that is where we will go huddle around to make sure she is ok and she's the most important one because she's the most vulnerable one. it's up to your resilience in that case, it's very much up to your connectedness and your neighbors if you are not technologically proficient. who haveere old people cell phones? >> probably. >> i feel like my parents are e-mail than anybody. >> i have an editor who doesn't have a cell phone at all will stop >> i think it is a dwindling minority. if there issee anyone else out there? >> i'm a journalist and author. the malaysian airliner tragedy struck home for me. in sriin -- i lived lanka for a number of years and

used to look to the indian ocean. there wasn't much between there and antarctica. if people need to be reminded of how remote that stretch where down,hink the jets went not only remote in terms of how far apart it was from the landmass but how really gnarly does conditions, via she and a conditions and the seafloor top agar fee, we are talking 15,000 feet deep. think is this going revivingatalyst for school curricula around geography and particularly maritime geography? were completely clueless. how could the plane be lost?

we are talking about huge , did you getace developing any kind of educational program around it. shows the worst place or the best place -- >> you could not calculate a better place to her personally lose that they. >> there have been a lot of calls not about education, but we should change the air traffic system. unfortunately, we still have no idea why this plane went

missing. how youd to figure out make sure it doesn't happen again. we don't have a single scrap of theence will stop authorities announced they are going to spend at least a year mapping these very remote -- scanning it with other kinds of one -- sevensed on obtained from the satellite transmissions of which amount to parts or billion of a frequency shift. these independent experts are scattered around the world,

trying to make sense of how the frequency shift relates to the timing data from the frequency art. the point is it doesn't match up very well. , it willption had been was lost from malaysian radar and at some point there after, it flew a straight line. it doesn't work. the electronic data doesn't support it. the plane circled for 50 minutes or it landed and took it went south when we don't understand why. i'm rambling here. understand how easy it is to get lost in this world.

the country is. imagine you are driving in an endless nebraska. nothing after nothing after nothing. winter down there, it's thousands of miles from the nearest word. it is insane. nobody calls for a more geographical education. a great question. >> i wonder if you have open street maps for digital volunteers -- several places that are well mapped, unlike the united states, i wonder if there will be an emergence of open ocean mapping? you canately, i think imagine a google street view of everywhere. you could be on the bottom of the ocean or -- if this plane is

in the bottom of the indian robot isme google looking there. that would be really sad. i take comfort in knowing there's some mountain lurking in the eternal darkness of the southern indian ocean that nobody has ever seen. i like to have some mysteries in the world. it's scary that everything is in a database somewhere. let's open it up again. how about over here? curious in your experience and in your work, if you could talk about how gender factors into getting lost and the consequences or abilities to do so.

>> i'm a guy wondering the world on my own. i suppose i have less to fear about getting lost or winding up in a strange place than women might, but that's a ridiculous thing to say. i've met so many women on my travels who are off doing crazy and strange wings. women who hitchhike across landy, women who drive rovers across namibia on their own. ways iflimited in some you think about how you are limited to stop >> what about in terms of getting messages out to people? i would rather drive around a circle or an hour than stop and ask somebody where i went wrong.

think about the -- i'mdivide very often pontificating here. women probably make up much more than half of the followers on the red cross on facebook. they seem to be the ones who are interested in connecting with the safety than men are at a broad glance. ramifications in being lost or not being lost. >> the vast sections of the population -- you could say information for women 25 to 45. >> we can do some of that but i don't know if i have all that much intelligence about it right now. >> we don't know.

have traveledd i a fair bit. talking, i are wanted to talk about the future of serendipity. result in us losing our fallibility as human beings. this fourth of july and got hopelessly lost using gps. we don't pay attention and react fast enough. what is interesting, you talked about the serendipity of meeting people will stop whether you are connected were not is where technology takes us. if you are using the sun or traveling through the empty quarter or whatever, you meet people through happen chance.

i think that is interesting rather than the idea of getting lost. >> one of the great things i like about the word getting lost is the english language phrases that love getting lost. you get lost in the moment. there are ways it lends itself to all of these types of serendipity. thise been involved in project where we have been working with ibm on a recipe developing a piece of software. -- you give it in gradients quintilian'swith of combinations. that is the thing.

it's an amazing piece of technology that finds things you would have otherwise never imagine for yourself. then it is up to you to cook it they are using things like spotify that can help you discover things. >> it does come down to actually doing it yourself, following directions or not following directions, meeting people are not meeting people. what happens then it is not up to us. word serendipity. that you are open to the unexpected. >> serendipity comes from a piece of literature like the sands of and an imaginary place in the middle east or near east that is where we get serendipity. but that's great to know. how about right here?

