Jack Ricchiuto

It’s interesting talking to non-profit service providers recently here in the States about how they measure successful growth in their mission-based programs and organizations.

Two curious themes: growth in their served populations and growth through competition with other providers. What’s interesting is they are both based on the same vision that the community gets worse for the success of the non-profit, even though every respectable non-profit will give duplicitous lip service to a goal of "putting ourselves out of business."

It’s the same metric hospital systems have, evidenced by the fact that no hospital administrator can go to the hospital’s board and argue the case for lower census because the hospital is actually making its community healthier. And as long as this is the prevailing model, funders are complicit in its propagation.

As long as non-profit is code for hoping the community grows in its failure to thrive, it is a strategy against the sustainability of community well-being, and worth rethinking. No community dedicated to thrivancy can responsibly support any non-profit with this mission. The good news is that there is an emerging network of non-profits who are actually self-funding through social enterprises so they are free of the funder metric of numbers served rather than decreases in numbers served..

This year marks a milestone moment for women in the US.

Among mothers of all ages, a majority — 59 percent in 2009 — are married when they have children. But the surge of births outside marriage among younger women — nearly two-thirds of children in the United States are born to mothers under 30 — is both a symbol of the transforming family and a hint of coming generational change.

(via For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage - NYTimes.com.

The trend makes prognostication difficult. Will we finally return to child raising as a communal rather than couple or individual pursuit? Why is it that even with the risks otherwise, many children of single mothers grow to become more sociable than those born by married parents? Is a toxic marriage a better venue for the growth of happy children than that of a courageous and whole single woman?

What should be the approach by fathers to this trend and what should be the approach by social programs and services that support single mothers? What are the social entrepreneurship opportunities that abound?

Intensive conversations with friends in Shanghai this week reveal a striking contrast between the persistent uneducated perceptions by Americans of China’s present and recent past and the reality. As is often the case, the outside story pales in comparison to the richness of the inside narratives.

As it turns out, there are clear answers to questions about why China opened up its approach to economic growth, why this growth continues to outpace by several times that of the “superpower” US, and what portends the likely arc of growth into the future.

One of the compelling dynamics is that the Communist experiment in practice has revealed the cracks of unsustainable design features. The growth we have seen in the past ten years has evolved into the current state where the majority of businesses are private, wealth is growing and spreading, and the massive infrastructural strength will continue to support the economy.

Government corruption and ineptness continue to entitle party leaders, but with an increasingly benign impact on the economic growth imperative. The movement reflects the global trend toward business having more economic power than governments. The interesting divide to watch globally now is between countries where governments has the power edge over businesses and those where businesses have power edges over their governments.

Either way, we will need leaders who are less driven by corruption and ineptitude or shameless greed and lack of moral compass. To become a thriving planet, we will need leaders who are expert and socially responsible instead.

I received great feedback from an urban design leader about my updated model of the "ideal charette" that convenes professionals, stakeholders, and communities in the development of outstanding improvements and innovations in urban contexts.

One of the key ideas is to interview the business people who most frequently interact with people who frequent urban spaces. We're talking about bartenders and baristas, personal service salon professionals, safety people, taxi drivers, and hot dog vendors ... anyone who is most likely to hear about people's experiences in urban spaces.

Beyond asking them what they hear, how could they be proactively primed with inquiries to make their impressions even more robust?

I’m a designer and writer working with groups in organizations, communities, and networks, designing the best ways for them to work together to make a difference. I work with boards, leadership and operational teams, project teams, civic and community groups, and strategic planning teams.

As a writer, I’m author of 8 books and the 7 year old daily blog, jackzen.com. I’ve written for local and national publications including Smart Business andProjects@Work magazines and have been quoted in Entrepreneur Magazineand Harvard Business Review. I also teach writing to new writers, post-doc students, and publishing faculty.

For over 30 years, I’ve been working independently and in collaboration with international and national consulting firms. My work as designer spans 24 industries and a variety of urban, rural, and virtual communities.

I continue teaching and curriculum design with undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctorate programs in colleges and universities including Kent State, UC Berkeley and Vanderbilt Universities. I have been a leadership mentor to post-doc scientists at MIT, Harvard, and Tufts Universities. My seminal work on strengths-based leadership continues to be the basis for the culture of Chicago-based company US Cellular into the thriving business multi-billion dollar business it is today. It is also the focus for developing the top US environmental and sustainability leaders and innovators.

I have worked with all levels and functions of groups in Aerospace, Architecture, Automotive, Bio Tech, Communications, Consulting, Consumer Products, Commercial Products, Community Development, Design/Build Firms, Economic Development, Education, Sustainability, Finance, Government, Health Care, Information Technology, Internet Startups, Legal & Accounting, Manufacturing, Marketing, Non-Profit Services, Publishing/Media. I have recently been named as one of the top 10 experts in Social Network sciences in the world.

My undergraduate degree is from John Carroll University (1974) and graduate degree from Goddard College, Vermont (1980). In my early training in my 20's, I was mentored by the pioneers in American, European, and Japanese models of personal growth and development. I have been a mentor with the Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellows Program and act as content and process expert to other national consulting firms including the Cobalt Group, the Capacity Institute, and ParallaxFusion.