Daniel Lubetzky

KIND was honored as a Responsibility Pioneer in the September 20, 2009 edition of TIME.  Richard Stengel, Managing Editor of TIME inc. described it as such:

our first list of 25 Responsibility Pioneers, which includes a range of social innovators, from individual activists and nimble nonprofits to megacorporations [includes companies like Starbucks, Gap, General Electric and PeaceWorks.]

Here is the feature on KIND/PeaceWorks.

Additionally, in the same issue our new KINDED website (www.kinded.com) was featured as one of their recommended “New Ways to Make a Difference."

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David Brooks wrote an interesting column on the working values America desperately needs to regain in order to forestall a national economic decline amidst hedonistic indulgence and overspending beyond its peoples’ and its government’s means. 

Immigrants with nothing to fall back on tend to work hard and build themselves.  Children of rich and successful people are less likely to have that same work ethic.  At a macro level, the same challenge befalls nations as a whole.  How do we regain the work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit tied to long-term value creation rather than short-term debt escalation?

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From Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs:

You have to, in your own life, get people to want to work with you and want to help you. The organizational chart, in my opinion, means very little. I need my bosses’ goodwill, but I need the goodwill of my subordinates even more. Because they can make it easy for me to get information. They’ll come to me and say: “Look at this. Do this.” Or they can give it to me begrudgingly, if they’re hostile.

Now why would they be hostile? Why would they be negative? Why would they be slow to give me information? Because they thought I wasn’t good for them. They thought I’d be bad for them.

Life is always about contracts that you make with people. Very few of them are written. Most of them are implicit, and most of them evolve out of a course of dealing and understanding. And if you are good for your people, they’ll be good to you, and help you and help propel you up in your career.

By the way, being good to them doesn’t mean you pay them more or you’re more liberal, or you let them get away with things. Most people, what they want is to be better. They want to work for a great organization. They want to feel good about themselves. They want to not so much get promoted, as be promotable. They want to evolve. And if you’re the kind of person that they think will help them do that, they’ll give you a loyalty that’s the most sincere kind of loyalty.

from NYTimes interview: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/business/13corner.html?sq=lessons%20learned%20at%20goldman&st=cse&scp=2&pagewanted=print

Time Magazine wrote a very compelling piece about "The High Price of Cheap Food." It should be required reading, as should the movie Food Inc. and Michael Pollan’s books, which presumably inspired this article.

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Alina Tugend wrote a piece last week in the New York Times that I think contains some valuable insights about how to give and receive criticism.

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Ben Cohen, one of my mentors and founding Board members of PeaceWorks, is truly one of the great social marketing geniuses of all time. Much of the reason for it is that he BELIEVES in what he does.

And now they did it again, with, as my team member Phil shared, "a gutsy (and arguably brilliant) branding move" – to rename "Chubby Hubby" to "Hubby Hubby" in support of marriage equality. 

My friend Andrew McLaughlin had pointed me to this very cool video and this post a while back – re Technology and the White House transition – and I only now got to see it.  The way the new techies in the White House are thinking about government and governance is really innovative – they are literally finding ways to increase transparency, efficiency and value-creation by combining the power of government with technology and entrepreneurial thinking.  Take a look at the idea in minute 1:55:

here is a cool story about a Ugandan coffee cooperative of Muslims, Christians and Jews working side by side to make quality coffee.  Very similar to the PeaceWorks model we introduced 15 years ago.  But so cool to see the initiative coming from the African community.

The company that imports and markets the product, Thanksgiving Coffee Company, seems very sincerely motivated and professional.  And an NGO named Kulanu apparently catalyzed this venture.  Nice job!

Thanks to "Ava" from Skinny And the City for her really nice coverage of KIND and what we are aiming to achieve. This type of enthusiasm is what motivates us to do our very best.

She also has a contest out:

Skinny Contest: Have you done something KIND lately? Let us know what by e-mailing contests@skinnyandthecity.com by July 22nd, 5pm EST, and you could win a variety pack of these delicious bars.

From the site:
"We’ve been a fan of the Fruit + Nut for years. They’re all-natural bars chock full of nutrients and flavor. You can actually see whole pieces of nuts and fruit all mashed together and sweetened with a touch of honey. It’s an all-star bar, and now the new variety, KIND PLUS, has even more added nutrients such as calcium and antioxidants. Both are great snacks for in-between meals.
Another reason we love ‘em? KIND’s mission to spread KINDness all around. The founder started producing KIND after beginning PeaceWorks Inc., a business that strives to foster relationships between conflict regions all over the world…" Full story…

Thanks to BusinessWeek for sharing KIND’s success and momentum getting into Starbucks.