Anyone who’s familiar with my longtime Socrates Cafe initiative, which somehow has become a global phenomenon and still has a momentum nearly 20 years after it was launched, knows that I don’t wait for funding to begun something. If I think it might help make our world move livable and lovable, I just begin, and hopefully what I’m trying to accomplish speaks to other kindred spirits who can provide much-needed support.
In the case of the Declaration Project, while the original idea might have been mine, it would have remained in the realm of possibility, of a dream largely unfulfilled — or at least, it would not have been fulfilled in the beautiful way it has come to pass — without a lot of help from others.
No one more so than the amazingly talented, youngest board member (to date) at Democracy Cafe — Danielle Olson. I met Danielle, owner of Visually Digested, a number of years ago when I spoke to graduate students in the MFA program in Collaborative Design at Pacific Northwest College of Art (whose founding chair is our advisory board member Peter Schoonmaker). Danielle and I stayed in touch afterwards. When I had the opportunity to travel to Portland with some frequency when I was visiting prof in that program, I met regularly with Danielle, who had since graduated and was making her mark as an entrepreneur.
Thankfully, she let me coax her into becoming part of our board of directors. Danielle had many face-to-face conversations over coffee and pizza during my stays in Portland, and then regular Skype conversations ensued. An extraordinary questioner and listener, Danielle helped me tease out and further discover what exactly it was that I was trying to accomplish. First off, she helped me, among other things, develop a theory of change — still a work in progress — for Democracy Cafe. She fiddled a bit with our Democracy Cafe website, making some deft touches that made it much more presentable.
But most of all, she came to share my passion and vision for the Declaration Project — so much so that she devoted untold hours towards developing a site that surely would have cost umpteen thousands of dollars if I’d had to get funding. Danielle has spoiled me and all the rest of our board members at Democracy Cafe, giving us in the process a gift beyond what I could ever have imagined – even though she has a fuller plate than ever, what with recently being named Communications and Content Manager at Hatch Innovation in Portland.
She has inspired all of us at Democracy Cafe — no one more so than yours truly — to roll up our sleeves and work with even more dedication and gusto.
