These Small Steps Can Have a Big Impact on Giving Back - Oprah Mag
Oprah's latest "The Life You Want" Class focused on how to be of service, and included two guests who have had a powerful impact in the space—Van Jones, an attorney and host of the Van Jones Show on CNN, and Rebecca Welsh, founder of The HALO Foundation.
Oprah Daily Insiders joined them on air, including Christina, who expressed a desire to host a breaking-generational-trauma summit that would be free to the public, provide workshops, and essentially act as a form of community therapy. However, she didn't know where to begin, saying that she wasn't sure how to even obtain funding for this type of event.
Jones says he has something called the "three 'M' conversion" approach, which can be used to get an idea like Christina's off the ground. It centers around mobilization, media, and money, and Jones says it can help people who have big ideas on how to provide service actually get them off the ground.
Above, watch the clip in its entirety, or read below to see all that Jones shared.
Van Jones: There's so much hurt in our communities, and when it's not healed, it gets passed on to other people. It gets passed on to children. It gets passed on to other people. So you have no idea how much suffering you're going to block from being passed on by what you're doing.
VJ: [What] I found is that usually when people have a big vision like yours, the challenge is, how do you get started, and how you get the support? I have this thing, I call it the "three 'M' conversion" approach—mobilization, media, and money. You can literally start with the smallest thing. But if you do these three steps in a row, you can get bigger and bigger.
VJ: Mobilization—basically do something. People will sometimes—especially if you have a big vision—you feel like, "Oh, I've gotta start off with a national organization. I've gotta start off with a huge budget. I've gotta be reaching thousands of people." That's very hard, to start a car in fifth gear, and so then people just don't do anything, and they feel very frustrated. I say, just do anything. Even if you just got three people together and did a conversation with them about healing, that's at least something. That's mobilization.
VJ: Then the next is media. Take a picture, shoot a little video, no matter what you do. If you had a rally with a million people, 99.999 percent of people on earth were not there. If there's no media, there's no record. So most people will never know it happened. Some people say, "I don't want to do it for credit." No, no, no. Just take a picture. Now you've got something that shows what you did, and it shows those human beings. Then you can take it to somebody.
VJ: And then the third M is money. You can take somebody and say, "I wanna do this again next week. Not with three people, but with 10 people; can you give me money for pizza? Can you let me use your community center?" Now you can do a bigger mobilization. Now you can get more media. Maybe you bring in the community newspaper. Now you can get more money because you can get maybe a grant from a community foundation. Pretty soon, you're gonna have a lot of people involved. You're gonna have a lot of attention and you're gonna have a lot of money, but don't think you have to start big. In fact, it's impossible to start big. [Just] do something. Record it. Don't be so pure that you're not willing to brag on yourself. People say, "Van Jones, you're a shameless soft promoter." I say, "No, I am a proud soft promoter. I am proud of the stuff I'm doing. I want people to know what I'm doing. I want people to be a part of it. I'm not gonna be ashamed of it." And then you get the money. That's the best way to do it.
VJ: So I don't know where you're starting from, but the person who helped three people and has a picture of it can go a lot farther than somebody who wants to have a thousand people and hasn't taken one single step.
To watch Oprah's full "The Life You Want" Class on service and to catch up on past classes, click here.
Adrienne Farr (she/her) is Senior Editor of the Intentions vertical and writes and edits various other pieces for Oprah Daily. She loves to work on essays to push forward the strong narrative of a person's story, as well as anything that can be of service to the Oprah Daily community. She's been in the publishing industry for over a decade, working and writing for magazines like Parents, InStyle, People, and Reader's Digest. She was also the editorial lead for Blackprint, a platform that amplifies Black voices. In her previous life, she worked in advertising and television and film production. Adrienne is a single mom to her school-aged daughter, caretaker for her elderly mom, and a rapturous fan of old-school TV. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter.
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These Small Steps Can Have a Big Impact on Giving Back - Oprah Mag
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