PERSPECTIVE: Reverse Mentoring – The Answer for Connecticut’s Seasoned Workers?

by Frances J. Trelease The idea first caught on a couple years ago, with the popularity of the movie “The Intern.”   In that film, A-list actor Robert DeNiro plays a retired professional who accepts an internship with a trendy online fashion company, to sharpen his skills and stay engaged. By the end of the film -- as you might have guessed – DeNiro earns his stripes as a valued team player who is looked to for his temperance and wisdom when chaos erupts.

The hit film brought to light the concept of reverse mentoring – millennials providing tutelage and guidance to their older counterparts in the workplace. It isn’t a new concept, but it’s rising to the surface as retired or downsized professionals seek novel ways to reenter the workforce. It plays off the “traditional” apprenticeship model, where a young trainee learns a craft or trade under the watchful eye of an older, more experienced worker. 

Jack Welsh, former CEO of General Electric, is widely credited with introducing the concept to the U.S. in 1999, when he charged his top officials with finding junior mentors to teach them the latest technologies. He was on to something, those 17 years ago.

According to U.S. Census Bureau projections, “the proportion of Connecticut’s population that is 60 and older is growing more rapidly than other sectors of the population.” The Bureau estimates that nearly 26 percent of Connecticut’s population will be 60 and older by the year 2030.

So for Connecticut’s aging workers, reverse mentoring makes good sense. Many have been phased out of jobs before they felt ready to go. Others voluntarily retired, but still have much to offer. But they face a changing work environment.

The largest hiring blocks in CT in 2016 were hospitality, transportation, financial and business services. (www.cga.ct.gov) Those fields challenge the training and skill sets of those born in the “baby boomer years” – 1948 to 1964 -- who attended college or trade school before today’s digital and electronic gadgets – nay, even basic computer systems -- were ubiquitous.  For them, today’s millennials hold the key to the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in fields like social media marketing and applications development.

The younger set, in turn, gains insight into strategy, negotiation skills and “macro”’ views of the big picture. They become groomed to step into leadership roles when their time comes.

Who wins from this emerging trend? Both groups do. Intellectual property continues to be the singles biggest asset of corporations across the U.S. In Connecticut alone, service giants such as United Technologies Corp., The Hartford, and Stamford-based Deloitte rely on the best and the brightest minds to innovate, create and outpace the competition. Those best and brightest range anywhere from 25 to 75 years old.

Lisa Bonner is director of Change Management & Communications at Cigna in Hartford. In a recent TEDx talk, she spoke of the value of the younger set sharing social media and mobile technology knowledge with Cigna’s “senior leaders.”   Bonner described “putting a 25 year old in the chairman’s office” a “leap of faith… but I knew we were going on to glory. It was difficult to take that step, but we did it. Once they opened up with each other, that’s when the magic started to happen.” (https://youtu.be/uCd7_0BTySY)

Michelle Manson is a blog writer for Chronus, (Chronus.com), which creates software to help run corporate mentoring programs. Manson writes that organizations such a Hewlett Packard, Ogilvy and Mather and Cisco have signed on to the concept.

She writes: “When Hartford Insurance started a reverse mentoring program in 2011, the aim was to train C-suite execs in the tools and culture of social media. With entry-level employees in their twenties as mentors, the business leaders soon began to appreciate the power of ‘searching’ for answers on the spot and they wanted others in the company to benefit from the same flexibility. As a result, they unlocked social networks that were previously off-limits to Hartford employees.”

Other benefits to reverse mentoring – improved morale and retention across the generations, not to mention colorful tweets and pings that fly across social media platforms and engage the consumer.

In Connecticut, reverse mentoring addresses just the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much more to be done.  Initiatives such as the Platform to Employment in Bridgeport provide subsidies of $6,000 to qualifying employers if they bring on unemployed – often senior -- people for eight-week training internships. The hope is that those employers will hire these men and women full-time when the internships end.

And Boomer Den, LLC of Oxford, CT works exclusively with adults ages 45 and older, to fit them to internships, temp-to-hire and permanent positions around the state. In many cases, candidates show up to work ready to learn from those a generation or two younger.

Independent forecasters estimate that half our U.S. workforce will be made up by workers born in the mid-1980s or later. It’s time in Connecticut to bridge generational gaps. It’s time we take a step back – and then a solid leap forward, toward pooling our talents for mutual gain.

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Frances J. Trelease is president of Boomer Den, LLC, a Connecticut agency that empowers adult workers through internships and job placement opportunities. She may be contacted at info@boomerden.com.

PERSPECTIVE commentaries by contributing writers appear each Sunday on Connecticut by the Numbers.

PERSPECTIVE: History Educators Show the Way – Collaboration Expands Opportunity

by Liz Shapiro On September 7, 2016, key aspects of Connecticut’s funding mechanism for public schools were declared in violation of the state constitution. In his ruling, Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher ordered the state to address school funding inequalities, set up a mandatory standard for high school graduation, overhaul evaluations for public-school teachers and create new standards for special education. The state has been given 180 days to create plans to address the issues.

