Love, Money, and Meaning

This morning I was able to start my day by getting up in front of forty or so of our vendors to hear what they’re thinking and talk about where Real Change is going over the next few years. Careful readers of Real Change know by now that we’ve basically finished our 2007-2009 strategic plan, and that it’s available for download at realchange.wikispaces.com.

Listening to the vendors helped inform our new priorities. We asked what they want most and they said love, money, and meaning. So we built a plan around those ideas. We will deepen vendor/reader relationships and open up the whole organization for more vendor participation. We will take steps to increase vendor sales and success while we zero in on the kinds of journalism that people expect: relevant, professional, and keyed to the issues our readers care about. We will publish a paper that speaks to what our readers want that makes our vendors proud. We will focus on broadening opportunities for vendor involvement in organizing around root causes of homelessness and poverty.

So that’s what I said, and it was what the vendors wanted to hear. It’s a good feeling to have our organization’s priorities line up with what the vendors want and need. It begins with respect for the people whose lives are hard, and for whom little comes easily. When you start there, the rest follows.