"It's the moment," an annoying phrase said by lots of people, especially during the past couple of years.
"It's the moment" along with "new normal" mess up my time/space continumm. And I'm not talking about the Obama moment, a moment, hopefully longer, to be sure. Rather, this phrase gets bandied about as a call to action by invoking a tantalizing mixture of historical punditry and reading the tea leaves.
A few years back this phrase led the charge for a renewed assault on poverty. Oops! A recession. Now it gets thrown about because of the unprecedented policy and funding opportunities in Washington. These opportunities are certainly real and of longer consequence than a moment -- health care and climate change, to name two.
In the words of famous organizer, Myles Horton, I wish people would talk more about the long haul. Moments add up; we're in long-term economic doldrums; and making change takes a lot of time. Sure, we want to get our foot in the door,and that's what moment talk is about. I'm more worried about whether we can deliver on long-term change.
Bob Giloth has worked for nonprofits for thirty years with a focus on community economic development. As a practitioner and social investor he is interested in the preconditions and challenges of good strategy and implementation -- values, partners, timing, complexity, and mistakes.
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