On the cutting edge of hope…
Elfenworks is leading the way to a better America, one good thought at a time. Working on behalf of our country’s marginalized citizens, we identify issues that aren’t being effectively addressed, create change in new and different ways by bringing our unique skill-set to bear, and amplify our partners’ successes through storytelling. In this way, we are “In Harmony with Hope.”
Three Steps
We take three steps to create the kind of sustainable hope we believe in:
1. Identify chasms
We identify unmet but addressable challenges where we believe we can have a maximum impact. We either assume project lead ourselves to address the chasm or develop partnerships with others that will result in new solutions. In-house projects range from mindfulness-based training with at-risk children to lower high stress-induced cortisol levels to creating a “fair truth” label to identify American-made goods and services produced in a fair and true manner. Our partners include thought leaders in academia, the arts and the nonprofit sector.
2. Creating Change
We create change in new and different ways. First, we determine what unique skill-sets are necessary to effectively address an identified chasm and then defining the heroes who can make it happen. It may be members of our hardworking team or other experts in the field who have not yet been brought together to identify solutions. Over the years, we have entered into partnerships with The Carter Center, colleges and universities like Stanford, Harvard, Mills, St. Mary’s and Golden Gate, as well as the Campus MovieFest, College Battle of the Bands, and United Health Care Action Network. Once we have identified the heroes for a particular project, we equip our projects to succeed—using our deep bench of in-house technology and artistic talent and tools. From technology and web design to filmmaking, graphic design and music composition, we furnish the necessary tools to ensure a project’s success.
3. Amplify Success
By pooling our own expertise and partnering with thought leaders and other experts with either research- or ground-based solutions, we accentuate the success of our projects. We apply measurement and metrics. We can’t just feel that our projects are hitting their marks; we quantify it through objective analyses like site surveys and analytics of website hits that demonstrate the intended message is being broadcast effectively. Finally, through our awards programs, publications, and social media and web presence, we shed light on and amplify the successes of our partners and other visionary non-profit leaders whose ideas for change are working and deserve our attention. And when it’s all said and done, we start the process all over again. We identify another chasm, thus creating a “virtuous cycle”—because, at our core, we are innovators, process designers and artists who believe in sustainable hope.
Would you like to become part of it? Would you like to work for hope? Please take a moment to look over our projects and contact us if you would like to partner with any of our existing projects or if you can help amplify the success. We invite you work with us for hope.
The Seven Pillars
In addition to the easy three-step process design approach we use to create change we analyze each prospective project using a tool called the Seven Pillar Methodology, designed by Elfenworks founding CEO Dr. Lauren Speeth following a conversation with former President Jimmy Carter. The Seven Pillar tool helps organizations and people figure out to best attack a big problem. From our experience at Elfenworks, the Seven Pillar criteria ring true. The Seven Pillars can be used to help address any number of huge issues in the world, whether they be health-related, environmental—or, really, any cause you embrace. They can help put the resources you have in exactly the right place. And we’ve noticed that the more attention that we pay up front, the more smoothly the project will run. Click the thumbnail to see a worksheet that we hope you will find useful (please note: reprinting or publishing is strictly forbidden without advance permission).
Our Multi-pronged Approach
Once we gone through the steps, above, we’re ready to negotiate the issues. Since poverty in America is such a large problem, it must be attacked from multiple vantage points. We’re addressing it academically, through multimedia, and on the ground.
Academically
- Stanford University is a legitimate university with brain power, but in need of resources. Their Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality had a vision to be more than an ivory tower research facility – they wanted to be about solutions. See our Creating Change page for an explanation of how Elfenworks first applied the Seven Pillar tool [1] to this important business decision.
- The Collaboration for Poverty Research continues to build upon the foundation of poverty research.
- We are working with Golden Gate University to empower the Elfenworks Center for Employment Justice at the School of Law, and build their website.
- Together with faculty from these academic partners, we are launching our first fully online unconference, “FairTruth,” on 11/11/11.
In Media
In addition to academic research, media recognition is critical to our mission. So we decided to take our mission even further into mass media, with the following projects:
- In partnership with Campus Moviefest – the world’s largest student film and music festival – Elfenworks Social Justice Prize
- The awareness-raising film The Faces of Poverty, a cooperative effort with The San Damiano Foundation, winner of the 2011 Crystal Swan award in the Swan International Film Festival, Perth, Australia. Mr. Christopher Vas, Assistant Director, Workforce Innovation, Tertiary, Skills & Productivity Group, Dept. of Education, Employment and Workforce Relations, Australian Government, represented Elfenworks to receive the award for Faces of Poverty.
- The awareness-raising film A Concert for Hope. What would you do, to start a ripple? This film explores the question, and captures a moment in time that caused a ripple, bringing waves of change we are still feeling.
- The book, Tracks of Hope, and an online exhibit to accompany it. These projects were prompted when the Concert for Hope event itself was met with a general lack of understanding in the public blogosphere (blogged responses to an article in the San Jose Mercury News about the concert).
- Tools for those who want to get involved, including “Second Saturdays” and “How to Make a Ripple” were designed to be easily accessible on the web, for the widest reach.
- One uplifting media project (although not strictly “social justice”) is the CD Rejuve, created with a soothing intent and launched in association with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of the Greater Bay Area.
On the Ground
Real people in need don’t hang out on the web or in movie theaters, they often live on the streets. We have looked to existing organizations with innovative solutions as the “boots on the ground.” Each year, using the seven pillar guidelines as part of the judging criteria, we select new innovators to honor with our In Harmony with Hope award. Their stories and their fight for change are heroic.
More recently, we’re spearheading an in-house project, which we call the Butterfly Project, “fighting nasty cortisol in kids, with cool stress reduction.”
As you can see, we’ve kept busy at Elfenworks, “working for hope in America, one good thought at a time.”