Although this inequity in school funding probably comes as a shock to some Connecticut residents – after all, Connecticut ranks fifth in the Education Week Research Center’s national 2016 Quality Counts report card of the nation’s schools – it comes as no surprise to a collaboration of history educators who have been working as partners for over three years on the simple goal of making history learning in Connecticut meaningful, fun and accessible to all learners.[1]

There are many recipes for great collaborations, but the key ingredients for Connecticut’s collaborative successes seem to be acknowledging and identifying a systematic weakness, and a willingness to look outside the box for solutions that create win-win-win-win scenarios for teachers, history museums (formally referred to as “public history” organizations), academic historians and students.

For practitioners, thinking about a collaborative effort of this scope even five years ago would have been impossible. Finding money for buses for field trips, combined with the time-crunch of the classroom day and ‘teach to the test’ mentality made learning outside of school walls nearly impossible.  Museum educators created one terrific program after another for school audiences, but invariably, visits dwindled. And students suffered the consequences. But as demonstrated time and time again in Connecticut’s history, state educators and historians rose to the challenge. Our story has a happy “middle” (the ending has yet to be written.) Not content with mediocrity, two groups of organizations led by people who care about Connecticut’s students approached this growing problem from two different angles.

First, under the leadership of the Connecticut Council for the Social Studies, Stephen Armstrong, Education Consultant to the State of Connecticut, and State Education Commissioner Dr. Dianna R. Wentzell, a team of elementary, middle, high school and college faculty envisioned and wrote a new set of frameworks for social studies education in Connecticut. These frameworks, based on the Inquiry Learning Process, where students ask and answer critical questions with support and guidance from teachers, were adopted in 2015.

At the same time, staff at Connecticut Humanities (CTh), the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, seeking to focus and improve services, facilitated a dialog with their partner organizations – including the Connecticut League of History Organizations (CLHO), Connecticut Explored magazine, Connecticut History Day[2] and the CTh-run program, ConnecticutHistory.org.

What happened next was a series of conversations, phone calls, deep discussions and “ah-ha” moments that paved the way to unprecedented collaboration between educators, museums, public historians and academics. If, by working together, we could build bridges of communication and access between the people who steward Connecticut’s past, and the people who have daily interaction with our students, then wonderful, magical, life-long critical skills learning would happen. And it is working.

Tangible accomplishments are numerous:

• Participation in Connecticut History Day, including among students in inner-city schools such as New Haven, has steadily increased. School participation has nearly doubled (to 98 schools in 2016) since 2012. In 2016, over 4000 students and 470 teachers participated in History Day workshops, with the work of over 5000 students represented at the six regional contests.
• A new website, TeachITCT.org, was launched by CTh to complement their ConnecticutHistory.org project. The website was created in response to teacher requests for access to primary-source materials and short, inquiry-based activities that focus on Connecticut history. The website also includes a searchable list of museum field trips so that teachers can easily find the off-school learning experiences they look for to support their curricular goals.
• Master teachers David Bosso, of Berlin High School, and Stephen Armstrong were among key session leaders at a three-part workshop series (spring, 2016) hosted by the CLHO, attracting 37 museum educators, and designed to familiarize this group with the new Connecticut frameworks and the inquiry method of teaching. A dearth of Connecticut history content for the elementary audience was a problem for third and fourth grade teachers. Connecticut Explored magazine has begun work on an online magazine for third graders that explores relevant content material at an age-appropriate level.
• Long-established groups of academic historians such as the Association for the Study of Connecticut History (ASCH) and the Connecticut Coordinating Committee for the Promotion of History (CCCPH) are welcoming public historians into their mix and looking deeply at ways to improve the relationships between public school educators, history museums and academic historians and better stewardship of the tiny pool of financial resources that we share.

What’s next? As the state plans for the court-ordered overhaul of school funding and the creation of new standards for high school graduation and special education, I would like to offer the collective experience of this group of “power historians and educators” (yes, similarities to the Power Rangers are purposeful) as a resource for state planning.

This is a group that has decades of practical experience in making educational miracles on a shoe-string budget, and better still, a track-record of outstanding collaboration. Best yet, all stand ready to help build a fair and equitable education system for all Connecticut’s students – because this is what we’ve been trying to do all along.

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Liz Shapiro is the Executive Director of the Connecticut League of History Organizations. She loves exploring issues of organizational behavior and bringing creative ideas to life. She may be reached at liz@clho.org.

PERSPECTIVE commentaries by contributing writers appear each Sunday on Connecticut by the Numbers.

 [1] http://www.edweek.org/media/qualitycounts2016_release.pdf, September 12, 2016

The full Quality Counts 2016 report, including in-depth reporting on new directions in school accountability, a retrospective look at highlights and milestones from the past 20 years, and an original analysis of national and state achievement trends: www.edweek.org/go/qc16.

[2] Connecticut History Day is managed by the Connecticut Public Affairs Network (CPAN) with support from the Connecticut League of History Organization, Connecticuthistory.org and Connecticut Explored magazine.

PERSPECTIVE: Over-Regulation Would Harm Innovative Tech Industry, Hurt Consumers

by Jack Carey In the years since the financial crisis, there has been a prevailing thought in America that “big” is bad. This sentiment started with banks, but in Washington, some are starting to question whether the theory holds for other industries as well.

In Connecticut and the Hartford region specifically, we need to be mindful of the harmful effects of government over-regulation, especially when it can have a damaging effect on innovation and our ability to create and retain high quality jobs.

