The 2nd of 5 Social Entrepreneurs That Rock | Robert Egger

Last week I wrote about Dickson Despommier, who roused the StartingBloc crowd by encouraging the transformation of the decidedly non-ecological Business 1.0 model through vertical farming.

The day prior Robert Egger stepped up to the mic with a hepcat swagger to his introduction. You've probably heard of him. He's been around; he's down with Oprah, down with The Boss.

He starts not with definitions of social enterprise, nor with a painting of today's "doing good while doing well" landscape. He starts with Casablanca - it's what inspired him to get into the D.C. nightclub business. He saw that opening sequence in the film - all the superficial freedoms in the airs of Casablanca the nightclub, the music, the buzz, the drink and vitality, and then the higher-order freedom embodied in clandestine conversations around getting the hell out of dodge. He saw Casablanca and got into nightclubs; then he volunteered on a truck passing out food to the homeless and had a vision.

In 1989 Robert Egger leveraged a mini-lifetime of nightclub experience and a passion for shaking things up to create the DC Central Kitchen, an organization in Washington, DC, that collects food donated by area restaurants, hotels and such; the donated food and DC Central kitchen serve to train unemployed/homeless men and women for food-service jobs while converting food donations into 4,500 meals every day of the year. Waste not, want not. Bravo.

But Egger's message gets bigger quickly - and as he gets worked up, he swears more and more, with virtually no apology. But because of his singular look and history, it feels like we're chatting with him at Cafe Wha? (a Greenwich Village nightlife institution) and not being schooled, as we are, at a Village institution of higher education ... so it works, the swearing and all.

His big message is about the tired state of nonprofits, of having to fight tooth and nail against other meaningful nonprofits for funding and media attention. He's tired of finding nonprofit advocacy falling on so-called deaf ears in city halls and federal buildings.

With his V3 Campaign, he hopes to build anew a nonprofit movement that better reflects the realities of the sector, as he says: "We [the growing network of American nonprofits] employ 14 million people, and channel the energy and ideals of 80 million American volunteers annually. We stimulate the economy in every town and city. We put billions into tax coffers."

The three V's are for Voice, Voting Power and Value. And the mission of the V3 Campaign is simply to change the way nonprofits are involved in the political process by asking "every candidate for higher office—from small town mayoral contenders to presidential nominees—to provide details about their experience with nonprofits and their plans for partnering with and strengthening the nonprofit sector if they are elected."

As a social media enthusiast, I'm personally attracted to the idea of leveraging virtual networks to empower alliances and create strategic and expansive social change. So Egger got me good with this idea. I'll be tracking its progress along the way. And in the meantime, I'm going to pay closer attention while watching old films. Clearly some treasured wisdom in there.