Director’s Corner Feb 6, 2013

Jobs, Journalism, Justice

Managing Director

Articles by Alan Preston

Thank you for supporting our 19th Annual Breakfast

By Alan Preston | October 2, 2013

Mayoral candidates Mike McGinn and Ed Murray headlined this year’s Real Change Breakfast, Tim Harris gave his usual rousing soapbox speech — this time perched atop an actual soap box — and emcee Rosette Royale outdid himself with a Liberace-inspired display of glamour and glitz. If you were there, however, you know that 2013 Vendors of the Year Willie Jones and Tricia Sullivan stole the show. ...

Low-barrier employment programs work

By Alan Preston | September 11, 2013

As I handed Tony, a Real Change vendor, his papers last Wednesday morning, he told me it was his last week selling Real Change.

“Thanks to Real Change I’ve managed to save up enough money to go to Mexico, where I am going to work as a private English tutor,” he said. ...

Tension helps us discover common ground

By Alan Preston | August 8, 2013

During his recent visit to Seattle, author, teacher and activist Parker Palmer spoke at Town Hall as part of an engaging panel about civility in public discourse. Parker’s message, echoed by his fellow panelists, was that democracy is threatened by our lost ability to talk to one another about our differences. “Democracy,” he said, “is more about being in right relationship with each other than it is about being right.” ...

Thank you, your support will help us expand

By Alan Preston | July 3, 2013

Gratitude. Pure, simple gratitude. That’s what I feel for this community of supporters that keeps Real Change thriving. Last week, we finished up our Spring Fund Drive, and we not only met our bold $208,000 goal, but we exceeded it by almost $10,000. Close to 570 individual donors contributed to the drive, a 15 percent increase over last year’s spring drive. ...

Healing America from the inside out

By Alan Preston | July 3, 2013

I encountered the work of Parker J. Palmer in the early 1990s, when a friend handed me his short but profound collection of essays, “Let Your Life Speak.” The essays touch on his own personal journey through depression, his path in aligning his role in life with his soul’s calling, and the lessons he has learned about the inner dimensions of leadership. “Let Your Life Speak” became a constant companion for me over the next few years, coming into my life as it did during a period of personal transition and questioning. ...

Only three days left in our Spring Fund Drive

By Alan Preston | June 5, 2013

Last week we announced to a room full of vendors that on the first day of our Spring Fund Drive, we’d raised more than $50,000 through GiveBig, an annual day of fundraising sponsored by The Seattle Foundation. Amid the gasps in the room and the smattering of polite applause, I heard one vendor comment: “That must mean pretty nice raises for you guys.” His tone was pleasant enough, but his words underscored the gap between perception and reality when it comes to what it takes to run an organization like Real Change. ...

Director’s Corner May 1, 2013

By Alan Preston | May 1, 2013

'The Color of Money'

The theme for this year’s annual White Privilege Conference was “The Color of Money.” For most attendees I spoke to, the conference was an opportunity to broaden their thinking about the systemic roots of race and racism to include issues of class. I lead trainings on class and so the conference was an opportunity to focus my attention on race. ...

Director’s Corner Apr 3, 2013

By Alan Preston | April 3, 2013

Developing cross-class relationships

After a recent Real Change Listening Circle we convened at Seattle University (SU), an older female participant described the essence of these experiences: “People are speaking at a much more personal level than people ever could to strangers.” She acknowledged she had “an older black man on my one side and a young undergraduate student on my other side. Why would they, why would people in those circumstances … come across somebody like me and tell me these intimate things?” ...

Director’s Corner Mar 6, 2013

By Alan Preston | March 6, 2013

The paper goes to $2 next month

On April 3, Real Change will become the sixth street paper in North America to raise its price to $2. We’ve been batting the decision around for the last couple years. We did a customer survey, talked to the other papers that had raised their price and convened a focus group with vendors. Ultimately, we listened to the voices of our most successful vendors, whose consistent message to us was that it’s time to raise the price, because $1 doesn’t buy what it used to. ...