As the owner of Carey Manufacturing in Cromwell, I know first-hand how challenging government regulations can be. Since 1981, we've been supplying catches, latches, and handles for military, aerospace, computer, electronics, telecom, automotive and consumer applications. In addition to an expanding global sourcing network, we own and operate a 30,000 square foot manufacturing facility here in Connecticut.  We work every day to maintain a competitive global advantage and government interference here at home frequently gets in our way.

Most recently, some policymakers have suggested that we abandon our decades-long approach to enforcing the antitrust laws, which focus on what is in the best interest of competition and the consumer, to one that looks primarily at size and views large companies as inherently bad. However, there is little evidence of the need to depart from our existing consumer-oriented antitrust framework, and that’s especially true in the case of the technology sector.

In fact, the current technology market is a vibrant and competitive one, where even big companies are required to constantly innovate in order to stay on top. This innovation has provided enormous benefits to consumers, who reap the rewards in the form of better and more advanced products and technologies.

These advances are the result of a market in which even the biggest giants in tech are vulnerable to competition. Ten years ago some of the dominant tech players were MySpace and AOL. These companies have since been surpassed – not because regulators intervened to check their growth, but because new startups offering better products won out in the market place.

In fact, in the tech sector, major companies are constantly competing with and challenging one another. Google has threatened Amazon’s dominance in the cloud storage business, Facebook is working to compete with YouTube for video consumption, and Apple is using its Siri technology to challenge Google Search – to name just a few examples. At the same time, these American companies are also facing new overseas competitors from China and other countries.

Unlike stagnant brick-and-mortar industries, the barriers to entry in tech markets are relatively low. Advances are constantly being made through innovation, enhancing competition and forcing companies to always stay one step ahead of the curve. It’s easy for startups to become the next big tech company, while even major players can fall as fast as they rose. Look how Facebook is battling newer social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and Pinterest that didn’t even exist a few years ago but now have hundreds of millions of users.

Larger tech companies also often act as platforms for the development and growth of these startups, as well as other businesses. New startups can release their software on app stores managed by Apple or Google, new products can be sold far more easily than ever before on Amazon, and growing companies can use digital ads to generate crucial revenue.

The competitive nature of the tech marketplace is made clear by the amount major players spend on research and development. In noncompetitive markets, R&D spending is low, and innovation is minimal. The opposite is true in tech. In 2014, PricewaterhouseCoopers found that the Internet and software sector had the highest growth rate of R&D spending of any industry. This year, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple have all significantly increased their R&D spending. These companies are investing in R&D because they understand the tech sector for what it is: a fast-changing and competitive industry in which startups thrive, new products are constantly being developed, and consumers are the ultimate winners.

In 2016, we’ve gotten used to being able to answer emails or plan a trip with a few taps on our phone. These services, so common that we don’t even give them a second thought, are the result of the tremendous and ongoing innovation in the technology sector. Proposals to change how we apply our laws and regulate the tech industry, however, would have the government intervene in this dynamic and competitive marketplace, threatening innovation and the enormous benefits it has provided consumers and our economy.

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Jack Carey is the owner of Carey Manufacturing Company in Cromwell, CT.

PERSPECTIVE commentaries by contributing writers appear each Sunday on Connecticut by the Numbers.

PERSPECTIVE: Can the ‘Sharing Economy’ of Regionalism Reduce Income Inequality?

by Frank Shafroth So far, 2016 has been framed by unfolding fiscal tragedies in a number of cities -- Flint, Mich.; Ferguson, Mo.; and East Cleveland, Ohio, come to mind. Plagued by high poverty, rising crime rates and diminished sources of revenue, these cities are examples of the increase in income inequality among U.S. municipalities.

Just as the richest Americans have raced ahead of working-class Americans, there are haves and have-nots among cities, too. It got me thinking: What role should states play in all of this? And more specifically, are there ways to use the “sharing economy” to narrow the disparity gap?

For a change, we’re not talking about Airbnb or Uber. The sharing economy I mean is about regional governance, or sharing agreements where local policymakers create new, multijurisdictional fiscal arrangements to address regional objectives.

Right now, throughout America, otherwise identical households pay different taxes for the same level of public services simply because they live in different cities. Bo Zhao, senior economist at the Boston Federal Reserve, wonders if such differences in taxes put some cities or counties at a disadvantage in economic competition. After all, he says, fiscal disparities occur when economic resources and public service needs are unevenly distributed across localities. For the most part, it’s been up to cities and counties to attempt to address these growing disparities. There are any number of longstanding examples of regional taxation and regional tax-base sharing across the U.S., such as in Minneapolis-St. Paul. More recently, there are new innovations on the theme: The Scientific and Cultural Facilities District, for example, distributes roughly a tenth from a 1 percent sales and use tax to cultural facilities throughout the Denver metropolitan area.

States are really in the best position to implement sharing agreements, but few do. One exception is Minnesota, which more than a generation ago enacted legislation to encourage a sharing economy statewide. The Minnesota Fiscal Disparities law has three important goals: reduce the impact of fiscal considerations on location of business; reduce interjurisdictional competition; and direct resources to communities facing the greatest fiscal pressures.

The law shifts millions of dollars in property taxes to be shared among communities in a metro area, including cities, counties and school districts. Each jurisdiction or entity “contributes” 40 percent of post-1971 growth in its commercial-industrial property tax base to an areawide pool, where the tax base is then allocated among local governments in inverse relation to their per capita fiscal capacity.

