The Least Foundation

Originally Typed: February 3, 2011

Before you read this... just know you can help all this happen by going to

http://apps.facebook.com/dockerswearthepants/entries/2631

and voting for my plan once a day until March 15. Tell your friends, make it your homepage, whatever you want. It's all appreciated!

Ok... So some of you may have heard, quite vaguely I'm sure, about my desire and move to start a non profit foundation. The organization in question would be "The Least Foundation." Here's the latest to my "plan."

The proposed mission statement will be at the very least... very similar to...

"The Least Foundation exists to love the unloved and 'unlovable' reach the unreached and 'unreachable,' bring hope to the 'unseen,' 'hopeless,' and 'forgotten,' facilitate the process of those already engaged toward these ends, and encourage others to do the same, all in reflection of the life-changing love of Jesus Christ."

That'll probably be cleaned up a little bit, but let's break down what that means. It means that the foundation exists to do whatever necessary to show the love of Jesus to people in this world. This will be done in a variety of manners. One of those being to partner with other organizations who are already working to help people in need. There's no need to re-invent the wheel here. If people or organizations already do something well we want to learn from them and help them in anyway we can. That may mean pointing you to them, because they're specific passion lines up more specifically with your talents and/or passion. It also means learning from what they do to do what WE do better.

The Least Foundation itself will eventually not be the ground level for any change, but an intermediary, financially, informationally, in terms of publicity, and any other helpful ways it can be toward positive social change.

The Least Foundation will... Invest in the foundation of non-profit organizations who's missions line up with ours. The plan currently is for the first of these organizations to be started by myself and focused on the ending of slavery in the world, primarily in the form of human trafficking.

The following will briefly describe the mission of the first organization the Least Foundation seeks to support:

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In short this will be take place on several levels, but it's more complicated than any blog could describe. Here are a few areas of we must consider. This is by no means exhaustive.

The Oppressed: We will seek to work for and with the victims. We will seek to work in the areas of prevention, rescue, and rehabilitation with those who are at risk and/or already are caught up in this world. We will seek to take what we learn from the experience of these victims and in our process to more effectively achieve our overall purpose. This means decreasing the risk for those at risk, especially due to rough home lives, being in orphan care, or in danger as a result of poverty

The Clientele: Helping the oppressed is great and wonderful, but if all we do is rescue there are more vulnerable people in danger of being pulled in. Like it or not human trafficking is a $32 billion business, and that doesn't happen without clients. aka people who purchase goods produced by victims of trafficking either directly or indirectly. Some of this is done knowlingly and a lot of it is done unknowlingly. The aim here is to work through massive amounts of publicity and one on one time work to emblazen the harsh realities of what happens when we aid slavery whether it be through horrific habits or unknowing purchases of certain goods and services from larger companies. If the clientele is cut off then the money goes away and the problem greatly diminishes and can be able to disappear. We seek to move those who have engaged in heinous acts of paying for sex with a trafficked person to not only quit their behavior, but then "roll over" on and assist in the apprehension, arrest, and conviction of others involved either as clientele or trafficker. Those who don't change we fully seek to discover, apprehend, arrest, and convict.

The Oppressors: If all we do is save some oppressed and cut off some clientele oppressors will find new people to oppress and new clientele to woo. We must also seek to reach the oppressed. This, like clientele, is an oft forgotten segment. These are some of the most heinous people in the world. People who's actions are in no way acceptable. However, as Christians we see the power of God to change people's lives clearly throughout the Bible. Look at Saul, who became Paul. This man hunted down, terrorized, tortured, and murdered early Christians just for their religious beliefs and after an encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus this man became a leader in the church writing 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament. God not only rescues the victims of this world, but also the oppressors, and if one oppressor is changed, how many victims are saved? This is the trickiest area, and I don't know how it will work. We will seek the apprehension and conviction of all human traffickers that we possibly can. However, this doesn't mean we are to ignore them. They can prove to be a huge force in ending this problem in our world. Through publicity and various campaigns we can seek to break the hearts of those men and women that are oppressing and trafficking other humans as if they were useless property. We may not have great success, but what if we reach one person who then turns on all the people involved. What if one person's heart is changed? How many people can be saved? How much peripheral justice can then be served? Certainly this can't atone or undo the wrongs already done, but if we ignore ANY method to stop this problem then we are being part of the problem. We are not too good for any viable solution. If we publically make this known that this is our strategy it should at least create unrest and further uncertainty within criminal organizations. Distrust and uncertainty in a business lead to more open doors for escape and a less efficient process. In the very least by doing this we throw a cog in the wheel of the most heinous industry in the history of the world.

