7/31/2019 Sample Cover Letter C-- for "IPCR Outreach 2012"

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The IPCR Initiative

July 4, 2012

Dear _________________,

I am sending this message to share with you the enclosed 9 page document titled Community Visioning

Initiatives or General Elections?and to encourage you to examine this document, and other IPCR

Initiative resources, as you make your assessments of the challenges of our times.

From July 2011--January, 2012, I was working on an IPCR Critical Challenges Assessment 2011-2012

project, as part of building The IPCR Initiative. In January, 2012, I made a summary report of the project

accessible: Calling the better angels of our nature: A Multi-Angle View of the Debt Crises (398 pages;

detailed Table of Contents). The 398 page Multi-Angle document is accessible from the IPCR webpage

for the IPCR Critical Challenges Assessment 2011-2012 project, at http://www.ipcri.net/Critical-

Challenges-Assessment.html , and from the IPCR Initiative homepage, at www.ipcri.net

The ten critical challenges identified by the IPCR Critical Challenges Assessment Project are listed onp.9 of the enclosed document. One of the ten critical challenges identified is the debt crises being

experienced by many nations (and thus by many banks, states, provinces, and municipalities).

There is much emphasis now on economic growth as a solution to these debt crises.

Unfortunately, the kind of economic growth which is most often being referred to includes a vast

array of enterprises which require the continued exploitation of flaws and weaknesses in human

nature, fragile ecosystems, and already significantly depleted natural resourcesand which are much of

the reason why cultures of violence, greed, and corruption have become so common that most people

believe they are inevitable (for evidence supporting this statement, see Sections IV and V in the Multi-

Angle document).

We are at a critical point in the evolution of life on the planet Earth.

The issues which have resulted in the debt crises (and many other critical challenges) are problems

which are at the very core of our difficulties with being human beingsand thus will require much more

than the usual amount of problem solving, if we are to change course.

The IPCR Initiative advocates for a combination of preliminary surveys to 150 local leaders (as

preparation for Community Visioning Initiatives), time-intensive Community Visioning Initiatives

supported by many neighborhood Community Teaching and Learning Centers (offering workshops

suggested by the preliminary surveys), and sister community relationships as a way of creating local

community specific and regional specific constellations of initiatives responses to the challenges of ourtimes. (Note: A Brief Summary of The IPCR Initiative is included on p. 10 of the enclosed document, and this

summary lists six key IPCR documents and webpages, including A 15 Step Outline for a Community Visioning

Initiative.)

(over)

Stefan Pasti, Founder and Outreach Coordinator

The Interfaith Peacebuilding and Community Revitalization (IPCR) Initiative (at www.ipcri.net )

P.O. Box 163 Leesburg, VA 20178 USA

(703) 209-2093 stefanpasti@ipcri.net

Interfaith Peacebuilding and Community Revitalization

http://www.ipcri.net/Critical-Challenges-Assessment.htmlhttp://www.ipcri.net/Critical-Challenges-Assessment.htmlhttp://www.ipcri.net/http://www.ipcri.net/15_Step_Outline_for_a_Community_Visioning_Initiative.pdfhttp://www.ipcri.net/15_Step_Outline_for_a_Community_Visioning_Initiative.pdfhttp://www.ipcri.net/mailto:stefanpasti@ipcri.netmailto:stefanpasti@ipcri.nethttp://www.ipcri.net/http://www.ipcri.net/15_Step_Outline_for_a_Community_Visioning_Initiative.pdfhttp://www.ipcri.net/15_Step_Outline_for_a_Community_Visioning_Initiative.pdfhttp://www.ipcri.net/http://www.ipcri.net/Critical-Challenges-Assessment.htmlhttp://www.ipcri.net/Critical-Challenges-Assessment.htmlhttp://www.ipcri.net/A_Multi-Angle_View_of_the_Debt_Crises.pdf

7/31/2019 Sample Cover Letter C-- for "IPCR Outreach 2012"

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From Pasti to __________, 7/4/12, p. 2

All of us have important responsibilities associated with resolving a significant number of very serious

challenges ahead.

The investments of time, energy, and money that each of us make in our everyday circumstances are

what creates the larger economy.

The Rio + 20 conference (the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development) held June 20-

22, 2012 could have provided an example the effectiveness of representative democracy. The

representatives attending that conference have had access to the best information about the challenges

of our times. One of the most needed outcomes from that conference was guidance which would help

people at the local community level learn why they should be carefully considering how to direct their

time, energy, and money at this critical timeand how to improve their capacity to do that. I do not

believe we have received that kind of guidance from that conferenceand if people who are that well

informed cannot provide such guidance, by what processes are the general public going to receive such

guidance, and improve such capacities from the political advertising campaigns which lead up to

general elections?

Here are two paragraphs from the last page of the Community Visioning Initiatives or General

Elections? document:

preliminary surveys or questionnaires (as preparation for Community Visioning Initiatives) are meant

to help people rediscover truths about their goals, how what they are doing in everyday circumstances

of community life relates to achieving those goals, the challenges perceived as the highest priority

challenges by the majority of residents in a community, and what residents are doing to overcome such

challenges.

Here is one question such preliminary surveys could ask:

If 1000 Community Visioning Initiatives of the kind advocated in this article (i.e. time-intensive

Community Visioning Initiatives supplemented by the above mentioned key processes) had already been

carried out, and each visioning initiative had the general focus of maximizing citizen participation in

identifying challenges, and in solution-oriented activityand the citizen participation/problem solving

results could be compared to 1000 political campaigns of equal expenditures, which resulted in the

election of citizen representatives

--which processes (1000 Community Visioning Initiatives or 1000 General Elections) do you believe

would have the best cost/benefit ratio (i.e. given equal expenditures in both citizen

participation/problem solving processes, which one would result in the most solution-oriented

activity)?

If this question was asked of you, how would you answer?

For a Peaceful and Sustainable Future,

Stefan Pasti, Founder and Outreach Coordinator

The IPCR Initiative