The percentage of the total tax base in the Minneapolis-St. Paul areawide pool has increased from 6.7 percent in 1975 to 37.6 percent by 2012. More than $588 million of taxes were shared among the participating localities in 2012. The distribution of shared revenue reduced incentives for cities to compete for businesses and infrastructure projects, and it created greater incentives for shared investments, especially in infrastructure.

It is an effective fiscal disparities program. But unfortunately, despite the growing income disparity among localities and regions, the approach does not seem to be catching fire with other states or with the biggest potential player of all, the federal government.

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Frank Shafroth is the director of the Center for State and Local Leadership at George Mason University, and was director of policy and federal relations for both the National Governors Association and the National League of Cities.  He is a columnist for Governing magazine, where this article first appeared.  Reprinted with permission.

PERSPECTIVE commentaries by contributing writers appear each Sunday on Connecticut by the Numbers.

 Also of interest… Progress Made on Regional Cooperation

PERSPECTIVE: Why and How We Should All Be Concerned About College Student Retention

by Victor Neves and David Johnston The degree to which college students are capable of successfully moving from matriculation to graduation, described as “retention” or “persistence,” should be a concern for all of us.  Employers regularly complain that the skills needed for the workplace are lacking.  Policy wonks lament the declining ratio of productive workers to retirees, now about three to one, down drastically from decades ago – an ominous threat to the solvency of the Social Security system, as well as the viability of the economy and the health care system.

All the more reason to maximize proven, but not always followed, ways that can boost college persistence to graduation and through to employment.  The cost of implementing effective practices is one challenge, in light of steadily declining state support for higher education, especially for community colleges and state universities that take in the majority of our high school grads headed toward postsecondary education.

What are these strategies?  Not quite a “top ten” list, but they’re not just catchy, they work:

• Colleges and universities are increasingly collaborating with high schools to both expose high school students to college life -so-called bridge programs – and to help students earn college credits, through early college or dual enrollment programs.

• Community-based agencies in our cities are increasingly practicing “seamless counseling” -- working with high school grads to avoid “summer melt,” to assure these young people make it to campus after earning acceptance to college. In some cases, these programs continue to support these students once they are enrolled.  Currently, in Hartford, about 70 percent of high school grads are accepted into some form of higher education, but only 50 percent matriculate.

• Once on campus, more students, especially those from challenged backgrounds, are enrolled in first-year experience programs and/or learning communities that teach “college survival” – indispensable skills that can be the difference between staying and dropping out. These are required at some schools, but not all.

• More first generation college students are mentored by older students. For students of color, connecting with a mentor who looks like them is also a powerful retention factor.  A national study of “black male college student success,” documented the value of such relationships.  UConn’s recently-announced “black male dorm” arrangements are a step in this direction.

• More campuses are practicing “intrusive advising” that follows the progress of challenged students closely and intervenes quickly when they appear to be struggling academically or otherwise. Too many challenged students have non-academic obstacles that seriously disrupt their progress, and at times end their college careers before they’ve really begun.  Less than half of community college students move on to achieve a degree.

• All students, but especially challenged students, are repeatedly encouraged to get involved on campus – a proven retention factor. Stepping up the “ask” can bring results that make retention more likely.

• At times controversially, colleges are encouraging, and hiring, faculty who use more “student-centric,” interactive teaching styles, with new technologies increasingly integrated into the curriculum. Some veteran faculty resist, others adapt.  Traditional academic content will still be central – as it should be - but teaching, to be truly effective, has to accommodate today’s technology and media-savvy students, and build student-faculty relationships in non-traditional, interactive ways.

• Community college students, including older students, are increasingly being guided more quickly into career paths, ideally related to job growth areas, to reduce the confusion of too many choices and too little direction. Student majors can be changed, but a clear pathway from the get-go works wonders.

• Schools should also provide a platform in which students can showcase their accomplishments – for example, “E-Portfolios” that incorporate student work and achievements from enrollment all the way to graduation, providing students a tangible way of seeing their progress towards reaching their goals.

• Campuses, back-stopped by changing Federal policies, existing and proposed (e.g., free community college), are becoming more creative with financial aid; and lower-income community college and state university students have more access to more adequate financial aid.

These “wrap-around” strategies, and others, are effective.   National research and anecdotal experience in Connecticut point clearly in these directions.  However, they continue to be the exception in Connecticut, with progress towards implementation sporadic at best.

Employers, college administrators and faculty, community leaders, legislators, parents and students need to advocate for such effective creativity. The benefits will accrue not only to students and their families, but the communities and businesses of Connecticut in desperate need of the vitality and vibrancy that a new generation of ready, willing and able college graduates can bring to the state we share.

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Victor B. Neves is a graduate of Tunxis Community College who studies Business Administration at CCSU.  He chairs the Student Committee of the Center for Higher Education Retention Excellence (CHERE), based in Hartford, a program partner of the Hartford Consortium for Higher Education.  David Johnston is Executive Director of the Center for Higher Education Retention Excellence. 

PERSPECTIVE commentaries by contributing writers appear each Sunday on Connecticut by the Numbers.