isi'm not sure if this relevant, but i don't understand how 200 girls in africa have been lost for three months. the people who took them are using technology, i don't know why they can be found. >> that's a great question. similar angle with the malaysian airliner where people are trying to make you get lost. if the human ingenuity is working cross purposes to human ingenuity, you can get through it with an insoluble problem here. againstgy is being used technology. we've had some of the limits or #activism,vism

the ability of masses of people to bring attention to people and we talked about how that has doubled up during the malaysian thing. kony,her analog is joseph tony 2012 -- that was probably one of the most massive campaigns we've seen in terms of online activism and it was all the eyes now focused on hold premise was let's make him famous in that will lead to some sort of capture. we he is still out there and haven't found most of these tols, so there are limits what technology can do, if you it goesle with black back to a basic human connection. the girls in nigeria will probably be found because someone informed on them and

told the authorities where these girls actually are. it's like osama bin laden. for years and years, the most hunted guy in the world but it was through human connections and people speaking face to face. >> and they track someone's cell phone? courier, it had the was about actually speaking to people and not texting them. >> i like camping in the debt -- i went camping in the desert one summer and went camping during the night. lost.completely you learn about yourself when you are lost. have brought my phone. andestion between nature

urban getting lost. do you have a different mindset when you get lost in h or an lost in the city? to do theset out getting lost here, i did not want to die. my wife would have been upset -- it's easy to get lost in the wilderness. i want to get lost in places where it is technically hard to do this. the hardest place to get lost was a place i've tried to get lost -- i tried to get lost in paris. to try to get lost in a place you know really well, it's much harder to do than getting lost in the desert or in the woods.

getting't recommend lost in the desert or in the woods because i don't want any of you to die or get eaten by bears. great anecdote -- a great antidote. knowingirst is not where you are and then thinking you know where you are. the fashion part of canch-and-rescue -- people act in very strange ways when they are lost. lake and thisa one has a boat on it and the other one didn't. you think maybe somebody ought a boat -- there was an amazing and thesed about people got lost and came to a stream and convince themselves

this must be the stream that leads to their camp except their camp is uphill and basically they convince themselves that for some reason, the river was flowing uphill and didn't know why, but i had to be because there camp had to be there and that is the kind of when you are ,ost and you go find yourselves i know a and i know be, these things are impossible. know mywhen you confidence is waning. there is a moment that comes. woods, --re in the several years ago when survival on tv,ere just starting the best one was survivor man. the host or the star carried

around a sack of camera gear and was miserable most of the time and he had a good sense of his own emotional balance as he was completely lost. great morning away from doing stupid things and he knew what he was doing. he was not as cute as bear grills and did not have the sexy british accent. >> i think we have time for one more. >> something i like to do from time to time is go on google somet view and just find

obscure road somewhere and virtually drive around there. for whatever reason. feelings ofget your a completelyelf in unknown place in the comfort of your own home and how that compares to getting lost. oni rode a traveler story the virtual staycation. it's fun. it is amazing that you can see these corners of the earth on google street view and google earth will stop >> you can be underwater or under a nice cap. >> it's the real thing. you can go and make coffee. >> i went to an sylvania recently and i like when i'm

feeling paranoid to go and look at the weird turn signal. you can put itself in the intersection and see what it is like. you have the weird déjà vu and you feel like you have been here before. >> he is still there waiting for you. you probably noticed that you 7:40ere in the summertime 4 -- should we pull one more out of the crowd? pick one from out of the back. >> with all of the talk of we havechnology,

technology for everything. around my age are starting to go back to basics a little bit. it seems ridiculous that it seems like a fad that will it reach a plateau of how much we integrate our lives with technology or is it a path of no return? are we going to do microchips or are we going to go back to basics and trying to be prepared without having to google everything? i totally hear you -- guys wandering around williamsburg with handlebar mustaches and the maker movement -- i think we are all feeling the same kind of nostalgia for real things and

hand powered and a sense of connection because everything feels virtual. you can start wondering around the world and feel like you are in google street view all the time. think it's a really exciting time right now. i remember being fascinated with the phone in the car. from going to eat burgers and we would do upside down texts on the beepers. timee in this fascinating where we don't know where we are heading and we are still figuring it out. i sympathize with that and find myself -- i often get yelled at my girlfriend to put the phone down and just be in the moment. i do desire that and think we will find some sort of equilibrium with that but at the

end of the day, a lot of these technologies are designed to be addictive. there is this catch 22 -- the more we use them, the moral a figure out how to make the products more addictive. as much as we may have that years, we may find out from now that these are like cigarettes when they came out to stop then you just learn grandma, but the cigarette out. i do think we are in this new and exciting time right now and we will find some equilibrium at some point. >> i think we are still pretty nascent. we are just getting the internet of things where every part of you can be attracted and you can make the most efficient decisions about consumerism or

