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Jonathan Lavine Keynote | 2012 City Year Summer Academy
By focusing on the nations drop out crisis and recruiting, training, deploying your young
idealistic leaders, who believe in the potential of students, students like me, from Classical
High School, and the opportunity to change the world, you have a very clear and specific
vision for the impact and you are delivering in a very, very big way.
In fact, I would suggest, and I mean it, that few social enterprises are able to achieve
the same level of results as those demonstrated by City Year. When you step back and look
at what this organization has done in any single year, it's breathtaking. And now
multiply it over all the decades, DECADES, that City Year has been doing this. In my
professional life I'm an investor, I make difficult investment decisions every day.
And in most cases, investment decisions are actually a lot easier than people think. It
comes down to leadership. You can look at all the numbers in the world, but you don't
invest if you're not willing to back the people running it... and the higher level
of confidence that you have in leadership, in any organization - in philanthropy, in
government and in business - is how you make a decision and my family has always believed
in City Year, Michael, its executive team, and every one of you, because every one of
you are being a leader in some big way and we believe in you.
This is one of the most unique propositions in that it changes the trajectory of thousands
of students each year and yet it also changes the trajectories of the young leaders and
develops leadership skills of the people actually providing the service...and I just can't
think of a lot of things anywhere in the world that have that kind of impact.
You have earned our support by holding yourselves accountable to the highest standards by taking
on our nations most pressing problems and, most importantly, by delivering results in
a way that I am proud of you and I'm sure you are proud of yourselves every single day.
Given your results in high poverty schools all over America, Jeannie and I are convinced
that now is the time to take this model to the next level. Now is the time to show the
true power of national service in our nations schools...in City Year as the leading provider
of that. One of the most important things we can all put in the "Make Change" is
now is the time to show everybody that the zip code you were born in does not condemn
you to a certain future.
[Applause]
You are on the cusp of a breakthrough; you are having dramatic impact on public education
in America and on hundreds of thousands of low-income students. It's my privilege and
my wife's privilege to be part of such an exciting time in this organization's history.
We thank you for inspiring our family, for showing so many children that they can achieve,
and all that you do, every single day. Thank you very much for your time.
[Applause]