The average person: Chances are you aren't highly involved with the human trafficking industry. We seek to educate and motivate you to do so. To get you to have your eyes open, to know how to spot a likely trafficking case, and how to best react to help that situation. You may feel like the "least" able to help this problem, but I assure you that you are not. If everyone works together we can make this stop.

If you are unfamiliar with the problem you can see more information at

http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/

http://www.truckersagainsttrafficking.com/

There are also several other websites and organizations working to prevent this problem and rehabilitate those women and children involved. I can pass those on to you if you can't find them.

You can also find out more about an FBI initiative.

http://www.truckersagainsttrafficking.com/informational-resources-human-trafficking/fbi-initiative

This is far from everything, but it's a start.

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Thus ends a baseline description of the aim of what is planned to be the first NPO that LF (The Least Foundation) seeds and founds. It is my hope and dream that we could seed/assist in the foundation of many other NPOs down the line with similar vision for some of the world's biggest problems.

Additionally, We look to form partnerships and alliances with already existing organizations that may need help in some way whether it be in terms of publicity, or financial or human resources. We also seek to be a place where the person who desires to help change the world can come and look for places to help. Maybe you don't have time to start your own NPO, but you wanna know how you can help. LF seeks to become a resource to that. Maybe you want to start an NPO and you wanna know how other people do what they do so that you can be more efficient and effective in your dream. It is my dream that LF would become a resource to that as well.

How will LF get the $ to do all these things?

THAT is a darn good question. Beyond the whole... "the Lord will provide" mentality I feel that the Lord will provide, but it doesn't necessarily fall in your lap. You have to be intentional.

So here are a few ways I plan to do this. Once again... this is not exhaustive.

Individual Donors---> LF will seek the donations of individuals moved by this cause. We will accept prayer help, monetary help, volunteer help ( ie probono legal or accounting services etc)

Corporate Sponsorships and Donations---> This is very similar to individual donors, but likely on a bigger scale. This will help in terms of gaining additional steam and publicity for the problems and the causes.

Social Entrepenuership--->LF will invest in various start up businesses who's aim is to turn profits into change. For example, I would like to start a t-shirt and apparel business that both gets the word out about the problem and provides funds that can be poured directly back into LF to influence greater social change, thus furthering the mission statement of LF in multiple ways. In addition to this I would also like to form partnerships, thus seeding and investing in the dreams of other people. Let's say you have a passion for something, perhaps photography. Let's say you also have a burning desire to help people. If your vision lines up with that of LF, and the business plan is sound it would be my desire that LF could invest in your company, providing start up costs and other resources. What's the benefit here? Well there's more than one. First off you have a business that can provide for you and your family. Secondly, if successful enough you can then hire others, thus creating more jobs in an economy that is seeing unemployment numbers at a higher than comfortable level. You would then have more money and resources to invest in various areas of social change thus spreading the love (one of which would be re-investing back into LF so that we could continue to better provide for the needs of others and help others like you feed their dreams) and the others would be up to you... maybe you wanna help the homeless. Heck, by that time we may even be able to connect you with one of our partner NPOs or an NPO that we've helped found that deals with homelessness or whatever your passion may be.

Is there more... inevitably.... as I learn more, more comes, but let's be honest you probably didn't even want to read that much. If you wanna know more you can ask. I'd be glad to share that information.

You can contact me at djassist1@hotmail.com or at theleastfoundation@gmail.com or on facebook if you're already my friend... or in person... you have options (also a carrier pigeon is acceptable if you can pull it off)

So what's the more immediate plan for now. Right now I'm learning...Studying and researching. I'm leaning toward working ground level with another organization, including quite possibly doing "World Race" ( http://www.theworldrace.org/ ). These things will not only allow me to work and help the people involved, but sharpen my understanding on a lot of these problems, making me a better advocate in the future. It's an investment of time and energy and money to make me, LF, and anything else I work with in life a better more efficient investment in positive change in people's lives.

Thanks for reading. There's more yes and more to learn. If you want to help... then DO IT! If you want to know more... ASK! If you too have a dream then FOLLOW IT!

I do need accounting and legal help to get these things off the ground. I don't wanna owe the government big tax $. So if you can help that would be huge.

(also check out www.hikewithhope.com it's a pretty awesome organization started by some friends... I won't explain... if you wanna know just go to the site)