But is Cyrano sexy?

I was reading the wonderful Vanity Fair Special African edition (July 07). Guest editor Bono. I thought I would just skim it quickly – but I got sucked right in. The stories are honest and really well told – not in the least woo-woo – they’re surprising and irreverent (the Chris Rock satire was harsh, brilliant and insightful). They’re about actual people doing what they can to get along. The stories give me a whole new way of looking at Africa, they make me want to do something to help – drill a well for clean water, carry Jeff Sachs’ bags.

Cyrano too is working to get understanding and help. But is Cyrano’s a sexy story? We are not getting the help directly to those Africans with big smiles and flies on their faces, or drawing drinking water from stinking cesspools - we aim to help those who do help them.

Where are our cover stories of the under-resourced volunteers, the inspired but penniless choreographers, the over-worked and under-paid executive directors and the hair-tearing development directors? If we had those pictures would they move anyone? But they all need the help to get their good work done. And we can help them tell their stories effectively so that they can get more resources and do more and do it better.

A dollar spent on Cyrano will be multiplied geometrically when we can provide all of them with the tools to get more of what they need to do more of their good work. That dollar won’t just go to one organization – it will go to 1.5 million. That’s how many nonprofits there are in the US. They will all get to use it. How’s that for leveraging!

There are over 25,000 nonprofits in New York City, 750 in my zip code alone. You have heard of Amnesty International, The New York City Ballet and The American Red Cross. But there are hundreds of thousands – yes hundreds of thousands you haven’t heard of. Good people doing good work. Look them up on Guidestar.org – they are all there.

Most of them are doing humanitarian work feeding the hungry, fixing education, curing disease; they are working to lift people out of poverty, many of them are working to save our natural environment – a humanitarian effort surely – and many are working to expand our minds and our understanding of ourselves and our world through music, dance, theater – perhaps the most humanitarian of all.

So what is Cyrano doing? We are here to give them the tools to tell their stories more effectively – so they can strengthen the impact of their work. We are here to give them the leverage to take their passion and have it make more of a difference, by getting more of the stories of all these good works told so that they will move people – just as this Vanity Fair moved me. They can’t all be cover stories – but they don’t all have to be. Sometimes the right story just needs to be told to the right one or two people to make the difference.