Editor’s Note: The Kenneth Bacon (1944-2009) was honored at the 2009 Purpose Prize Summit with an Honorary Purpose Prize. David Cohen contributed this moving tribute shortly after Bacon’s death last summer.
Ken Bacon was an encore exemplar. Ken spent the first part of his professional life as a superb reporter and editor for The Wall Street Journal. He was appointed to a sub-Cabinet office as U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson during the Clinton years.
In his encore career, Ken Bacon headed Refugees International. He brought skill and passion to global advocacy in helping the displaced.
Thomas Tierney, the founder of Bridgespan and former CEO of Bain & Co., combined his sharp analysis of social change and his passion about John Gardner’s mentoring and influence on him in telling a riveting personal story at the 2009 Purpose Prize Summit.
I too was mentored by Gardner. I cherish these chances to place in a current context Gardner’s influence as a social innovator, thinker and whose mentoring guidance has a lasting impact on our public and private lives.
Senator Ted Kennedy’s death brings back lots of memories for me. I was lucky to have a chance to work with Senator Kennedy and his extraordinary staff on public issues for nearly 50 years. I was no intimate, but I did lots of public interest lobbying and our paths crossed many times. Happily for me, I had a chance to work on the Serve America legislation that is named in Senator Kennedy’s honor.
Editor's note: David Cohen, a senior advisor to Civic Ventures, has been an advocate and strategist on many of the major social justice and political reform issues in the United States since the early 1960s.
Among the achievements of the first 100 days of President Obama and his Administration, I believe the signing into law of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act represents a singular breakthrough with immeasurable promise for the President, his Administration and the American people.
She argued for a big, smart and fair stimulus with a 1% -2% set aside for job training. The stimulus’s package should emphasize meeting urban and rural needs and focus on people and jobs.
On December 17th I posted a comment on a Salon article dealing with Obama’s appointment of Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education. The announcement took place at a Chicago elementary school. Obama had a conversation with first to fourth graders.
Here’s what I posted corrected for spelling, grammar and clarity.
The economic crisis will lead in all probability to two economic stimulus packages. Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff to President-Elect Obama, spoke to an operational hope when he said crises can be turned into opportunities. My hope asks, how can the stimulus packages advance the Encore idea and program?
I want to begin a discussion on www.encore.org based on people’s experiences and ideas. In turn these can be incorporated into the stimulus legislation and its implementation. Here are a few thoughts to get us started.
Encore.org member David Cohen, a senior fellow at Experience Corps, contributed this comment:
Choosing Will Allen, the Milwaukee urban farmer, for a MacArthur genius award gave me great pleasure.
I was part of a team at the Advocacy Institute--with key colleagues Sharvell Becton, Laura Chambers, Keiko Koizumi and Kathleen Sheekey-- that worked on the Leadership for a Changing World Program (LCW) in partnership with the Ford Foundation and the Robert Wagner School of Public Service at New York University (NYU).
Our purpose was to award through varieties of recognition, including money, social change leadership that tackled intractable social problems systemically and systematically. Our focus was to find those leaders whose leadership made a difference in people's lives but who were largely unrecognized.
