Sustainable Family Communities Latest Video Report
29 October 2013
Hello Fellow Mountain Foothills Rotarians:
Thank you for your continuing interest in our work of compassion to implement Sustainable Family Communities for less poverty and fewer orphans.
I wanted to bring two updated items to you.
1. Our newest short video is Poverty or Prosperity? What are we doing? and you can see it by Clicking Here (http://youtu.be/ZPtx2e6NnwM) (3 1/2 minutes)
2. Our updated Executive Summary (3 pages) that gives an overview of the Sustainable Family Communities project is attached to this email. Attached below.
Please share this report and video with your social network/Facebook/Twitter.
We are continuing to look for operational funds to begin implementation of these communities in Mexico.
To help, you can make a larger one time donation OR smaller monthly automatic recurring donations (e.g. $100 per month) by Clicking Here.for PayPal (and also our mailing address for checks) or if you prefer here for the Network for Good donation site N for G Donation
Thank you again for your interest, support, being part of this project and for having compassion for those who we are serving.
As always, we appreciate your feedback, ideas and comments.
On behalf of our team, you are appreciated!
Bob
Bob (Robert) Miller
Executive Director
Sustainable Family Communities
Our Family Orphan Communities, Inc.
www.orphancommunities.org
www.SustainableFamilyCommunities.org
USA Office: 303-514-6858
USA Cell: 303-941-0837
Mexico Cell: (52-1) 55 45 39 46 74
Our Purpose
Sustainable Family Communities (SFC) is a comprehensive new socio-economic, self-sustaining
community model. We assist local citizens to create new small communities which, 1) reduce the
number of families living in poverty; 2) reduce the number of orphans in our world and 3) are not
dependent on government subsidies or ongoing donations.
Built near existing cities where employment is needed, each SFC will build and own “for-profit”
commercial businesses creating over 100 new jobs and business profits. All profits from these
businesses are kept within the community to pay for ongoing operations, maintenance, profit sharing
and as seed funding to start additional SFC’s. The ratio of profits to community size is a critical ratio.
This unique community design also incorporates food security, environmental sustainability and social
sustainability to create a place where poverty does not exist.
Special emphasis will be placed on childcare and assisting residents who wish to pursue in-country
adoptions. In this way, former orphans will receive the love, care, education and preparation to
become productive and contributing members of their community and society. This enables former
orphans to become true assets of their society contributing to the sustainability of their community and
country.
Our Organization
Sustainable Family Communities (SFC), is a project of the international humanitarian nonprofit
organization Our Family Orphan Communities, Inc., (O.F.O.C.) a 501(c)3 Colorado nonprofit.
Our global vision of O.F.O.C. is to have a world filled with empowered, self-sustaining communities
in which families and former orphans are prospering and contributing to their society.
Our mission is to assist local citizens to create designed Sustainable Family Communities, which
create opportunities for themselves to have a decent quality-of-life and more opportunities for
adoption of orphans.
Management: The guiding force for O.F.O.C. is our experienced board of directors and a home-office
team of experienced and dedicated individuals, who oversee implementation, provide support and
monitor activities of the organization as SFC’s are implemented around the world. Communities in
each host country will in turn be guided by a local board of directors made up of both local country
members and members from our O.F.O.C. home office.
The Problem
The need: The effects of poverty have been detailed in countless studies focusing on the issues of
disease, illiteracy, crime, civil unrest, delinquency, drug and sex trafficking, illegal immigration and
the relentless increase in the number of children who end up as orphans. All of these problems
contribute to the breakdown of families, communities and entire countries.
Current worldwide efforts to address poverty tend to focus on addressing one effect of poverty rather
than the causes. E.g. providing clean water, providing seeds for a garden, providing a literacy program,
Draft 20 October 2013
Our Family Orphan Communities, Inc. – Executive Summary – (1) 303-514-6858 Page 2
building a school, etc. Each of these projects reduces suffering, increases joy or helps people to have a
better life, which is vitally important and the people dedicating their lives to doing them are to be
commended for doing it. The problem is, in spite of their wonderful work, it is not enough to assist all
those who need help, nor is it eliminating the causes of poverty. SFC does not just deal with “effects”
that are causing the suffering, it creates a place where those effects do not exist.
Our Solution
Our mission will be accomplished by creating an opportunity for local citizens to leave jobless areas
and go where they can participate in building new small communities which provide the opportunity to
have a decent job, quality-of-life with financial stability and more opportunities for their immediate
family members.
The Economics: Community owned for-profit commercial businesses have two primary goals: 1.)
