Transcript of Remarks of Greg Werkheiser
Founder and Executive Director, The Phoenix Project
The Phoenix Project's
"Accelerating Social Entrepreneurship in Virginia" Luncheon
July 25, 2007
Falls Church, Virginia
Welcome, and thank you for coming today. The Commonwealth of Virginia has been blessed in recent years with great prosperity. But for the last eighteen months I have been traveling around Virginia, meeting with good people who have been left behind in our forward progress. Yes, we have been named the Best Managed State in the Nation. Yes, we have been named the Best Place to Do Business and the best place for young people to get an education. These well-deserved accolades were earned, in no small part, by the efforts of our moderator today, Governor Mark Warner, and the public, private and nonprofit sector leaders who fill our audience. We have much to be proud of here in our home state. And yet, these accolades do not hold true in all parts of our Commonwealth. Not in the places where seven hundred fifty-thousand Virginians still live and work in poverty that is inconsistent with our character and potential.
In recent months I have traveled to the Coalfields in Southwest Virginia, where only eleven percent of residents have a bachelor’s degree. I’ve spent time with the fine residents of the City of Petersburg, where just twenty-five miles south of Richmond a child born today has the eighth lowest life expectancy of children born in 3300 municipalities in the United States. That’s right- just twenty minutes south of our capital city we have the eighth most distressed community in the nation—ahead of only Native American reservations in South Dakota and the City of Baltimore. I’ve talked with hundreds of folks in Lorton, Virginia—just down the road from here—where 1 out of 10 children grow up in poverty while living in the wealthiest Congressional district in the nation. I have seen these disparities first hand, and yet, instead of despair, I have been filled with hope.
In every pocket of poverty in Virginia there are good people, people who have a positive vision for their community and who refuse to accept that their lives are unchangeable. But they are asking our great colleges and universities and our next generation of leaders to partner with them as they pull themselves out of poverty.
We founded the Phoenix Project to help answer their call. We believe that Virginia’s world-class institutions of higher education can and must do more to tie their missions to the fate of communities left behind. A statewide partnership between our universities and colleges and our distressed communities would infuse our communities with the extra hands and minds needed to effect change and improve the teaching, learning and service our universities. This partnership offers hope for short and long term improvements to Virginia’s struggling communities.
We also founded the Phoenix Project because we know that for long term sustainable change, we need to prepare the next generation of nonprofit leaders and social entrepreneurs to tackle the Commonwealth’s most entrenched challenges. They must be prepared for 21st century leadership—with a strong understanding of the sophisticated business practices that must be applied to the social sector, with the courage and humility that comes with testing their mettle on the front lines of communities in great need, and with the confidence that comes with being part of a statewide network of social entrepreneurs who share their vision.
This summer the Phoenix Project launched Virginia’s first statewide leadership programs in social entrepreneurship. Thirty top students from fourteen universities are gathered for eight weeks to learn from forty-five leading scholars and entrepreneurs and then test their talents working side by side with community leaders to deliver eight thousand hours of service on thirty projects on the front lines of our most distressed communities. Of those thirty students, we have allowed six to play hooky this afternoon, and they are seated among you. [Applause].
Thank you all for coming today to talk with our panel. They are shining a light on the path for our students, and frankly for all of us, as we explore ways to accelerate transformational change in our communities and around the world. Please join me in welcoming Bill Dietel, Chairman of GuideStar International, Carol Thompson Cole, President and CEO of Venture Philanthropy Partners, Marco Davis, Fellowship Director of Youth Ventures, and Robert Egger, Founder of the DC Central Kitchen. [Applause]
I would also like to recognize our elected leadership in the room, whose example and presence here today show us the strong role that government has to play in accelerating social entrepreneurship in Virginia: State Senator Creigh Deeds; Chair of Minority Caucus in the House of Delegates, Brian Moran; Chairman of the Fairfax Board of Supervisors, Gerry Connolly, State Delegates Frank Hall, Vivian Watts and Dave Marsden; Fairfax school board member Janet Oleszek; and one of my heroes, the Mayor of Petersburg, Annie Mickens. [Applause]
There are leaders from twenty-one Virginia universities in the room today, including Alan Merten, President of George Mason University; Bob Templin, President of Northern Virginia Community College; and Alan Wurtzel, Chair of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. [Applause]
Leaders of the nonprofit community and the private sector are represented here today in numbers too great to acknowledge individually. I thank you all.We are grateful to our generous sponsors who are listed in your program, including our lead sponsors, Suzann Matthews, Tom Hirst, Alan and Irene Wurtzel and Don and Megan Beyer. [Applause]
I would like to recognize the Phoenix Project Board of Directors, whose leadership, support and faith in our concept has taken our idea from a two page prospectus to a $650,000 organization and statewide movement in just a year and a half. They are Suzann Matthews, Michael Caplin, David Carter, Tom Hirst, Alan Wurtzel, Irene Wurtzel, Ray Warner, Ken Dye, Leigh Middleditch, Joan Fenton, Stewart Gamage, and Eric Thomas. [Applause]
Finally, my wife, Marion Forsyth, like me, left the private practice of law to be my partner in a less lucrative but more rewarding venture—the Phoenix Project. I thank her for her leadership and support. [Applause]
Again, thank you all for your time. I hope you will enjoy the lunch, and before you get to dessert we will be back with comments from former Governor Mark Warner.
[End of Transcript]