I for one am passionate about social change. I donate locally to sustain the economy, then to my respective causes and with micro finance organizations like Kiva. Right now, I wish I could be “in the field” abroad, there in the action helping, but I know I am here loving what I do as well. So I do my part while there are many moving pieces.

So I have a question: Do you think that social change has to be reached only through non-profit work, to bring about change? I’ve worked at two non-profits and loved it–but all the while we needed other larger organizations to thrive such as banks and members of our board. All of which were integral parts to the success and diversity of growth. It seems there are more sides and more answers, especially for social change.

The concept of social change and social justice is something that flees the minds of us twenty-somethings. I think that WE think that our impact is so minimal that we can’t really make a difference. The truth is that doing SOMETHING, ANYTHING, is better than nothing. Donating $1.00 is better than no dollars, etc. I’m a firm believer that no amount is too small – if everyone spent an hour volunteering, if everyone donated a dollar to a local charity, if everyone was even just a LITTLE bit generous, we would see some pretty incredible things happening. Thank you, both of you, for bringing these ideas to light.

Perhaps it’s because what Carlos said is true, we just don’t feel like certain things are urgent enough for us to participate in, OR we feel helpless as if the situation is too grand for us to do something about it.

With that said, here is a quote by Helen Keller: “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”

So it’s not like we can do everything. But doing something is important, and contributing in any way we can DOES make a difference, and perhaps that’s a leap of faith we just have to make.

Someone recently pointed me to this article, the Theory of Active Peace – which I think is really interesting in terms of seeing where you are in the process of taking action on a social cause (http://www.internationalpeaceandconflict.org/forum/topics/the-theory-of-active-peace).

When I wrote my post for this series, I included a well-known quote from the Holocaust that ties in with this idea. It’s the one about no one speaking up as the Nazis came to take away group after group, because they were just grateful they weren’t part of those groups. They didn’t realize the flaw in their plan until the Nazis came for them and there was no one left to speak up.

I think this is a lesson we really need to learn from. If we keep saying, oh what’s happening over in Africa is so horrible, but not doing anything about it because we assume someone else will…what will happen when the US really needs the help of other countries? We can’t expect them to be there for us if we weren’t there for them. The same is true for us as individuals. I really enjoyed your take on change. Great post!