklifereward

Copyright © 2025 David Griesing. All Rights Reserved.

  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy