Acknowledgments

From Both of Us

We want to acknowledge Fred Myers and Bernie Glassman, who founded the enterprises we are now privileged to lead. There would be no Rebuild Resources and no Greyston Bakery to write about if these entrepreneurs had sat around for the last twenty-five years waiting for a book to come out. They just did it, and we’re extremely grateful they did.

Nor would this book exist without the huge contributions of a team of MBA candidates from the Bainbridge Graduate Institute on Bainbridge Island, Washington—the nation’s first Sustainable Business MBA program. These guys conducted all the interviews and background research for the book, gratis, just because they wanted to advance the field. They did that on top of grad school, and, get this, they are doing that on top of their day jobs. They are truly amazing. You should hire them or invest in them or do whatever else you can possibly do to get next to them. All we promised them in return for their work was a plug in the book, a promise we are delighted to hereby fulfill:

• Linda Glasier (class of 2009) fights the good fight at the Washington State Department of Ecology and endeavors to advance several diversity and social justice causes.
• Michael O’Brien (class of 2010) helps to advance the greening of business media at SustainableIndustries.com and is passionate about student finance for change agents.
• Paige Coleman (class of 2008) is a strategic consultant and facilitator at Kindle Partners, works to change the landscape of community economic development, and will seek your vote for Portland mayor in 2012.
• Robert Marino (class of 2009) works to deliver Al Gore’s climate change presentations, helped cocreate the Tulip Credit Union, and cochaired BGI’s Diversity and Social Justice Committee.

Contact them directly via the e-mail addresses in the back of this book to dangle rewarding, world-changing job offers in front of them.

A special thanks to Gifford and Libba Pinchot for starting a place like Bainbridge that could attract this gang and for hooking us all up together. Note to readers: There’s no place like Bainbridge. Make it your first stop in the quest for brilliant, passionate MBA hires.

We have deep gratitude and endless respect for the twenty-one social enterprise practitioners who gave the benefit of their experience, wisdom, and strength, to say nothing of their time and pithy words, to the betterment of these pages. Thank you one and all.

We are deeply appreciative of Social Venture Network for being the community in which we met each other and blossomed in our careers. Special thanks to Mal Warwick for conceiving the SVN book series and encouraging us to write this book.

Thank you to Steve Piersanti for starting Berrett-Koehler, where a couple of practitioners could actually scratch together a book. He’s created an amazing social enterprise in his own right. Thanks to our editor, Johanna Vondeling, for her soft but unrelenting touch; to Jeevan Sivasubramaniam for mercifully shortening his e-mail handle to jsiva so that we could cooperate with his superb attention to the myriad publishing details; and to the rest of the BK team members who are genuinely interested in helping us make this book a success.

Huge thanks to the advance readers and critiquers who had a huge impact on our content, structure and presentation. Thank you, Jerr Boschee! Thank you, Kathy Schiern! Thank you, Danielle Scott! Thank you, Tom White!

Thanks to Michelle Thorla, founder of TriskeleCorporation .com, for her speedy transcription work.

From Kevin Lynch

To the love of my life, Leslie Jean Wilson: Whatever gave you the idea that you should let me spend the first eighteen months of our marriage writing a book? Thank you for encouraging me to do this and for loving me up with those salads on my writing days. Thanks to my parents, Thomas and Barbara Lynch, and to my children, Patrick and Kerry Lynch and Austen, Mason, and Alyssa Loeffler, for all your love. To Maura Lynch, my self-appointed conscience, thank you for keeping me on the straight and narrow. And a very dear thank you to Terry Mallick, my great partner in crime and my even greater brother in recovery.

Thanks to the partners to whom I wasn’t very good at Lynch Jarvis Jones: John Jarvis, Jeff Jones, and Earl Wilcox. Enduring thanks to Kris Mallick Lynch for your completely unsung role in building the agency with me despite my dark side and for not taking it away when we split. And to the whole LJJ crew over the years, with extra appreciation for Bob Ballard and Tracy McCoy: We built a social enterprise when we didn’t even know what the hell that was.

To Craig Neal: This all started when you introduced me to Social Venture Network and sponsored me as a member. Thank goodness I met you. Every other member of SVN, past or present, is part of who I am today, but none more so than you whom I love the most: Pam Chaloult, Deb Nelson, Mal Warwick, Claudia Viek, Cynthia Scharf, Doug Hammond, and my best buddy, Laury Hammel.

My gratitude goes to Rick Berglund and Tom Luukkonen for hiring me at Rebuild and hanging in there with me, to Mary Casey for working the steps with me when the going gets rough, and to every Rebuild board member who has given time, talent, and treasure to ensure our success.

To all of the Rebuild employees who work long hours for short pay: You inspire me every day with your unflinching commitment to the common good. You produce hope. Special thanks to Kevin Byker for all the back-door talks, to Lori Stee for teaching me about the three Rs, and to Josh LaBau for marketing wizardry that makes me look good.

To the nearly 1,000 courageous men and women who have put their lives back together at Rebuild: Thank you for trusting this little social enterprise to make a difference for you.

And to the late Bill W., cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous: Thank you for envisioning a manner of living that could bring me from despair to hope in the hands of a loving and powerful God, to whom I owe all. Thank you, Higher Power, for showing me that I could and should do this with my life.

From Julius Walls

First and foremost I give honor to my God. I have not always put His will ahead of mine, but still, He has been faithful to me. My God has given me vision and provision. I owe all to Him. To God be the glory.

I thank Cheryl, my wife of twenty-four years. We have had some good times and not-so-good times. But through it all you have stood by me, supported me, lifted me, carried me, and inspired me. I love you.

I thank my children for their support and love, including coming to the office with me on their days off from school— sometimes willingly, most of the time not so willingly, but always obediently. Thank you for not beating me up when I spend long days at work or traveling around the country or work at my desk at night. I hope you do not feel you had to sacrifice too much for my work.

I thank my parents for their love and support. Through their actions they taught me the love of people. My dad also taught me about values in business before he or I understood that language. He taught me about work and taking care of family. My mother taught me about every good thing. I tell people that she gave me my taste for life.

I thank the many people at Greyston whom I have come to know and love and from whom I have learned so much: Mac McCabe, Chuck Lief, Bernie Glassman, Rodney Johnson, Lisa Saltzman, Steve Schall, Wendy Powell, Vernate Miller, David Rome, Daniel Helfman, and many, many more. Your love, support, and guidance have meant so very much to me.

And finally, I call out to a special group, the employees of Greyston Bakery. You have inspired me. I am a different person because of you. I try to do what I try to do each and every day because you get up to do what you get up to do each and every day. I have watched you overcome the challenges that life throws at you. Sometimes you do it with grace; sometimes you struggle. But you don’t give up. You are teaching the world that it should not give up on you. I promise that I never will. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your lives.