Case Closed: Booker Cashes in on O'Brien

Newark Mayor Cory Booker closed the books on his feud with the Tonight Show's Conan O'Brien last Friday. You can watch the segment and read about O'Brien's donation to a Newark nonprofit as a symbol of lasting peace between the two figures. It was fun while it lasted.

Sleepy August?

Yes, yes...it's been a while I know. There are substantive postings forthcoming. Plenty to write about despite it being the month of vacations. While some of us are sneaking a holiday before the fall, others in our network our rolling up their sleeves for a serious debate about funding.

In the troubled economy, some sister city programs have been faced with defending their 'value' when it comes to local funding over the past year. A number of communities have suffered program cutbacks in the face of municipal budgeteers nipping and tucking city budgets with no true sense of the big picture impact of their penny pinching. I tell local elected officials, you'll be hard pressed to find another city-supported program that gives tax payers the ROI that a sister cities program does. Most of the funding for local sister city programs comes privately (foundations, corporations, individual donations) and in many cases from the personal wallets of the volunteers involved in the program!

A particular battle getting a fair amount of media is Fort Worth, TX. The Fort Worth Sister Cities International program is one of our flagship programs, a perennial award-winning programs with tremendous support locally and impact abroad. This morning, their plight got the attention of well-respected blogger Matt Armstrong, who writes MountainRunner.us. He makes a case for Fort Worth AND our network's broader value to public diplomacy.

Take a read of his post: http://mountainrunner.us/2009/08/sister_cities.html#comments.

Mission-driven in Crisis

By Guest Blogger: Michael Hyatt, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Sister Cities International

Getting ready to go for two weeks in South Africa in the middle of the worst financial times since the “Great Depression” is beginning to seem quite challenging. Having looked forward to the Partnership and Peace Tour for over a year, I now wonder about the consequences of being away. However it appears the entire world is affected by this crisis and I’m anxious to see how we handle it.

In Egypt last year I was able to meet local, state and national officials who recognize the need for world peace in settings one can only dream about. On one occasion we visited with the Governor of Aswan over coffee late at night floating on the Nile. Our military backgrounds gave us a common base for our discussions while we talked about the need for peace and their efforts to locate a sister city relationship (One objective achieved: Aswan is now partnered with Sonoma, CA.).

Having been to South Africa before, I’m looking forward to meeting officials and bringing our message to them. Now more than ever, the need for Sister Cities International is evident. Trying times in the world brings the need for unity in order to find the solution. Governments are now working together to bring the markets back to an orderly fashion, yet my sister city friends from Swaziland have contacted me and asked me to bring information, policies and strategies from Fort Worth to help them. I’ll be meeting with the United States Ambassador, local officials and members of the Swaziland Parliament to let them know what we are doing that will ultimately help them.

Times aren’t easy but neither is our mission. I know the efforts we expend on these trips will be repaid many times.