Today I went to the Greenlight Greater Portland kick-off event and heard Richard Florida, author of Who’s Your City talk about what a great city Portland is. Given the livability factors (greatest number of microbreweries, library with the largest circulation per capita, greatest number of bookstores, forest, mountains, coast and desert within easy driving distance) that should be no surprise to anyone. But, he went on to talk about how important involvement in community is to people’s sense of well-being and how the high rate of community involvement in Portland is a huge factor in what makes Portland livable.
This is not news. Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone bet a steak dinner that the social isolation and decline in social capital was a national phenomena. He lost. Portland was the one exception.
But we cannot rest on our laurels. We all need to continue to participate in community and ensure that Portland continues to be the awesome place that we know and love. Here are some upcoming opportunities:
The City Club of Portland is a 93 year old organization that relies on volunteer research efforts to affect public policy. At their annual meeting on Friday, Steve Schell will be reflecting on City Club’s research in his talk “City Club Research: A Quiet Catalyst For Momentous Change.”
Another important effort is the Bureau of Planning’s update of the 1980 Comprehensive Plan and the 1988 Central City Plan. The Planning Bureau says:
The Portland Plan is an inclusive, citywide effort to guide the physical, economic, social, cultural and environmental development of Portland over the next 30 years. The plan will build on the work the community did through visionPDX, which captured and fleshed out our shared values of sustainability, equity and accessibility, and community connectedness and distinctiveness.
There are two upcoming opportunities to participate in The Portland Plan as part of the Community Summits on Saturday, June 14th.
One of the gazillion things I love about Portland is the access to affordable and eclectic opportunities to both watch and participate in the performing arts scene. For the moment however, I am going to focus on music.
Being a small business owner with an early bedtime, I don’t get out much these days. But sometimes great music will come and find you. Several months ago I met Marie Schumacher at CubeSpace’s monthly nonprofit networking event. Marie and I got together over coffee so that she could pick my brain about consulting and her organization PDX Vox. As a thank you, she sent me a copy of her CD Sometimes at Night, which was some of the best new music I had heard in months (if not years).
Fast forward to now. After many, many months, Marie sent me an email about an upcoming gig on June 1st at 1pm in the afternoon at Springbox Gallery, 2375 NW Thurman St., Portland. Yes, this is a show that is business-owner and parent friendly. How cool is that!??!?!?!? And with a suggested donation of $5-$10, it is cheap to boot. That alone is cause for some serious celebration.
But wait, there’s more. Portland also has a great new resource to find new music, with an emphasis on the homegrown stuff from the Pacific Northwest. When OPB shifted their on-air music programming to an online music page, that opened up a whole new world for those of us who didn’t stay up late enough to listen to David Christensen’s music show Ecleticity. Now we can access streaming music and well as download studio performances and check out playlists and all sorts of fun stuff.
I still don’t sit still long enough to listen to as much music as I would like, but I am enjoying these new opportunities nonetheless and invite you all to join me.
Oregon has more nonprofits per capita than any other state in the union and the bulk of those are located in Portland. In some ways this is a really good thing. When Robert Putnam was writing Bowling Alone he bet a steak dinner that the phenonema was nation-wide. He lost. He lost because of Portland. We are a city that is socially and civilly engaged.
Oregon is not a wealthy state and all of the nonprofits struggle to stay afloat financially. But Portland’s nonprofit community is small and tight and very collaborative. I see this time and time again through CNRG’s monthly nonprofit networking and free training events at CubeSpace, through the Nonprofit Continuum Conference and through events like the one I attended last night coordinated by Carole Zoom.
Carole Zoom is trying to support the nonprofit community (and herself) by coordinating an efforts to help Portland nonprofits buy a building of their own. This is something she did while living in Eugene and now that she lives in Portland, she wants to duplicate it here. Last night was the initial meeting for this effort and she expected about 20 people. I stopped counting when we got to 60.
Not all of the organizations that were in that room are in a place to participate in the purchasing of a building. Some are not ready financially, some are not ready organizationally. But, when we broke into small groups to discuss what could happen if organizations could make mortgage rather than rent payments, there was a incredible transformation that took place. Every group that reported back talked about the synergy that came from those small, short conversations. Groups that had never spoken suddenly started brainstorming ways to work together to achieve their mission, serve their target populations and generally be creative in the face of great needs and minimal budgets. That is why Portland is Awesome.