whatever else you are doing will the punk kids created straight edge, where they don't drink or use drugs or any of that tough. i'm waiting for the technology straight edge movement. may be it is here. it will be an interesting dichotomy to watch people try to hold on to that feeling of finding serendipity without the technology. >> i will be the opposite end of that will stop you cannot escape it. the maker stuff is great. there are a ton of people in toir 20's who are returning print media who want to have something to hold, but that's in opposition to the overwhelming

with9% of the world greater integration of technology. we will have devices that are close, your cool jacket will play these again know where you are. it will give you status updates on the wrist of your sleeve. that's going to happen and it's going to happen faster than anyone expects. >> and it's not going to be optional westmark >> -- not going to be optional? >> it will be so ubiquitous, it will be the same as getting a custom-made suit. instead of just getting what's available everywhere. gap and old navy and forever 21 is selling the stuff that has technology integrated -- it's like everything

everywhere, what are you going to do? >> i think both of you hit on something interesting. the technology is not just this desire to connect, but optimizing the experience. all hyperaware of what everyone else is doing and what everyone else has previously done. there was an article going around about this restaurant in new york and they were trying to figure out -- i don't know if it but they'ves -- been trying to optimize their service over the past 20 years and they've been getting nowhere and they've been trying to do a bunch of stuff with their staff. 20 years ago, people were coming into the restaurant with the menu and now the first thing we do is sit down with our phones. we want to know what is the best thing to order right here. it's the same with travel. i'm going to spain, i'm going to

barcelona -- what are the two or three restaurants i have to visit while i'm here for fear on missing out on those moments where you may find something someone else has and then get someone else hasn't found yet. reallytimizing might steps? should i take 22 more steps before i go to sleep? thing to try to put out of your mind because we are brought up in this world to try and therebest writers are a lot of ways to enable that. as much as we want to go back a little bit, i feel the same way. >> i can't top that. let's call that good. thank you all for coming. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> coming up next, the founder of the d.c. central kitchen on the important -- importance of nonprofit organizations in the community. it is followed by a discussion about the dangers of us decides in genetically modified food. later, a look at honeybees used by the military to scout

landmines and other weapons of mass destruction's. on5:25, a recent summit blooming the schools held by the obama administration. later tonight, debate on evolution and creationism between bill nye the science guy and ken ham, founder of the creation museum. here's a preview. >> inherent in this worldview is that somehow know him and his family were able to build a wooden ship that would house 14,000 individuals. there is a boy and a girl for each one of those, so 14,000 people and these people were unskilled. had never built a wooden ship before. furthermore, they had to get all these animals on their and they had to feed them. i understand mr. hamm has some

explanations for that which i frankly find extraordinary. this is the premise of the bit. we can then run a test, a scientific test. people in the early 1900 built an extraordinarily large wooden ship, the wyoming will stop it was a six masted schooner, the largest one ever built. it had a motor on it for winching cables and stuff will stop but this vote had great the -- this boat had a great ethical be. it was not as big as the titanic. it would twist in the sea. it would twist this way, this way and this way. in all of that twisting, it leaked like crazy. the crew could not keep the ship dry and indeed it foundered and sank with a loss of all 14 hands. so there were 14 crewmen aboard a ship built by very skilled

shipwrights in new england. these guys were the best in the world at wooden ship the link as they could not open boat big as the ark is claimed to have been. we have evidence confirming one race. when we look at the human population, we see lots of differences. based on darwin's idea of human evolution, darwin did teach there are lower races and higher races. would you believe in the 1900s, one of the most popular biology textbooks used in the public schools in america top this -- at the present time there exists upon earth five races or varieties of man and the highest type or the caucasians represented by the civilized white inhabitants of europe. could you imagine if that was in the public schools today? it was based on darwin's ideas that are wrong. you have a wrong foundation, you will have a wrong world view.

>> you can see all of that easternonight at 8:00 here on c-span. 2 -- taking back power and culture in the digital a's -- digital age. released3, recently letters from president harding detailing his love affair. that's tonight on the c-span networks. >> here is a look at some of our programming this week on the c-span networks. on c-span, tuesday at 8 p.m. eastern -- oral argument in the case of the aclu versus clever -- versus clapper. a challenge to the national security agency's phone surveillance program. wednesday at 7:00 p.m. -- live coverage between the north, craddick -- was carolina democratic senate debate.

