We are seeing the same themes and conversations happening everywhere we look…
Complex problems require a new way of thinking and acting together. (Systems approach to intractable issues)
We are all connected. (“What affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Solutions to social, environmental and economic challenges are interdependent. (Triple-bottom-line)
As the nation’s thought leader (for better or worse), California has a responsibility — and the capacity — to establish “the new normal” in tackling complex social and economic challenges.
California Forward has distilled years of effort into a short report called Elevate California, an introduction to the focus of the 2017 California Economic Summit – economic mobility.
Comprehensive, integrated strategies — those that link, align and leverage the assets of all sectors — are seeing movement in previously cemented issues. What are we learning? We were the problem: fragmented, myopic and apathetic. But, we can be the solution: informed, engaged citizens resolute in taking ahold of our future.
Whatever your passion —economic prosperity, environmental sustainability, social justice, health and wellbeing — you cannot succeed in a silo. Take a look around. Engage. Connect. You just might find that your most important collaborators are the very people you thought were your adversaries.
Inclusive economic and academic gameboards build a foundation for whole communities to prosper. We can beat the odds by renewing the grand experiment in self-governance that our founders dared to dream.
Fresno is a microcosm reflecting the macrocosm, and I believe we can meet the grade and demonstrate that transformational change is possible. It’s up to us.