Spotlight on the future.

Welfare reform, public safety and family cohesiveness as societal-wide goal-if they are to be achieved- require a number of profound paradigm shifts. There are at least ten over three levels.

Individual:

1. we all must accept, act and commit ourselves to becoming "our brothers'

2. citizen responsibilities can only be fulfilled in the 21st Century by all of us serving as committed volunteers to the non-profit sector in building an "opportunity society";

3. economic integration of poor people needs to be driven by self-motivation, recognizing that this is a dynamic and will deepen over time;

Sector:

1. non-profit sector is transformed back to its historic roles, both externally and internally, but with some new wrinkles;

2. entrepreneurial energies are unleashed of new immigrants and wired youth;

3. unfettered moral center of churches and faith communities is no longer constrained by "separation" dogma;

Societal:

1. primacy of the non-profit sector as the engine for the "opportunity society";

2. continuums of opportunities replaces age-determined phases of education, work leisure and retirement;

3. opportunity society is rooted in the vast demographic changes that are transforming America from a EuroCentric culture to that of the world's first "World-Nation";

4. "third wave civilization" overwhelms the defenders of the second wave industrial society.

Above all else, we need to be ever mindful of what truly is the touchstone in transforming America. The major finding of the Wisconsin State Commission for the Study of Administrative Value and Efficiency is a clarion call: "reinventing citizenship and citizen responsibility are more important than reinventing government!"

An Overview

Newspapers, television and, especially, C-SPAN have provided citizens-to date-with a wealth of information about the numbers and politics of governmental devolution, with nary a word about the larger and more important questions: the specific framework as to how individual people become involved, evolve into a "critical mass" for action, and are organized to fulfill the needs of others. This is just not going to succeed unless an "engaged citizenry" does the major (to use the GOP metaphor) heavy pulling! Likewise, we cannot talk about lasting welfare reform without the parallel revolution in creative job building: Newt's "opportunity society"!

People at all levels must get involved. There can be no denial of responsibility on any and all levels. The consequences affect us all. We all must walk our talk!

Above all let the window, through which we look for the future, be framed by the faces of young people, lots and lots of young brown people, and increasing numbers of aged whites: the demography of tomorrow's America. We must not lose sight of where we are headed as a society!

Entrepreneurial Commons is presented as a road map to achieve the objective of an opportunity society, but like all road maps it does not detail every twist in the road. While the Entrepreneurial Commons is presented as an achievable opportunity, it in no way presupposes that the author of this paper has a lock on all possible outcomes. To the contrary, it is my hope that this concept paper stimulates much discussion and policy deliberation.

People with unmet needs achieve seemingly impossible goals precisely when it seems that all reasonable alternatives have been exhausted and yet they continue to be collectively resolved to create new possibilities - somehow.

Let us not forget all that has already been built by volunteers in America: colleges and universities; 100-bed local hospitals, long-term care and assisted living facilities, and our great teaching medical centers; churches, temples and assorted structures housing our faith communities; the character-building organizations (e.g. Boys and Girls Scouts, Boys & Girls Clubs, YM- & YWCAs, CYOs); the disaster-serving organizations (e.g. Red Cross, Volunteers of America, Salvation Army) the healing institutions beyond our great and small hospitals (e.g. National Multiple Sclerosis Society, March of Dimes, Planned Parenthood, ASPCA, Leukemia Society) and the local, regional and national cultural organizations of performing and fine arts.

Marvin Olasky's provocative thesis, ("The Tragedy Of American Compassion," 1995: Regnery Press) that has caught the attention and imagination of Bill Bennett and Newt Gingrich, was first stated by Carlton G. Ketchum, founder of Ketchum, Inc., America's penultimate nonprofit "coach":

We have gone much too far in the direction of aiding the unfortunate through governmental handouts. The ill effects are two-fold. Rarely does the recipient of government benefits feel any gratitude for what is done for him. Rarely does he fail to clamor for more, and rarely does he feel strongly impelled to build on that help a character which will place him among the helpers rather than the helped. He is very much more likely to develop and manifest a sense of gratitude for the things that are given to him through the sympathy and generosity of a neighbor or a group or his community acting as individuals.

On the other side, the donor whose contribution is taken from him in the form of taxes to be handed over to the actual or pretended needy group gets no benefit whatever because through this route he is giving unwillingly. You and I enjoy doing a kindness even to the point of self-denial because we feel we ought to and perhaps really want to. This situation is aggravated, of course, by the lack of confidence felt by most taxpayers in the wise and fair distribution of the tax dollars through government employees at whatever level ... Philanthropy should and does redound to the benefit not only of the recipient but to the donor, and forced philanthropy by governmental ukase can't and doesn't do that.