then a hearing on sexual assault on college campuses. thesday night at 8:00, senate agriculture committee looks into school lunch nutrition. life:00 p.m. eastern, coverage of the california governors debate between incumbent jerry brown and challenger neil -- kari. tuesday night, elizabeth drew talks about her 1975 book "washington journal was quoted by the news coverage of watergate. "afterwards."t, it's about law enforcement's increasing use of surveillance technology. and emily miller on her book which describes her efforts to get license to own a handgun in washington dc. on american history tv on c-span3, historians discuss the battle of ladin's bird in the burning of washington in 1812. then live coverage of a symposium marking the 200th

anniversary of the war. our live coverage continues all day thursday beginning at 8:30 a.m.. find our television schedule at c-span.org and let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. on twitter, use the #c one to three or send us an e-mail to comments at c-span.org. join the conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. now, discussion on the importance of nonprofit organizations, leadership and community action with the d.c. central agent founder, robert edgar. his are marks are part of the community action partnership annual convention which marks its 50th anniversary this year. >> i'm going to pause here and take -- and introduce our speaker, robert edgar.

i met robert eight or nine years ago. has been a while. if you read his book "taking for change" if you know his work with tc central kitchen, i've been calling him the steve jobs of the nonprofit sector. he is a pretty cool guy and we are excited to have him here. he will perhaps make us think a little differently. you may not agree with everything. i encourage you to keep your questions at hand. we will posit the end for a q&a. have those questions at the ready when we open the floor. robert ton it over to lead us to the keynote. robert. [applause] >> thank you, thank you, thank you. it's a pleasure to be back in washington dc. you know i've spent the last 40 years here in the

nation's capital, but i have been decamped to the community of my youth, los angeles, where i am opening up the l.a. kitchen right now. to leave that we're going to get to transition, but nothing fills the heart or that walking the streets you are familiar with all the i've spent the past couple of days visiting old friends, seeing old colleagues, going down to the biggest shelter in america where i spent 21 years making a role, just like many of you in the room will stop at the same time, washington, dc is a town that allows you to reinspired yourself will stop -- reinspired yourself. i looked around the room when i first came in and to be honest, i looked around and i don't see a lot of people who were that old when it was signed. i looked around the room and i was six years old.

i'm 56 now and i look around the room and there are a few people who are older than i am, but for many of us, the signing and that you're a at inspired so much mud the leaders of that era who oftentimes decorate the walls of our offices are things that are memories of our youth. they are things that basically kept our parents and our older brothers and sisters active, and i looked on as a young man with great, great interest. that is one of the reasons i love coming back to d.c. i don't like getting too far ahead of myself, but one of the things i like is robert kennedy's grave in arlington cemetery. i have often found myself walking across memorial bridge to go across and visit because -- as i said, d.c. is a town full of things that inspire, but as a young man living in southern california, i woke up that morning in june.

my father came in the room and gave me the news that robert kennedy had passed. as many of you know, this was just two months after dr. king was murdered in memphis, tennessee. that was a hard year in america. as tough as times are now for our parents and grandparents, that summer must have seemed like a miracle was just on the edge. it was give or take. know, after his brother was assassinated, robert kennedy went into a deep depression. really, can't get out of bed kind of depression. dark am a dark place. he slowly reinvented himself. the robert kennedy many of us remember is a very different man than the man who helped run his brother's campaign. too many he was somewhat of a ruthless man, and he was definitely the man you would

have to deal with if you messed with his brother. john kennedy like many ceo's in the room, got to be the nice leader, while the development director and the coo had to do the hard lifting every day. as a young man i became very enamored of robert kennedy. as many of you know in his journey, his resurrection, he went to cape town, south africa and spoke at the university there. i urge you young men and women in the audience, and frankly anyone who has not taken the opportunity -- the glory of the internet is you can go on and hear the speeches and that is one of the best speeches you will ever hear. on the walls of his grave are etched words that still speak to me. person stands up against injustice or fights for what is right, they send forth a small ripple of hope and daring and from all those energy sources, those ripples can create waves that will wash down

the mightiest walls of oppression. to this day, that still reminds me of why i do what i did. i came from southern california here -- really, all i wanted to do was open a nightclub. i have told this story too many times. [laughter] i want to be real clear here. many of us were inspired by those men and women in the day, who really risks things -- you things.isked that is something we need to talk about, risk. we have come to a point in the nonprofit sector, a crossroads where we have to understand the people we admire, the people we .2, we honor, they risked. they were not risking a grant. they were not risking a paycheck. they were risking jail. they were risking firebombs. they were risking police dogs.

that is risk. while i always advocate for calculated risk -- and i think it is time for the nonprofit sector to be much more daring -- i don't want us to be belligerent. i do not want us to think that our job is just to be opposed to things. we have tremendous power. and that is one of the things we will talk about, external as well as internal of the sector. leftyoung man, i california and i witnessed something that had stuck with me to this very day, which is my parents and their friends argued about politics. we talk about america being divided today. america has always been divided. and it has always been a frustrating struggle. my parents argued all the time about the politics of the day. yet at the end of the summer of '68, my parents had a party. i watched people who could not agree politically, my father put on a motown record and everybody ran to the dance floor.

