Rarely does everyone in the audience have a question – a question that resonates with the essence of the challenges we face.

“So what role should not-for-profits play?”

“What you’re describing sounds like socialism, how are these ideas possible within the capitalist system?”

“How do we reconcile the short term with the long term?”

“How do we shift values?”

“How do change a whole system?”

Such was the greeting I received after the talk I delivered at the Milken Institute Israel Center. I have been invited to speak in Israel by the US State Department’s Office of Public Affairs, part of the State Department’s Israel Embassy.

The diversity of the audience was exceptional. The quality of the questions deeply considered. Gathered where CEOs, NGOs, venture investors, educators, philanthropists, US State department officials and Israeli government representatives who are researching and working in project finance, regional development, environmental projects, and social and investment-related financing.

The Office of Public Affairs has arranged a weeklong series of lecturers that come from far-ranging insitutions, including The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, The Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem, School of Sustainability, Herzliya, the Arab Center for Alternative Planning and the Kibbutz Ma’anit.

In Israel, ten people have twenty points of view. Fear of the future collides with the passion to ensure it’s better than the past. Passion is commonplace. Disagreement is conversation. Difficult questions seem to be the only kind.

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