Legacy XXI's 2006 Activities and a Request.

Dear Friends, Colleagues and Supporters:

We would like to share with you both the work Legacy XXI Institute has launched in the last year and to request your urgent support and financial contribution to sustain our momentum.

Here’s what we’re doing: As those of you know who attended our first conference in October, it was a smashing success. Social enterprise leaders and social entrepreneurs were filled with new and successful ideas on how to do what many of them are already doing, better. We are currently planning our 2007 conference – Co-Creating the Movement: Launching the Cultural Shift, which we will hold in October.

2006 also the launch of our Declaration of Human Equality Movement, asking readers to read our Declaration, comment on our blog, and sign-on and promote human equality – the notion that every human life is of equal value -- in all their activities. Some of you may even be wearing our Human Equality buttons. They are still available for you and your friends here on our web site.

We are continuing our work with the ADRO initiative in downtown LA. Among the projects that were begun was a Poetry and Art Publishing project incorporating the work of children living within the ADRO area. We hope to assemble the pieces of this project together in 2007 and get it into the hands of a willing publisher. Some have already stepped forward and expressed an interest in the project, and we hope to have a published book by the first part of 2008.

During this last year, we also began gathering interviews for our radio program, At Work in the Community, which features interviews with leading social entrepreneurs and social enterprise leaders, produced in cooperation with Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. Each show is filled with valuable information for those setting out or already on the path of social enterprise. We will begin broadcast of At Work in the Community in March, 2007, and the show will be available on podcast format on our web site.

2006 was a year in which we facilitated two meetings with American Express’s Open division, the first with the chairman of the board of Grameen-USA and the second with the leaders of CUNA Mutual, the Credit Union National Association’s financial services arm. These meetings were to further our work with American Express and their involvement in the realm of micro-finance. As many of you know, we had introduced American Express Open to micro-finance through our efforts at Volunteers of America in Los Angeles and its Grameen micro-finance program.

Out of these meetings, we developed a very exciting program that has tremendous potential and we believe wide-scale possibilities. We are creating a civic model out of the City of San Diego by establishing a Social Enterprise Zone using micro-finance facilitated by local credit unions and administered through social action organizations. We are holding meetings with prominent members of the San Diego City Council, the San Diego Economic Development Corporation, and Presidents of San Diego’s largest credit unions, as well as other micro-finance and credit union authorities, to help devise this model to invigorate the economy of San Diego. As any economics 101 student will tell you, when you raise the economy from the bottom of the pyramid, the impact on the economy as a whole is profound.

And finally, we are working on a wonderful project debuting in the spring of 2008, the Legacy XXI International Social Action Short-Film Festival and Competition. Unlike other film festivals that primarily feature filmmakers, The Social Action Film Festival is as much about the social action organizations the films depict as the work of the filmmaker telling his or her compelling story. We are currently assembling a Board of Advisors from within the film industry and seeking sponsors and naming sponsors for this event.

So, as you can see, our plate is full of very exciting and promising programs.

Here’s what you can do today:  This is Legacy XXI’s first appeal for donations. In order to keep this work on track and to bring more ideas like those we are currently pursuing to fruition, we need some financial assistance. If you are interested in helping us with a tax-deductible charitable donation, you can do so on this web site home page by clicking on the Contribution line. We will accept any and all donations.

Our commitment is to bring forth sustainable cultural shifts in intransigent social concerns with the minimum of financial resources. We have done so. We do not seek large foundation support, having self-funded virtually all of our commitments.

We would appreciate it if you would make a contribution today to empower our efforts in the months ahead. We ask you to contribute a $1000.00, $10,000.00 or even $10.00 to sustain our co-creative efforts. Your contribution is tax deductible and it will make a profound difference.

We thank you for your time and interest in the work of the Legacy XXI Institute. For more information on our programs than you find on our web site, don’t hesitate to call us at 323-463-1832. We thank you for your support.

Sincerely yours,

Stephen Jacobs, Founder and President
Ron Schultz, Executive Director