I was planning to be in the Library of Congress this week, searching for family foundations that offer planning grants to incipient projects. We need money to hire a coordinator. Yes, we do need a coordinator, someone highly organized and very experienced in this non-profit world. And I now know two things: I’m very much a team player; I need someone sitting across from me to brainstorm and plan, face to face….and I need to pay that coordinator.
In recent months I have found, over and over again, that the fabulous volunteers who are willing and eager to help….pretty much have lives that come first. Totally understandable.
Let’s Get Global needs a strong, full-time, well-paid executive who can balance my visionary contributions with solid, detailed plans and on-the-ground actions. We’d make a great pair. I’m willing to work on it 24/7 (Keep buying and gifting that nomad book so I can continue volunteering full time!) as an idea generator, but I need a counterpart who knows how to take ideas and make things happen. I’d like to be able to hire a fantastic executive with high-power skills, someone who can view Let’s Get Global as a business that will change the country.
The reason I am not sitting in the Library of Congress searching the Foundation Center’s files is that I have spent the last week working on the anthology I’m producing, “Female Nomad and Friends: Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread Around the World.” It will be in stores and online June 1st.
When I got the idea to collect stories about taking risks and connecting around the world and to include international recipes in the book, I never dreamed that it would be ten times more difficult than writing the nomad book. But every time I read it (just finished proofing the final galleys), I can’t wait for it to be available to the rest of the world. The stories are fantastic: funny and sad, provocative and challenging. Readers will laugh and cry and jump on the next plane.
And all the author royalties are already going to scholarships to vocational schools for slum kids in New Delhi, India. None of the 41 authors is making any money on this. We are all very excited to be involved. Those scholarships will change a lot of lives.
The last few days I’ve been collecting quotes from my e-mails about the nomad book to put on the first page of the anthology (same publisher). That involves going through my e-mails, choosing quotes, writing for permissions, and compiling the comments.
So that’s why I’m not in the Library of Congress looking for funding at the moment. I have to get those quotes to Crown by Friday. I think I will put on blinders to other projects at that point and get myself to the grant-search.
Happy to read comments, suggestions, e-mails (info@letsgetglobal.org). And if any of you would like to make a tax-deductible donation, say $500,000, I will personally come to your home and cook you a Thai dinner!! I will also dance and sing, but, as I have said before, you may want to think about that part. US Servas, our fiscal sponsor, will also be happy to accept any amount you want to send. Thanks. Ciao, Rita