as a young man, i thought, call me crazy, but the lyrics to this song is saying pretty much the exact same thing that robert kennedy and martin luther king said that got them killed. -- but people accepted it as entertainment. that is why i wanted to open a nightclub. i understood the power of music. the power of subterfuge. "oprah."be on we can talk about opera at a different time. opera is a preacher. she wants your soul. she disguised her spirituality as entertainment and let people land. that is what i have always aspired to. for me, running a nightclub was the power of music, theater, art, dance, comedy. to get people to open up and hear things. let's be honest -- most people in america are decent, kind, generous people. pouring buckets of ice on their heads raising

millions of dollars for als. people give almost $300 billion a year to charity in america. we have raised an entire generation, the millennial's, they have been raised doing service. 100 peopleively, 80, volunteer, and it is not money or time our faith. but most people as kind as they hold ontoto stereotypes. if you are poor, it is your fault. if you are in prison, you must have done something to deserve it. mayet go of that stereotype mean they have to think differently about their role. i am in the bravery business. our job is to make people brave of these old go ideas that hold us back.

for many of us who came up in that era, everything they taught me in church and in civics class, i witnessed as a young man on the streets of america in the 1960's. this is where people argued about things. and you are political about things and you ran for office if you thought you could change things. to me, that is what i thought it meant to be an american. that is the role i have chosen for myself. i came wanting to open a nightclub, but i went out one night, and i apologize because i tell the story too often, but i went by the state department on virginia avenue to serve people who are poor. again, there have always been people on the fringe of america, but this was becoming something too big to ignore. men, women, symptoms family sleeps in -- sleeping on the streets. i always say my name is robert and i am a recovering hypocrite. i spent my youth talking about

changing the world with music. someone said, that is great. go it on the street and feed one of your neighbors. i used every excuse in the world. i had all of these images of who i would encounter. i went out on this truck. i asked where does the food come from? i found out it had been purchased from the safeway in georgetown, which still remains one of the most expensive stores on the planet. i knew our restaurant industry, the industry i had grown up in, the industry i knew intimately -- because if you want to put on shows in the front, you better know the backend of the house -- i knew how much food we wasted every night. and before i don't want, can we thank the men and women who served as our lunch today? [applause] food was being thrown away. but more importantly, and this is where we really get to the

meat of our conversation today. rainy night ina washington, d.c., and commits to feeding minute women who had street as theyhe had night after night. i realized i was the one being served. i was seeing for the first time that while charity is not a bad thing, what it had become was more about, as i like to say, the redemption of the giver, not the liberation of the receiver. id that was what i decided wanted to flip. i came back a couple weeks later with a small business plan. this is what is important to our conversation. when we talk about transitional leadership, i was just a volunteer. i was just somebody who wanted to help. somebody came along with fresh eyes and looked at an old problem and a respected, historic solution or process and proposed something new.

i just said, look, not only can you get the food from the restaurants, the universities, the hospitals, bring them to a central kitchen -- not only can you feed more people better food for less money, but if you let go of the notion that men and women can wait in line for the or show up and embraced these minute women as neighbors and bring them out of the rain and start a little cooking school, you can train them for work. you can shorten the line. then you can repay the restaurants with entry-level people who will show up on time and start making the money. everybody would win. this is something that stuck with me ever since then. because every single person i went to, every single nonprofit told me it would not work. they come up with every kind of excuse you could imagine. these were not bad people. mind you, these were very decent, kind people. but the point is, they were so entrenched and they had so much ownership wrapped around the system as it existed that they were unwilling to see a new

opportunity. and it got to the point where someone challenged me -- would love in their heart, decent person, make no mistake -- they said, you know what, robert, you mean well, but you are naïve to think you can train men and women who are homeless to work in restaurants. restaurants will not hire those men and women. i said, you have never worked in a restaurant. [laughter] that is theows, island of misfit toys acting on those doors. i guarantee you, even today. to people were so resistant change, they were willing to see fellow humans as unable to rise up. that really stuck with me. now nobody -- nobody wakes up when they are 20, looks in the mirror and says, when i grow up, i want to lead a nonprofit and stifle innovation. you know? nobody wakes up and says, i want to be a boring old bureaucrat who just says no to everything. [laughter]

too many ofwe see our brothers and sisters have become trapped. they are not bad. you have to really resist. that is what we're going to talk about today. how can you stay true to the dreams of your yezidi echo that is something i look at. -- how can you stay true to the dreams of your youth? at. is something i look we all look at the mayor and full ourselves with the reflection. an honest reflection. how can i work toward the man i wanted to be when i was 12 years old and looked out at the leaders i saw being murdered? how can i be like that? there are lots of ways we do this. at the deasy central kitchen i was not the highest-paid employee. i was the founder. i was the president. but my sense of who i was was

