Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful
Review: "The Cathedral Within" is a very inspiring book, as uplifting to the spirit as "The Triumph and the Glory" and that is saying a whole lot, believe me. What a great book this is, filled with such inspirational examples of living life as it should be lived, looking after others, and growing as a person because of such generosity of spirit.
Rating: 
Summary: blinded by the the light
Review: Bill Shore not only understands the spiritual motivation that drives social ventures, he eloquently describes the essence of this motiviation and provides a recipe for cultivating it in others. My only complaint is the blind praise he offers City Year and its founders for communicating an inspiring vision, while neglecting their inability to decentralize and "come to scale" -- practices he extolls in other parts of the book. Perhaps his membership on the City Year board has blinded his objectivity?
Rating:
Summary: Not just for non-profits
Review: Bill Shore's enlightening book, "Transforming Your Life by Giving Something Back" is not just about non-profits. It provides insight into every part of human life. He spikes the book with advice about marriage, child care, and friendships. The book, in my opinion, has less to do with non-profits and more to do with living a great life. It is certainly a must read by anyone who cares about humanity.
Rating:
Summary: Not just for non-profits
Review: Bill Shore's enlightening book, "Transforming Your Life by Giving Something Back" is not just about non-profits. It provides insight into every part of human life. He spikes the book with advice about marriage, child care, and friendships. The book, in my opinion, has less to do with non-profits and more to do with living a great life. It is certainly a must read by anyone who cares about humanity.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect Father's Day Gift - But Buy One for Yourself Too.
Review: Billy Shore doesn't just have a message; he is a great storyteller with a message. The result is a book that you won't want to stop reading until you get to the very last page. Then you will want to go out and do something to make yourself and the world a little bit better place. It has been a long time since I read a book that made me think so much, or reflect so deeply on the world in which we live; or the one that we will leave to the next generations. Shore guides us to the realization that there is much that we can be doing to leave our children the basic freedoms of safety, education and the ability to earn a decent livelihood; things that many of us took for granted. This book has genuine heros and heroines, great parenting stories, humour, lots of examples of what's working, and some very pointed examples of why the clock is ticking for the children of our country. And as the title promises, just reading the book makes you begin to feel empowered to start giving more to get more out of life. A great dose of inspiration and direction for individuals and organizations.
Rating: 
Summary: A conversation about giving something back.
Review: For me, the most exciting aspect of a book's publication is its potential to create a kind of conversation, between you and me, about issues important to both of us. I recently received a handwritten letter from a friend who left his job. He wrote "What I want to do next, in addition to making some dough, is something that counts." The letter was from Mike McCurry, President Clinton's former press secretary, and I started my book with a account of it because the sentiment seemed so universal. Doing something that counts. Something that not only makes a difference, but has a lasting impact. It's a basic human need, like water or calcium. We can actually get by with surprisingly little of either, but we hold together better and longer when we get regular servings of each. There's a better analogy. We need it like we need love. It's the need we aren't sure how to talk about but that makes us feel whole. In addition to the book's general themes of giving something back and creating "community wealth" and social change in a way that lasts, The Cathedral Within deals with two other issues that are especially topical First, if the new wealth being created by our booming economy is spent to solve social problems in the same old ways, we will have tragically squandered our greatest opportunity to reverse the fortunes of America's most at-risk children. A new breed of social entrepreneurs across America is not focusing on inventing new social programs, but rather on making the most effective existing efforts affordable, replicable and sustainable. Second, and related, is that the persistence of hunger, homelessness, and a variety of other social ills, particularly in the face of our sustained economic growth and prosperity, suggests we don't know how to solve such problems. But such evidence is deceptively easy to misinterpret. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there are not many social problems in the United States we don't know how to solve. In one community or another, innovative approaches to hunger, homelessness, illiteracy, infant mortality, teenage pregnancy, and other seemingly intractable conditions have been developed, tested and proven. What we have not succeeded at is making those solutions sustainable, replicable, or grow to scale. That, and more, is what the book is really about. I'd love to know what you think of it.
Rating:
Summary: Read it more thank once!
Review: If you work for a non-profit or profit making company this is a must read! Billy Shore gets it! This creative man helps all of us think in creative ways about this and future generations.
Rating:
Summary: Building A Soul For Business
Review: Perhaps the most important points that this book makes are 1) If you can't build the structure, add a few bricks! and 2) Community Wealth and Social Capital are re-inventing business from the soul out! In this well-written book, Shore (Founder of Share Our Strength) uses the model of a cathedral to demonstrate that large dreams are community efforts that reach beyond personal lifetimes to accomplish, and that appear impossible until the collective brainpower of the community engages to find a solution. This metaphor addresses the "perfectionism" that sometimes stops people from making efforts towards social change. In the inspirational stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, readers feel the passion that rebounds of the pages. Echoing the human voice for meaning in an increasingly digital and isolated world, this book suggests practical ways for American wealth to be redefined, redistributed, and built upon foundations that include social interests. It is a blueprint for building ethics into today's business values and ventures that will create a social structure of community wealth. I read it in one sitting, underlined heavily, and have placed 39 page markers within its covers. The inspiration found between its pages has helped me redesign my own business plan towards the greater good. In short, read it.
Rating:
Summary: A book for the ages.
Review: Relying on anecdotes and his own experience as a philanthropic executive, Bill Shore has mapped out a new way for nonprofits to generate revenue -- by creating it. By forming corporate partnerships that "create" wealth rather than rely on charitable contributions, which aren't necessarily guaranteed and which represent someone else's money, nonprofits can generate new revenue and thus grow the community's ecomony. The author offers up profiles of some of those leading the charge and he outlines a general means through which charitable contributions and/or "community wealth" enterprise participation can also grow the soul. This is an important book that will be widely read by anyone wanting to make a difference in American society.
Rating:
Summary: The best business text since Built to Last
Review: Shore captures in vibrant detail the essence of building a mission driven organization which is replicable. He uses the stories of everyday heroes to provide tangible, visible examples of what for-profits and non-profits should strive to create.
| 
