Rating: 
Summary: Cathedral Builders Never Work Alone
Review: Shore has taken the concept of community investment to the spires. The analogy he draws between those who envision a community worthy of its members and those who over centuries built the grand Cathedrals of Europe stirs the soul. Cathedral Builders never work alone; they work in communion across time and across the community. And first they open the cathedrals within their minds and hearts, and allow the people they aspire to serve to build within. This book must be read by all who envisage lasting change through non-profit or similar endeavors. A true communion of the Saints. Shore takes us back to the basics with which we began community. He makes us dream together, stand on each other's shoulders, and lift those who might otherwise be left behind to rise with us to the heights. You cannot come away from this book alone.
Rating:
Summary: Cathedral Builders Never Work Alone
Review: Shore has taken the concept of community investment to the spires. The analogy he draws between those who envision a community worthy of its members and those who over centuries built the grand Cathedrals of Europe stirs the soul. Cathedral Builders never work alone; they work in communion across time and across the community. And first they open the cathedrals within their minds and hearts, and allow the people they aspire to serve to build within. This book must be read by all who envisage lasting change through non-profit or similar endeavors. A true communion of the Saints. Shore takes us back to the basics with which we began community. He makes us dream together, stand on each other's shoulders, and lift those who might otherwise be left behind to rise with us to the heights. You cannot come away from this book alone.
Rating: 
Summary: spectacularly vacuous
Review: The actual content of the book can be summarized thusly: (1) spend more time with kids if you want to affect their development, (2) don't starve young children because otherwise they won't develop properly physically and mentally, (3) run your not-for-profit enterprise just like a for-profit corporation and with just as much of a zeal for profits, except that you can put the profits into your own pocket as salary instead of paying it out to a bunch of shareholders and to the Federales as income tax.Padding these ideas out to 300 pages requires that the author tell you how famous his friends are, each and every one of them, and how much do-gooding his few non-famous friends have done. There are also long stories about the escapades of his 13-year-old son. Never does the author address the issues raised in the subtitle, e.g., how does a person balance his or her life between charity and selfishness? Shore's definition of "giving something back" is working at a multi-million dollar tax-exempt organization and paying yourself $400,000 per year. Nice work if you can get it but what about the rest of us? For a thoughtful look at the issue of personal charity read the novelist Nick Hornby's "How to be Good".
Rating:
Summary: spectacularly vacuous
Review: The actual content of the book can be summarized thusly: (1) spend more time with kids if you want to affect their development, (2) don't starve young children because otherwise they won't develop properly physically and mentally, (3) run your not-for-profit enterprise just like a for-profit corporation and with just as much of a zeal for profits, except that you can put the profits into your own pocket as salary instead of paying it out to a bunch of shareholders and to the Federales as income tax. Padding these ideas out to 300 pages requires that the author tell you how famous his friends are, each and every one of them, and how much do-gooding his few non-famous friends have done. There are also long stories about the escapades of his 13-year-old son. Never does the author address the issues raised in the subtitle, e.g., how does a person balance his or her life between charity and selfishness? Shore's definition of "giving something back" is working at a multi-million dollar tax-exempt organization and paying yourself $400,000 per year. Nice work if you can get it but what about the rest of us? For a thoughtful look at the issue of personal charity read the novelist Nick Hornby's "How to be Good".
Rating:
Summary: Revive your soul, lift your heart.
Review: This book will show you how helping others is good for your own spirit. Want to get rid of the Monday morning workplace blues or even worse, that dark, empty feeling you have about work that doesn't go away - even on payday? Shore, in his extremely readable anecdotal style, offers the cure in "The Cathedral Within".
Rating:
Summary: Right on the mark
Review: This is a book that touches the heart of both important social issues and the reader. Written in a wonderfully open style the author writes from a perspective of sharing rather than preaching. Bill Shore's approach of tying his view of how the issues of today's society can be most effectively addressed to his personal experiences, rather than theory and conjecture, brings substantial credibility to his writings.
The issues addressed are those of scaling the resources of non-profit, public service, organizations to meet the growing needs of our society in the face of shrinking government resources. The notion of making non-profit organizations self-sufficient is well outlined and easily understood. "The Cathedral Within" is a book that left me feeling encouraged to know that there is not only room for improvemnt in our social structure but that it is being aggressively and effectively pursued.
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