not derived from my paycheck. my sense of leadership and the reason people followed me was not because i got the biggest check. the notion that that is what leadership looks like -- in fact i became more and more intrigued by the way we view leadership, because to be brutally honest, i have watched as leaders of the community have changed from being white men to people of color women. but too often people still mimic the same behaviors as the people he replays, because that is what we all come to see leadership looks like. no matter how many different colors and shades and genders run our organizations, too many of them are still run in an old way where a single person at the top has to make every decision. this is critical to our discussion right now, because one of the reasons i left d.c. -- i come from the keith richards school. sometimes it is better before they make you run. [laughter] i talked about leadership. like many in the sector, i had

worked and we had almost 100 classes of men and women go through the dce central -- d.c. central kitchen. people i worked with said consistently two-minute women who walk through our doors "you must change your behaviors." yet too often we would do the same things over and over and over. we would sell people on the street you can't handle anymore. yet if we go out to the foundation, we might as well bring a little tin cup with us when we go out. if you're going to talk this, you have got to walk this. it is time for me to move on and let another generation takeover kitchen.central but i also was, and i remained as i like to call it an amateur futurist. thist to an event like years ago. do, what, oh what to

you do? you said, i am a futurist. i said what's that? you said it is about the probability, it is about trends. i said, that is what i do, too. first it was a heroin and alcohol town. then can crack. crack is a crazy drug. still is. and then all of a sudden women were coming out of their homes. i realized i could not just have one kind of program and try to fit everybody into my program. my program had to be adapted to fit whoever's suicide he was putting at the bottom. dedicating idea of our organization, our team, not just to be flexibility, but seeing the future coming to you. playedwas a young man, i a little baseball. c minor baseball, right?

i was probably eight years old. middle of the game, coach, timeout, timeout. he starts walking toward me. i thought, what do i do question mark you said, son, what do you do at that ball comes to you? i had not thought about it. he said you have a man on second. there is a triple play right here waiting for you. you know what happens. the next ball crack, boom. triple play. they carried me off the thing. the coach said, son, always be ready when the ball comes to you. i discovered -- there are three kinds of leaders. there are people who have their heads down just trying to make payroll. that is understandable. making payroll is hard business in america right now. i respect that. the second group of people is just like you. they raise their heads for a little bit and they can see, they can hear the fancy pants speaker, they can exchange ideas. too many go back, but their had write that down. that is understandable. respect. kind ofe is a third

leader. these leaders see the future coming and say, i am not going to wait for it. i am going to march out to meet it. i am not going to wait for it to come to me. i could sit and wait for the ball, or i could will the ball to come to me. i became almost a hypnotist. i could sit there and make the ball come to me. that is what i do now. i make the ball come to me. i am out there in california. i know what is coming. i do not know how many of you all do pantries or work with a food bank. think about this. movement, our whole movement was birthed at a time in which america was going through an era of extra. world war ii, man, we fed to the world and rebuild the world. our industrial base was completely intact. and the farmland -- talking about montana. the miracle of central valley in california. produced a crop surplus that allowed you to get a lemon, a lime, a tomato in the deepest,

darkest winter in montana. that was an abundance beyond anyone's comprehension. we get the extra. i made a living off extra food. extra buildings, extra clothes, give people extra time. that extra was abundant and allowed us to grow exponentially, but that air of extra is ending. the food that all the patches get, that i get, at the end of the day, make no mistake. that is lost profit. people bought that, they could not sell it. they give it to charity. that is cool, but their entire is not havingow any extra. predictably you have less food coming in. i moved to california. ofave an unlimited supply fruits and vessels i can get for free or next to nothing. that is a big, powerful true -- tool. but was and what else is coming. every single morning in america -- every single morning short of an asteroid hitting the earth,

10,000 people wake up 67 years old. and that will go on for the next 20 years. every single morning. the baby boomers are coming. that is profound. get your head around this. the next big wave of poor people in america are going to be our elders. they already are, but we do not pay much attention to them. the way we treat our elders in america, frankly, is one of our greatest chains. we have a throwaway society. that humble, plain generation, never complain, don't want charity, no matter how poor they are. well, get ready, because here come the baby boomers. and the baby boomers are not at all going to be shy about wa nting what is their right. [laughter] this is important. of all the workers in america, of all the workers in america, between 45 and 65 right now, has to not have 10,000 -- has to not

have $10,000 put aside for their retirement. there are those who would see that as a bad thing. many people use the term the silver tsunami as a term of fear. but i go back to that robert kennedy line about how every time someone put -- sets forth a small ripple, they can wash away the walls of oppression. manage if we as the nonprofit sector can reach out to those older americans. that silver tsunami can actually be the realization of robert kennedy's dream. it is powerful, i will tell you. make no mistake -- it is a wonder you can't put your head out in the morning and hear a sigh as 10,000 people look in the mirror and see a 67-year-old looking right back. you have to figure, a big hunk of them are looking in the mirror, sign, and saying, how did i get so lost? how could i have seen with my own eyes after king, cesar chavez, shirley jackson?