(Will all professional Bleeding Hearts, and all lavish legislators and other loose dispensers of funds extracted from overburdened taxpayers, kindly read that last paragraph? No, they won't see it. But you can tell some of them. Feel free to quote me!')" Carlton J. Ketchum, That Campaign Firm From Pittsburgh, 1977: Ketchum, Inc.

Breakthroughs/New Possibilities

The Entrepreneurial Commons, as the sum total of the ten profound paradigm shifts noted above, is presented herewithin as a potential end game for Newt Gingrich's Contract With America, to achieve it's fourth and fifth basic transformations necessary for the "renewal of American civilization":

* "replace the welfare state with an opportunity society;"

* "liberate people to engage in civic responsibility."

When the rules change; the world changes:

* The human services component of the non-profit/nongovernmental sector has to be deprofessionalized and transformed-both internally and externally-back to its historic roles:

*back to when volunteers and their highly personalized-bonded relationships with individuals "down on their luck" were central to its mission: before the latter became "clients" and "recipients" and no longer responsible for their life's way and before the administrators became "professionals" and the volunteers are isolated solely for fund-raising purposes;

* back to when the non-profit/voluntary sector literally held primacy in our social order, when it was the motive force of our pioneering society, rather than its current status as a basket of leftover responsibilities.

* The economic integration of poor people, if it is to be lasting and real, needs to be driven by self-motivation; recognizing that this will deepen overtime after cynicism is replaced by perceived possibility and then acceptance and then eager anticipation that comes after one's "stories" do not hold up to a changing reality. Opportunities running the full range of:

* make-work placements;

* neighborhood life skills training and placement: health, educational, environmental, youth, family and spiritual aides and organizers;

* traditional job skills training and placement; and

* a full mix of entrepreneurial empowerment activities leading to self-employment.

* The delivery system for the economic integration of poor people requires a careful melding of three distinct and-heretofore-unconnected entities: the transformed non-profit/ voluntary sector; linked to the entrepreneurial energy and accomplishments of immigrants, especially the new Asian and Latino adventure seekers, and America's wired youth; and linked to those vital institutions (churches, athletic clubs, fraternal organizations, service clubs, barber shops, beauty shops, and informal credit associations) of the neighborhoods in which poor people reside.

* The volunteers-certainly the best way and probably the only way that each of us can fulfill our citizen responsibilities in the 21st Century-are absolutely central to revitalized/ revamped non-profit sector and its bundling with the entrepreneurial immigrants and America's wired youth in building an "opportunity society."

Entrepreneurialism

The entrepreneurial energy, achievements, purchasing power and links to global emerging markets that new Asian and Latino immigrants bring to America are more merely interesting footnotes to our urban landscapes. They are elements of the future coming to us from the future. When the rules change, the world changes.

We first need to acknowledge that entrepreneurialism is part and parcel of both the immigrant experience and in coping with socioeconomic marginalization:

* Chinese in Southeast Asia;

* Jamaicans and Barbadians in Brooklyn;

* Jews in Europe, Argentina, China and America;

* Armenians in Budapest, Lebanon and California;

* Koreans in New York, California and Alaska;

* Cubans in Miami and New Jersey;

* Vietnamese in Texas and California;

* Ukrainians in Canada;

* Mexicans in Texas and California;

* Japanese in California and Vancouver;

* Portuguese in Massachusetts and New Jersey;

* et alia.

Virtues like thrift and hard work were basic to the West Indian ethos in which Oakland (Ca.) Tribune publisher Robert Maynard was raised. "There is something about the immigrant experience that's different," notes Maynard in recalling his father's "Barbadian network" (read: Entrepreneurial Commons). "It's like the Chinese. There is a communal business spirit. That is something outside the experience of most African Americans."

Imagine the Entrepreneurial Commons with:

* Black churches serving as training sites for neighborhood residents in job skills to meet the specific manpower needs of local non-profit and for-profit employers;

* Korean greengrocers sharing their "secrets" for self-employment with unemployed African Americans in neighborhood church training sites;

* Latinos creating Spanish-language interactive communications technologies and programs in health care, education and self-employment, supported by the local Lions Club, United Way and Viacom International, Inc.;

* Economically marginal whites learning computer skills from Vietnamese immigrant youth at local YMCAs;

* After school tutorial and mentoring programs at the local Salvation Army;

* School opened up in the evenings so all neighborhood residents can participate in cyberspace;

* National non-profits selecting and being responsible for the effective delivery of specific training modalities at all their regional and local facilities; and most importantly

* Positive linkages to the vast demographic changes that are already transforming America ("ready or not, here we come") from a Euro-Centric culture to that of the world's first "World Nation."

