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>>Erik: What have you learned about approachability and how you present yourself to connect with
the communities you visit?
>>Adam: In so many professional contexts our instinct and our training teaches us that
we need to present ourselves as formally and as professionally as possible and in ninety-five
percent of instances that is the best approach. I have personally found in my work in the
field that it’s more effective to kind of play down my own appearance or - what I mean
is I don’t want – if I show up to visit these projects in a suit and tie and a briefcase,
people are going to see a big dollar sign walking in the door and I’m not going to
get a true representation of the project. I used to write guidebooks and it’s the
same thing, if I walk in and say ‘Hi I’m a guide book writer’ I’m going to get
a beautiful tour. But when I show up, when I’m doing work in the field, I show up with
a tank top and a pair of shorts and whatever and I just kind of tell them ‘How are you?
I heard about your project, it looks great. I would like to see more, learn more and maybe
in the future I could help, maybe we could raise some money, who knows?’ and they say
‘Oh great’ you know, they just kind of - in an unassuming manner. Then if I decide
that this project is worthy of… some help and then if I then go in and ask more about
kind of the finances and want to speak to the director or whatever and that’s the
instance when… it makes that moment that much more enjoyable and that much more effective
when I’m able to say ‘You know this is a wonderful project and I really like where
you’re going and I’d like to help you sustain it and improve it, how can we do that?’
and when I tell them ‘Write down what you could do with five hundred dollars if I could
raise it, what you could do with a thousand dollars if I could raise it’ and when they
write this down and I say ‘Okay is this feasible? Can we really make this happen and
how long would it take?’ and they say ‘Oh, we could do that in a few days, we buy the
stuff, we buy -’ I say ‘Ok, let’s make it happen, let’s do it right now’ and
there’s this instance of disbelief like ‘How are you going to make that happen’
and I say ‘Listen, here’s the deal. Here’s who I am, here’s my card, here’s my organization,
I have my own nonprofit, this is kind of work I do and I would like to help