LAST WEEK:  Back to School – Don’t Forget Your Child’s Mental Health

PERSPECTIVE: Back to School—Don’t Forget Your Child’s Mental Health

by Rachel Papke Back to school time is upon us. Parents are scurrying around shopping for back to school deals for their children—clothes, school supplies, and more. For parents with college-aged students the prep-work is more extensive: purchasing dorm room items and packing boxes to start. There are long “to-do” lists, calendar updates, alerts, reminders—a whirlwind of things to do to ensure that your child is ready for the school year. But what actions are you taking to check-in on your child’s mental health?

First, familiarize yourself with the symptoms of a mental health condition by accessing these mental health screening tools.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 5 young adults has a diagnosable mental health disorder, yet most are not receiving help. If left untreated, the risk for suicide increases. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for persons aged 15-24. With suicide rates at their highest in 30 years, prevention programs like those of the Jordan Porco Foundation need your support more than ever to help save young adult lives.

First-Year College Students

Majority of U.S. first-year college students feel underprepared emotionally for college. 65% said they tended to keep their feelings about the difficulty of college to themselves, 60% of students wish they had gotten more help with emotional preparation for college, and 87% of students said college preparation during high school focused more on academics than emotional readiness.¹ These statistics are striking and we need to fill the gap to combat these statistics.

Connecticut Statistics

During the past 12 months, 26.6% of Connecticut high school students felt so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that they stopped doing some usual activities. This is suggestive of clinical depression, meaning that more than a quarter of high school students should be receiving treatment for depression or depressive symptoms.

When they feel sad, empty, hopeless, angry, or anxious, 50.4% of students said they only sometimes, rarely, or never get the kind of help they need. Talk your children, listen, and validate their feelings.

18.5% of CT high school students did something to purposely hurt themselves without wanting to die, such as cutting or burning themselves on purpose, within the past year. If your child displays the signs and symptoms of self-injury, you should consult a mental health professional with self-injury expertise. Learn more, here .

13.4% of Connecticut high school students seriously considered suicide in the past 12 months. It’s more common than you think, and it may well be your child or one of their friends. For more information about the warning signs of suicide visit our Nine out of Ten website.

Stay informed and attuned to any changes in behavior. Keep the mission of the Jordan Porco Foundation, the Hartford, CT-based non-profit, at the forefront to help you in your discussions.

The mission of the Jordan Porco Foundation is to prevent suicide, promote mental health, and create a message of hope for young adults.

To accomplish this, they:

Help challenge stigma by talking openly about mental health issues

Offer engaging and uplifting programming, emphasizing peer-to-peer messaging

Promote help seeking behavior, self-care, and coping skills

Educate about the risk factors and warning signs of suicide and other related mental health concerns

They do this in the name and spirit of Jordan Porco, who died by suicide in 2011. They’re in it for life every day. Saving lives is the heart and soul of their cause. Mental health needs a voice: you are that voice; we are that voice.

Work to create a message of hope for your children. Encourage open, honest conversations about mental health. Talk about feelings. Listen to your children and know what mental health resources are available in your area and at school. Educate your children to take care of their mental health, to carry the skills with them as they head off to school. Help them understand that they are not alone—where there is help, there is hope.

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Rachel Papke is Communications Coordinator for the Jordan Porco Foundation.  She may be contacted at (860) 904-6041 or rachel@rememberingjordan.org.  Learn more about the Jordan Porco Foundation at www.rememberingjordan.org

PERSPECTIVE commentaries by contributing writers appear each Sunday on Connecticut by the Numbers.

Also of interest: Creating a Message of Hope for Young Adults 

1 – The “First-Year College Experience Survey” was commissioned by the JED Foundation, Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, and the Jordan Porco Foundation, and conducted online by the Harris Poll among 1,502 U.S. college freshmen between March 25 and April 17, 2015. Survey respondents were students 17-20 years old in the second term of their first year at college, and attending some classes in person at a 2-year or 4-year college. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables and subgroup sample sizes, visit www.SettoGo.org.

PERSPECTIVE: Philanthropy Can Respond to Anxiety, Alienation and Adversity

by Ambassador James A. Joseph [Part Two]

Think first of the anxiety so many people feel. There have been moments of great anxiety before. The period after 9/11 was such a moment. The period after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King was such a moment. But psychologists have called the present moment a period of free-floating anxiety in which the anxiety we feel is not the result of one event, but a confluence of events.

The present mood runs the gamut from anxiety about the lingering effects of the economic free fall we faced a few years ago to anxiety about what violent conflicts are doing to our soul as a people; from anxiety about the new meanness in public life to anxiety about whether the increasing tendency to use the public square to promote private interests will lead to an eclipse of the very idea of a public good. Many people have become so anxious that they are anxious about the fact they are anxious.

Occasionally, there are those moments when our spirits are uplifted and the dream of a more perfect union seems within our reach. Those are the moments when we romanticize Nelson Mandela’s call for reconciliation; when we remember Martin Luther King’s admonition to respect the humanity of the adversary; and when we revel in what President Obama called amazing grace, the spirit we saw in South Carolina when a horrendous act of violence hoping to cause a race war had the opposite effect.

But while public acts of forgiveness and grace may be seductive, while they empower the victim of violence and can disarm the perpetrator, they are rather limited unless they lead to a larger social transformation that involves individual, political and economic change. And that is why Desmond Tutu and others in South Africa who are still revered around the world, now speak of the fundamental deficit in their democracy as the failure to achieve economic reconciliation.