Entrepreneurial Commons

With welfare reform, public safety and family cohesiveness-as public policies-rooted in the entrepreneurialism of America's recent immigrants and in new/old transformed non-profit/voluntary sector and in viable inner-city neighborhood institutions: a sea change is no longer just possible, it is inevitable.

Inevitable, as long as we do not try to pour tomorrow's creativity into yesterday's molds. To understand what is changing underfoot, we need to give more specificity to the demographic shifts that are radically altering America: people are living longer; in better health; with a lower national birthrate; graying of the "Baby Boomer" age wave; and the Hispanic and Asian immigration and birthrates.

Inevitable in the future is that the current age-determined phases of education, work, leisure and retirement will be replaced by continuums of opportunities. A glimmer of what this will mean occurred in 1991 when fully 10, or 45 percent, of the first 21 Peace Corps volunteers to Czechoslovakia were over the age of 60. Lifelong learning will replace the lock step of traditional education and opportunities for paid work will spread more evenly across all ages in the future.

Work will be valued as much for its intrinsic meaning as well as for its economic return. Retirement, as we know it will be replaced by periods of leisure interspersed throughout the life course and seniors will be seeking challenging high adventure like the Peace Corps volunteers in Czechoslovakia. And inner-city children, youth and adults will be at corner's-edge waiting for tomorrow's bus that will enable them to participate and to share in the global economy.

Alvin and Heidi Toffler's (mentors to Newt Gingrich) benchmarks for the future (read "Third Wave Civilization") are instructive as to the organizational mix that the Entrepreneurial Commons needs to embrace:

a."New institutions built on post-bureaucratic, post-factory models" where individualized and customized programming replaces the "factory" principles of standardization, centralization, maximization, concentration, and bureaucratization;

b."De-massification of production" with an emphasis on innovation, entrepreneurial risk and heterogeneity, contrasted with the industrial era's mass production, mass distribution, mass education, mass media and mass entertainment;

c."Decentralization of decisions" makes possible the diversity, complexity and fast-changing opportunities that the future is bringing;

d. "Virtual/minimalist organizations;"

e. "Re-empowers family and home."

Pregnant With Possibilities

New Jersey, with its high tech industries of telecommunications, biotechnologies and pharmaceuticals, insurance, banking, and agriculture; its extensive and effective community college program; and its notable population diversity and density, is, perhaps, the best state for the entrepreneurial commons concept to be fully tested and validated before a more ambitious program is contemplated.

A mix of sites might include subunits of:

* Camden (possibly linked with Project Leap);

* Burlington City;

* Jersey City;

* Englewood;

* East Orange.

An exploratory phase should include the following elements:

1. 40 individuals representing 4 discreet populations are invited to Trenton to determine their interest in the entrepreneurial commons concept and whether or not they are interested in participating and/or exploring further,

* 10 individuals representing foundations including the Pew Charitable Trusts, Robert Wood Johnson, Prudential, Victoria, Commonwealth and Ford.

* 10 individuals representing the diversity of the non-profit sector in New Jersey including the Salvation Army, Red Cross, Lions Club, Rotary, a hospital, Boy Scouts, alumni association of a college, two churches, and a fraternal organization.

* 10 individuals, 2 each from the 5 proposed sites.

* 10 individuals representing New Jersey's corporate diversity.

2. Follow-up meetings with representatives of state and county government to answer their questions and in time secure their ownership and partnership in the concept.

3. Follow-up meetings about legislative and/or regulatory issues that may be necessary to empower the non-profit sector and New Jersey's citizenry.

4. Coordinate with New Jersey's Congressional leadership.

Note: It is very important that the entrepreneurial commons be driven solely by the needs of New Jerseyans.

John W. Gotsch, CFRE, is president of Futuregoals Associates, in Roebling, NJ. Formerly he served as assistant vice president and corporate officer of institutional advancement of a multiagency corporation that provides health and human services to the elderly-Aging In America, Morningside House and United Presbyterian Residence headquartered in Bronx, New York.