Create jobs that pay decent living wages, and 2.) Fund the creation, maintenance, operation of itself
and the creation of more Sustainable Family Communities. These “economic engines” will eliminate
the people’s need for dependence on government subsidies or ongoing donations.
Businesses are selected for their ability to integrate with and support each other as well as community
life. Businesses considered are primarily agricultural including: aquaculture, greenhouse, dairy, hogs,
biogas, farming and others. Technical and business professionals will direct these businesses.
In addition to paying taxes and providing many social benefits to citizens surrounding the community,
using an estimate that each worker will be supporting a family of seven, the 100 direct jobs will be
supporting 700 individuals. Add to this a multiplication factor of one for the indirect job creation and
each community will be serving at least 1400. Also, with some of the profits being used to start
additional communities, the number of citizens benefiting from the investment in each community
greatly increases each year.
Community Facilities: In addition to the commercial businesses, the design of the completed small
community includes forty single family homes. Other facilities, besides the commercial businesses,
will include the training center, small business locals, recreation center, soccer field, hotel and optional
clinic and school (also dependent on services available in nearby existing community).
Location: Communities will be established as near to an existing community (Pop. 10,000 or more) as
possible. Reasons include: needing 60% of the workforce to come from outside of the community, a
local market for some of the production, needing schools for the children, integration of businesses,
stores, cultural and sports activities and access to healthcare.
Residents: Communities will be primarily self-governed by a Residential Agreement. Initial
recruitment of residents will include three key criteria: 1.) What skills and education do they have for
building, operating and maintaining the community? 2.) What motivation do they have to see a
materially and socially sustainable community succeed to benefit their country? 3.) Do they want to
adopt Mexican orphans?
Why now?
Despite the rhetoric by international organizations and governments about “eliminating poverty” the
reality is that due to current practices of our economies, societies and governments, predatory
Our Family Orphan Communities, Inc. – Executive Summary – (1) 303-514-6858 Page 3
capitalism, greed, dishonesty, corruption, wars, natural disasters and more, there will always be those
who need “a better place to be” and SFC’s are that better place. We are reducing poverty and orphans
with each prosperous SFC that is built.
The current danger is that as poverty continues to grow unchecked, so too is the dissatisfaction of the
people who are trapped in it growing. This is like a cancer destroying the societies from the inside.
The revolutions we see around are world are signs that people are no longer just accepting the way
things are. Each of these communities can turn dissatisfaction into decent quality-of-life for hundreds
of citizens. The replication of each community, hundreds more.
Our status
Results to date include:
We have the design for the model (participation of over 800 volunteers from 18 countries).
Initial conceptual proof of the economic feasibility of the Sustainable Family Community has
been completed by the University of Colorado College of Architecture and Planning as
published in the Master Plan designed specifically for the state of Chihuahua, Mexico
Additional financial and marketing studies, research and designs provided by Colorado School
of Mines, University of Colorado, Metro State University and Adams State College. Current
discussions in Mexico with University of Anahuac (D.F.) and Technical University of Leon.
Establishment of USA and Mexico nonprofit organizations and boards for implementation:
o Our Family Orphan Communities, Inc (Colorado nonprofit 501(c)3 tax-exempt)
o Nuestra Familia Comunidades de Huérfanos, A.C.
Current activity: O.F.O.C. is currently working with individuals, organizations, government
departments and Rotary Clubs in both the USA and Mexico to continue the development of
relationships and to create the team that will oversee the implementation of the first community.
Our Next Steps: We are currently looking for sponsors, foundations and philanthropists who will
support the implementation of the prototype. We will gain much additional support once the first
community is successful as a model of what is possible. After the lessons to be learned from the first
community, the subsequent communities will prove to the world that this is a way to help people live
without poverty and can be implemented in other countries. Our worldwide implementation team will
be formed at that time to coordinate and control other host country implementations.
Opportunities to participate: The O.F.O.C. projects around the world provide opportunities for
volunteers, sponsors and private donors who care, as well as Social Business investment opportunities
for investors/lenders who believe that philanthropy is a responsibility and an important part of doing
business. These donors, sponsors and philanthropists will assist in providing the initial materials and
capital to construct the community businesses. Once the businesses are operating, the community will
be economically self-sustaining and capable of finishing the rest of the community build out using its
own profits. Investors, or their staff, are welcomed and encouraged to participate on our boards and in
the implementation and financial controls of this project. We invite your participation.
www.SustainableFamilyCommunities.org info@SustainableFamilyCommunities.org