So if the first element of the emotion we see and feel is anxiety, the second is alienation. Reconciliation is difficult because too many of us look at diversity and want to homogenize it to fit our comfort zone. Many good people with the best intentions fail to understand the difference between the individual as actor and our institutions as agents. A recent poll found, for example, that white Americans, by a two-to-one margin, believe that where racism is a problem, it is a problem of biased individuals. People of color who were surveyed were more likely to be concerned about biased institutions.

However, it is not just the alienation of population groups from each other that concerns me. I have spent much of the last twenty years in South Africa and one of the things I learned is that enduring reconciliation is not possible without eliminating historical illusions, dismantling deceptions and coming to grips with mis-teachings.

The poet William Wadsworth put it best when he wrote that the only thing worse than being untaught is to be mis-taught. I also learned in South Africa what we are now learning in the United States, how public symbols affect public memory and how they can be used to shape a sense of belonging or alternatively foster a feeling of alienation.

Those who write about building or re-building community are the first to remind us that Americans disagree about who we are because we cannot agree about what we have been. We are at odds over the meaning of our own history, over the sources of our national strength, over what it is philosophically and spiritually that make us Americans. We are alienated not just from each other but from our past as well.

There is much made of the meanness tearing at the fabric of both national and international life. The anger we see is often the result of not just anxiety and alienation but adversity as well. Disaster is also a part of the new normal. Many people in many parts of our country and our world live with either the consequence of a prior adversity or walk in the shadows and anticipation of a future adversity. Some live in a constant rage about went wrong in a previous disaster. They are the ones who look for scapegoats rather than solutions.

There are others who live with the fear of a future disaster but they have known adversity before so they respond with a kind of resilience that engages it rather than being consumed by it. I grew up in Louisiana and I served later as chair of the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, so I know something about the resilience of Louisiana’s people. I can still hear ringing in my ears a favorite quote of my father who liked to say that the soul would have no rainbows, had the eyes no tears. He was defiant rather than defeated because he looked at adversity and saw not so much the tears as the potential for rainbows.

Disaster challenges philanthropy in a very special way. My experience with Hurricane Katrina was that while private donors provided millions of dollars for relief and governments provided billions for recovery, neither sector provided very much for reform. And yet it is this third stage that can have the most enduring impact. It can help sustain the public attention to what remains to be done and it can help change policies and practices that may have contributed to the disaster in the first place.

My concluding observation then is that the present mood and the present moment in our communities and throughout the nation is a time when we need leaders in philanthropy who are willing to take risk and leaders who are not afraid to stand for something. I have been a leader and I have been a manager. As a manager, I prized order, but as a leader I had to be willing to risk chaos.

If those of us engaged in philanthropy are to help reimagine and reaffirm the centrality of community in the American story, if we are to be agents of reconciliation and purveyors of hope, we will need to take risks that may disturb our comfort zone; but I know from my experience that times of crisis are also times of opportunity and that when you provide help you also provide hope.

This is a moment when not just individuals but the entire civic sector will need to lead again. It is a moment when philanthropy will need to act wisely and boldly, without fear or timidity. It is not enough to simply lament the deficit of leadership in our public life. You have it within your power to be the authors of not only a new narrative, but the architects of a new age.

So I conclude these observations about the pursuit of connection and cohesion with a vision of community that has been my constant companion since the day I first pondered how to build community by design. Some of you may have heard it before. It comes from the writings of the mystic, theologian and poet Howard Thurman, who was fond of saying “I want to be me without making it difficult for you to be you.” There is no better way of thinking about building and sustaining community.

I wrote my recently published book because I wanted the reader to imagine what the future community would be like if each of us were able to say “I want to be me without making it difficult for you to be you.”

I wanted readers to imagine what our world would be like if more Americans were willing to say I want to be an American without making it difficult for an Asian to be an Asian, an African to be an African or a Latin American to be a Latin American. I wanted readers to imagine what our communities would be like if more Christians were able to say I want to be a Christian without making it difficult for a Jew to be a Jew, a Muslim to be a Muslim, a Buddhist to be a Buddhist or a Hindu to be a Hindu.

I hope that if you remember nothing else I said today, you will leave here saying to all in hearing distance “I want to be me without making it difficult for you to be here.”

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Ambassador James A. Joseph is professor emeritus of the Practice of Public Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. The president of the Council on Foundations from 1982-1995, he has served in senior executive or advisory positions for four U. S. presidents, including Undersecretary of the Interior for President Jimmy Carter and Ambassador to South Africa for President William Clinton. His most recent book is “Saved for a Purpose,” published by the Duke University Press. This piece is excerpted from his keynote address delivered at the Connecticut Council on Philanthropy annual Luncheon and Conference on May 13, 2016. ©

Part I of Ambassador Joseph’s remarks were published last Sunday in perspeCTive.

PERSPECTIVE: The Challenge of Philanthropy - Anxiety, Alienation and Adversity

by Ambassador James A. Joseph, President Emeritus, Council on Foundations When I think about philanthropy in a badly divided nation and a badly divided world, I am reminded of what Scott Peck, the psychiatrist and noted writer said some years ago. He wrote that we build community out of crisis and we build community by accident but we know very little about how to build community by design. I would like to offer three observations about building community by design.

