By Benji Lovitt who received an ROI Micro Grant to participate in the PresenTense SocialStart Trainers Course

Sunday morning, a group of ROI alumni and individuals selected by PresenTense came together to begin the PresenTense Social Start trainers course.  In this six-day seminar, participants will train to become certified PresenTense facilitators of social entrepreneurship courses designed for PresenTense Institute fellows, professionals in the Jewish community, and others.

While the majority of the participants currently reside in Israel, the group is made up of people originating in the United States, South Africa, Argentina, and of course, Israel.  After introductions and the requisite icebreaker games to bond the group, we jumped right into the course.

There exists no better way to learn to teach than to put yourself back in your students’ shoes (or desks as it were) and we spent the first day as students, learning the process of turning a vision into reality.  The first exercise, titled “drunken brainstorming”, divided us into groups of four to get our creative juices flowing.  Perhaps it was the icebreakers which lowered our inhibitions in the absence of alcohol, but each person was tasked with writing on two different note cards an innovative idea to improve a social aspect in his or her community.  After a minute or so, each person would pass one card to the right, one to the left, and then add elaboration to the note cards passed to him/her.  Fast forward less than 5 minutes:  each group of four had eight note cards with eight new ideas which had not existed just moments before, hard to believe after watching each person present one of the new ideas to the entire group with charisma and enthusiasm, a testament to the entrepreneurial spirit in the room.

As we began to talk about crafting a vision, PresenTense co-founder Aharon Horowitz conveyed one of the most important lessons of the day:  it’s easy for an entrepreneur to focus on an idea and get caught up in details of the HOW, that is, the details of his/her initiative, from raising money to how to achieve the desired results.  However, we too quickly forget about the WHY, the fire that keeps us burning in the first place to make the world a better place.  When talking to a potential funder, it’s easy to explain that “I’m creating a shelter to give homeless people a place to sleep.”  On the other hand, saying “through this facility, I will offer struggling citizens a place to lay their head at night and begin to rebuild their lives, giving them hope for the future and making our neighborhood a brighter place for all its citizens”, we inspire and let someone buy into our vision. 
To conclude our first day, we moved from general to specific, exploring digital and social media tools to create an online presence with many of the participants succeeding in creating a website for the first time, in just a few minutes.

The spirit in the room was vibrant throughout the day and we all look forward to the rest of an amazing week.


(Benji is the one in green!)