how could i have heard with my own ears john lennon and marvin gaye? how could i be suckered into believing if i just bought more i would be happy? i see them just pouring in. saying use me. i want you to get your head around this. this is the deepest well of experience in america. no other generation has been this rich, this free, this educated. shame on us and shame on us as a not bring them in instead of waiting for them to come to us. this is powerful. think about this. 100 million people under 30. i want to reiterate. the biggest generation america, the most diverse generation in america, will soon be the most educated and guarantee the most technologically advanced. these are minimum and raised doing service, and make no

mistake, the generation that got barack obama not once, but twice -- every single election, you're 20ting 16 million to million new voters. people who still believe in the american dream. interesting as it may sound or as far-fetched, i believe that there is a surprising shared interest between those who are old and those who are young. and that amazing opportunity, this is what is really important. oftentimes we think leadership looks this way. organizations run this way. but if you look at history, look at the history of our movement, you realize it was two groups that people thought would not find common ground found common ground and in together. we sometimes look at the united that wasers and think, cesar chavez. it was not just cesar chavez. it was the filipino workers that went on strike and cesar chavez was brilliant and saw an opportunity to make peace. years ago i went to india. i

read a little history book that said the british never, ever, ever in all of their years of control of india ever had more than 3000 officers stationed on the ground. never. i will be honest with you. i was mesmerized by that. and i needed a little break from d.c., so i took a little sabbatical. i allowed myself a full month to go over there and study and figure, how did 3000 do does -- through to million people. in less than 24 hours i had the answer. i almost laughed outdoor. as long as the british could give the indians fighting one another, it was a piece of cake. and i left out loud. i realize that was the nonprofit sector in america. eight versus art. .t is all -- we have the keys that is the thing i really want

to reiterate. but what is important again, there would be those right now who want to divide our generations, who would want to pick old against young. tragically you see old people being manipulated with fear. to be quite honest with you, man, the oldest people should be crazy in love with new immigrants. somebody needs to come in here and start paying taxes so they can sit back and get their social security. bradley, old people should be out front saying, let them in! the right to work. we have jobs right here. seriously. but let's take one more thing before i break up. i tend to free associate. in fact, it is funny, man. one of the things that really turns me on most to change was the fact in 1959 miles davis came along and released the album "kind of blue." up until then charlie parker was the preeminent usage and, -- musician, but he was limited to

12 are blues. said, ime along and reject 12-bar blues. i came along in los angeles and i am developing new meals for seniors. it is in effect the same plate you see in schools, and hospitals, in prisons, in any institution that says this is where the big piece of meat goes and everything circles around the solar system, but meat is the son. manysociety with this people he will need help, we can't afford a big piece of meat, nor is it sustainable or healthy. so i am just coming along saying similarly, i reject the plate, the tyranny of the plate. i am inventing a little tiny bento box. i will serve three ounces of protein, but i reject the notion that it has to look like this. i can give people ethnically

diverse, beautiful, artistic meals for less money. i can hire people. the goal is to help young women and men aging out of foster care that are statistically on their way to prison or the street. people coming out who statistically will make a u-turn and go right back because there are no jobs for them. -- i was you. i see myself. i just got back after 20 years and i am not going to let you go down that same road. an older man or woman can help the young reactor may to change. can they learn with and from each other as they prepare meals for the immunity? i have always said, let's remove the false divide of the table that has volunteers serving the poor, and let's bring everybody to the same side of the table.

one of the greatest pleasures is saying presidents of the united states come in and work side-by-side with men in women in the jobs training program. and inevitably -- no matter how smart -- god bless bill clinton. one of the smartest men. a kitchen more than bill clinton. but i have to tell you, the man did not know how to cut a caret. and the power of someone in prison saying, no, sir, you do it this way. that is the problem -- that is the power of what we can show. everyone has something to contribute. no matter how old, how young. everybody has something to contribute to the great american story. but i think one of the most important places we are going to when to reframe that, and you start to look at that next set -- how do you revitalize immunity action. -- community action. do not forget our charter. you all were the very first on the war on poverty.