The first is the need to reimagine and reaffirm the centrality of community in the American narrative. I first became involved in organized philanthropy as an executive and a trustee a little more than fifty years ago. It was a time when Alexis de Tocqueville was the most quoted, but probably the least read, of our literary legacies. The public discourse about community centered on the civic habits of early Americans and how social cohesion was established and sustained by the coming together in local groups to promote the common good. It was a time when neighbors came together to help build each other’s barns and to take in the crops before the rains came.

In recent years, however, a second concept of community has competed for primacy in the American story. It emphasizes the centrality of the individual and romanticizes the lone ranger who conquered a hostile environment. A primary calling of leaders in the philanthropic sector, as well as policymakers and opinion leaders, is to help get the narrative right; to help bring back into balance the legitimate romance of rugged individualism with the equally legitimate effort to form communities where individuals embrace, reaffirm and take responsibility for supporting and promoting a common good.

I like the concept of community I encountered in Southern Africa in the 1970s. It had its genesis in the Xhosa proverb “People are people through other people.” It was not “I think, therefore, I am” but “I am because you are.” I am human because I belong. I was made for community, so If I deny your dignity I deny my own. If I diminish your humanity I diminish my own.  The early warring tribes in Southern Africa had war healers who came together after a conflict to plan initiatives to ensure that both the victor and the victims were restored into full standing in the community. It was said of Mandela’s ancestors that they had a short memory of hate.

When we are able to say that people are people through other people we are more likely to make the condition of others our own. It has been my experience that when neighbors help neighbors and even when strangers help strangers both those who help and those who are helped are transformed. When that which was their problem becomes our problem, the connection that is made has the potential for new forms of community. In other words, when you help someone who is homeless to find a home, when you help someone who is hungry to find food, when you help someone to find meaning in a painting or sculpture, when you help someone to fight bigotry or to find a job, you will be laying the groundwork for the genesis of community.

But while providing help can lead to a deeper connection, I must also caution that while charity is good, justice is better. One involves ameliorating the consequences of deep social ills. The other involves eliminating the cause and is likely to be more enduring. Let me provide an example of why I make this distinction. When we think of helping those in need, we often think of the Good Samaritan who encounters someone badly beaten on the side of the road and stops to give aid. But I ask you to imagine what the response would be if he travelled the same road every day and on each day he found someone badly beaten at the same location on the side of the road. Wouldn’t he be obliged to go beyond charity to the kind of strategic intervention that asks who has responsibility for policing the road? Charity is good, but justice is better.

My second observation is that foundations will need to help demonstrate that the fear of difference is a fear of the future. They will need to help persuade a concerned public that diversity need not divide, that pluralism rightly understood and rightly practiced is a benefit and not a burden. All of us will need to be reminded that when those who wrote the American constitution committed us to forming a more perfect union they realized that their initial work was neither fixed nor final. They understood that the American society is a community that is always in the making. Yet, it is this remaking of America that is causing great anxiety and even fear.

This conference comes at a time in which the fabric of American life is being torn apart by passions that seem almost out of control. We talk about forming a more perfect union, but the more interdependent we become, the more people are turning inward to smaller communities of meaning and memory. It is increasingly true in many parts of the United States that if you ask someone to step back and imagine what it means to be an American, they will not think of my face or even the face of our president. They will think of someone in whose image they see themselves; someone who fits their comfort zone; someone who looks like them, talks like them and thinks like them, that is, if they think at all.

Our challenge as we look at the passions that have been aroused around us, and often within us, is to help ensure that we do not misunderstand what divides us or misdiagnose the pathology that disturbs us. I am persuaded as I travel around the country that the emotions on display have at least three dimensions: anxiety, alienation and adversity; and that building and sustaining community will require that we recognize the distinctiveness of each of these emotions and develop strategies to respond to the cause of each.

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Ambassador James A. Joseph is professor emeritus of the Practice of Public Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. The president of the Council on Foundations from 1982-1995, he has served in senior executive or advisory positions for four U. S. presidents, including Undersecretary of the Interior for President Jimmy Carter and Ambassador to South Africa for President William Clinton. His most recent book is “Saved for a Purpose,” published by the Duke University Press. This piece is excerpted from his keynote address delivered at the Connecticut Council on Philanthropy annual Luncheon and Conference on May 13, 2016. ©

Part II of Ambassador Joseph's remarks will be published next Sunday in perspeCTive.

PERSPECTIVE: How Brexit Could Impact Connecticut Companies

by Alissa DeJonge On June 23, voters in the United Kingdom made the decision to have the UK exit the European Union – an unprecedented split from the 28-country economic and political partnership. It will take at least two years for the terms of the separation to be agreed upon, so the changes and the outcomes will not be fully understood or felt for awhile. While it is obvious that the greatest effects of “Brexit” will be in Europe, companies in Connecticut could be affected for a few different reasons.

Exporting companies are sensitive: Connecticut is particularly linked to Europe through exports. France and Germany are top destinations for Connecticut exports. Plus, Connecticut trading with the United Kingdom is strong, with the UK being Connecticut’s 7^th largest exporting destination and our state’s largest source of imports.[1] When there is uncertainty or economic downturns in areas like the UK, there can be decreases in demand for Connecticut’s exports. In addition, exports become more expensive because the U.S. dollar strengthens relative to the British pound or euro (although imports become relatively cheaper, boosting the Connecticut companies with significant imports).

Global companies make location decisions: The UK represents the 7^th largest economy in the world. The Brexit process is therefore likely to disrupt global business operations and will have companies rethinking where they do business in Europe and elsewhere. At least 82 UK-based companies are currently doing business in Connecticut.[2] In addition, a number of Connecticut companies use the United Kingdom as a gateway to the EU for operations because once a company has one location in the EU they do not have to obtain separate regulatory approvals in order to do business in other member countries.

As Brexit occurs, tariffs and trading relationships will have to be renegotiated.  For companies with their location in the UK and not otherwise in the EU, this will add to business costs. So these companies may prefer to control their costs by moving their European locations out of the UK to avoid the uncertainties related to the renegotiation process.

Uncertainty affects all companies: This additional uncertainty about what the exit agreement will look like adds to the general increased economic uncertainty throughout the world. Brexit is an action that no other European Union country has undertaken and it affects a relatively large economic region. Does this mean that other countries will follow? The answer is unclear. The possibility of a recession in Europe has become more likely as a result of this turmoil.

When there is uncertainty in the global economic outlook, stock markets typically behave erratically. And when there is uncertainty, consumer spending can get held up, as can company investments. This poses additional risk not just for companies that are thinking globally, but for those with a local focus too, because overall demand for a host of products and services can decrease when consumers and companies are worried about the economic future.

Uncertainty is the ‘name of the game’ for Brexit, and with uncertainty comes risks (and potential rewards) for a host of Connecticut companies. One thing is for certain though – analysts will be tracking and forecasting the outcomes of Brexit for years to come. This ‘British Invasion’ unfortunately has less to do with popular songs and more to do with unpopular economic insecurities.

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Alissa DeJonge is Vice President of Research, Connecticut Economic Resource Center Inc. (CERC).

PERSPECTIVE commentaries by contributing writers appear each Sunday on Connecticut by the Numbers.

Also of interest: The State Budget - What Do Demographics Have to Do With It?

[1] Imports of nucleic acids and pharmaceuticals

[2] Connecticut Secretary of the State

PERSPECTIVE: For Families of Special Needs Children, Thoughtful Financial Planning Can Provide A Roadmap

by Valerie Dugan The anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, on July 26, reminds us of the unique challenges families of children with special needs routinely face. One particular source of stress is financial: how will the special needs child be cared for in the event one or both parents pass away?

Wise investment and planning for the future is not only critical, but it also is much more complicated than for other families. Yet, planning carefully for future events can help alleviate some of the anxiety that parents of special needs children may feel. Planning for the care of their child can bring comfort.

Keeping in mind the goal – that is, to create an integrated financial and life strategy that allows the special needs child to maintain a sense of security, dignity and autonomy – here are some guidelines to consider:

1. Government benefits. Remember there are public benefits such as disability benefits, Supplemental Social Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid. These government benefits may be available to provide food, shelter, health care and other living expenses for special needs children.

2. Limited Conservatorship. Established at age 18, a limited conservatorship can help protect the child from possible fraud and embezzlement. A trusted, qualified individual serves as a watchdog of sorts.

3. Special Needs Trust. This could be used to fund a child’s specific needs, including special therapies and interventions, educational programs, caregivers, equipment, and so on.  A Special Needs Trust could help ensure that the child remains eligible for government benefits, both federal and state. Protected from creditors and litigation, its assets can be managed in a variety of ways; like any trust, it can be funded with stock, real estate, or other assets, but typically is most easily managed with cash and liquid assets. Another instrument to fund the trust is life insurance. Your estate attorney can set up a trust.

4. Life Insurance. Life insurance policies can be transferred to a Special Needs Trust that designates the Trust as owner of the policy; thus, the death benefit of the policy is removed from the parents’ estate. Clearly, there are numerous details that need to be considered; hence an experienced life insurance broker and estate attorney should be involved.

5. Succession Plan. This can be included in the Special Needs Trust for any assets remaining after the death of the special needs child.

6. Letter of Intent. This can help clarify the parents’ wishes for their child’s future care and living arrangements. It can outline such details as the child’s preferences for everything from food to environment.  It is the vehicle through which parents can express wishes for caring for their child and can pass on their legacy. A Letter of Intent is usually not legally binding, but it can guide conservators or other types of guardians.

7. Independent Trustee. An Independent Trustee or Licensed Professional Fiduciary can be retained to ensure that the provisions of any trust are carried out as intended. This person can also provide assistance with tax returns, court filings, trust distributions and other budgeting issues.

8. Gifts and bequests. Many people assume that a direct gift or bequest to their child is sufficient. While it may be straightforward, a special needs child may be incapable of managing the gifted assets. Such a gift, because of income limitations, could also render the child ineligible for government benefits.

Approached thoughtfully and comprehensively, financial planning for special needs children can provide for a lifetime of care. Knowing that their wishes and best intentions will be carried out may assuage some of the anxiety that many parents face.

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Valerie B. Dugan, CFP, is a Senior Vice President and Financial Advisor with the Global Wealth Management Division of Morgan Stanley in Hartford. For more information, contact Valerie at 860-275-0779.

PERSPECTIVE commentaries by contributing writers appear each Sunday on Connecticut by the Numbers.