again, this is no disrespect, because the reality is -- unlike the british in india, the way we get our money, the fact that we cannot being gazed in the political process puts us in a position where it is virtually impossible for us to solve the problems we have been tasked with. is, if we continue to accept the structure -- this is how nonprofits behave, here is how you get your money, here is how you are led, or is how you can speak, then the next 50 years and not going to make them as difference. flowers will bloom in every community, but the garden we sought to plants in 1950 when president johnson signed the fact will remain just as -- signed this act will remain just as elusive. while we deserve much credit for the work we have done, the road ahead cannot be the same road. it is the same journey, but we have to take a very different

course and i think many of us can learn from some of the younger men and women humming to our sector. we are reaching a point -- because of low administrative intellectualhe albatross around our neck -- overhead is things like retirement plans for our executives. what you have is a sector with too many leaders who cannot afford to leave their jobs. as much as we talk about people retiring, in many, many communities, you have people who do not have any money set aside. the question for them is, i may not be of the lead, but do i sought to govern the organization the same way i did? can i open up and let younger members of my organization to exert their sense of leadership, their direct and, their new ideas? that has been a big part of my personal journey. i do not know how many of you do this. i just went through a review by my staff, our staff. and it was anonymous. and it was hard. i am like, hey, i am better than

that. i mean, that is cold. [laughter] i can't believe you would treat me this way. i am signing your paychecks and that is the best you can say about me? but again, i don't want to think that way, but that is the point. how many of you let your staff evaluate you anonymously echo and how many of you have the courage to really listen to what they say? this is the biggest discussion we're going to happen our sector right now. how are we going to do away with the old way of having one person make the decision and how do we spread it out? what is going to be exciting for many of you is you people come and just as i did, as a volunteer, with fresh eyes and say, the way we have been measuring success is not the only way we can. there are three or four new metrics you may be able to use. we were just out in california with the california association of nonprofits that just did a tremendous report on the impact of nonprofits in that state. the one nugget i have been

praying -- praying is too hard a word. i have been hoping for. nonprofits of the california bring from outside the state in. that is the first time, to my knowledge, any group has done that. at, $40y clocked in billion a year. let's be honest. if i am a rural marion georgia, in montana -- if i am a rural georgia, montana, and someone says, these nonprofits can bring in a lot of money. staff of three people brought in $70 million over five years. he into the city. man, we are the ace in the deck that most politicians do not even know they have got. we have to help the men and realizeo run for office we are steady partners. we are far from charity. we are major parts of every economy. i really want you to let this sink in.

this is economics 101. there is no profit in america without nonprofits in america. you try to run the town -- seriously, you try to run the town, let alone attract new business. it young and dashing young men and women to stay if you have arts and culture, if you don't have health care, if you don't have education, if you don't have clean air and water. that is what we do. you can't make money without us. we need to on that fact that we are not the young brothers and sisters of the.com world. we are equal to business. no recovery plan will work without us in the mix. it is time for us -- [applause] -- [applause] there you go. if i may be so bold, and to close, this is the kind of transitional thinking i urge you to be open to as leaders. believe me.

i do not want to discount the minute women of generation x who have been toiling in the field, waiting for their time. there are so many people with really bold ideas. we have to turn them loose. a lot of our conversation today will be around those ideas. how do we get our voices heard. and how do we learn to the spec not only the people of the organization, but the volunteers. up and say to anybody who comes through our door, if you have a better idea how we can make our own money, how we can be engaged, how we can spread better word about what we do, let us know, we are all years. because we are community action and we are here tuesday. thank you all very, very much. [applause] >> if there are any questions, we do have a microphone. we will take one or two, given the time. don't give me this quiet stuff.

there is a microphone right there. >> and you can just shout it out. >> what if you got? need some caffeine or something? could you give, advice to middle leadership to help -- let's say current, seasoned leadership help understand that opening up is not threatening their leadership or their legacy. how would you frame that advice wouldon mark >> -- how you frame that advice? >> wow. thank you for that question. this is the core of what we are at. this is human nature. what we are talking about is ruffling that sense of i'm good right here. you know, this sounds lofty, but -- when i gopeople

back to most of those men and women looked in the mirror and they wanted to change the world. very peak -- very few people got in this business because they thought they were going to get rich. they wanted to be part of the american dream. we are the american dream. make no mistake. what we do -- we represent the best of america. we make the best profit and america. i think trying to challenge people to be that leader they wanted to be. this is why i really push for the idea of a can be tough, but that idea of staff evaluation. i frankly think everyone in this room ought to consider going back. it is hard, but guaranteed your staff will respect you more if you ask for their honest evaluation. you know who we should be studying right now? that the eo of that grocery store in massachusetts who, they fired him and all the employees walked out. and all of the delivery people refusedde