The Center for a Better South
You can see bricks on the roof of this Bridge Street house in St. Matthews, S.C., a town of just over 2,000 people in the central part of the state. Bricks? Yep. They’re keeping the tin on the roof from blowing away from periodic high winds that accompany thunderstorms. Continue reading “Bricks on the roof”
Fields across the South are sprouting corn and other crops or getting prepped, as highlighted in this photo of a Calhoun County, S.C., farmer plowing in the Sandy Run community along U.S. Highway 176. Continue reading “It’s that time of the year”
More than 380 organizations across South Carolina’s Lowcountry are teaming to raise funds on May 3 to support their nonprofits. We’d like you to join the celebration on May 3 to #LiftTheLowcountry and encourage you to give to the Center and other nonprofits that you support so they can keep doing the good work they do. Continue reading “Open up your wallets to do good on Lowcountry Giving Day”
MARCH 22, 2016 | Virginia community economic developer Conaway B. Haskins III has joined the board of directors of the Center for a Better South, a nonpartisan Southern think tank based in Charleston, S.C. The Center focuses on developing pragmatic ideas, strategies and tactics to help to reduce poverty, increase economic opportunities and work with thinking leaders who want to make a difference in the American South.
“The Center for a Better South is committed to developing and sharing thoughtful, impactful policy ideas with thinking leaders across our region that will make a difference,” said Haskins, pictured at right. “Its recent work with the Promise Zone in South Carolina highlights how organizing people behind a strategy to reduce poverty has the potential for real change in a rural part of the state. Continue reading “Haskins joins Better South’s board of directors”
MARCH 2016 | A newly-released strategic plan that provides long-term guidance for the S.C. Lowcountry Promise Zone received major input from the Center for a Better South, including production of a four-minute video about the project.
The plan, released earlier this month after town halls, meetings and strategy sessions involving 1,000 people, organizes efforts to reduce poverty in the southern tip of South Carolina through strategic efforts of eight workgroups, each of which has specific goals and all of which seek to achieve transformational goals by working together. Continue reading “Center provides more leadership in Promise Zone”
FEB. 2, 2016 | A dozen leading thinkers and analysts from across the South met over the weekend to learn about the S.C. Lowcountry Promise Zone and make suggestions to broaden the impact of its collaborative efforts to reduce poverty. Continue reading “National leaders provide critical input on Promise Zone”
We’re saddened by the death this week of founding director and board secretary Leo Fishman, who died Jan. 12 at age 77 in Charleston, S.C.
Born in 1938 in Brockton, Mass., Fishman was a tax lawyer who retired to the Lowcountry with his wife, Carol, after a successful career in Washington, D.C. Always involved in civic affairs, Fishman served a term as as president of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra board of directors and was a councilman and former mayor pro tem for the Town of Kiawah Island, S.C.
Fishman served two years in the U.S. Marine Corps before attending and graduating from Harvard College (B.A., economics, 1961) and the Georgetown University Law Center (J.D., 1964). Later, he worked with local communities in the Southeast as an administrator in President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. In his law practice, he represented a variety of nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations. He retired in 1996.
“Simply put, they don’t make ’em any better than Leo,” said founding former director John L.S. Simpkins, a former law professor and now a lawyer with the U.S. Agency for International Development. “A Marine, lover of the arts, fighter for social justice, intellectual, and all-around good guy, Leo made everyone around him better for having known him. I consider myself grateful to have been in that group and cherish our all-too-brief interactions.
“The world needs more Leo Fishmans.”
Center Chairman and President Andy Brack agreed: “Leo embraced the need for the ‘common good’ in our democracy. Full of ideas and verve, he pushed people to do what is right and best in our communities. Our hearts ache at his passing, but will remain strong and inspired by his intelligence and example.”
Fishman was buried in his hometown on Thursday. To read an obituary, click here.
Leo Fishman, 1938-2016. Rest in peace.
In this 2011 video, we share some of our successes from our founding in 2005 through 2010, when we worked on a project for the Secretary of Navy following the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
The video highlights how the Center for a Better South is a pragmatic think tank for thinking Southern leaders who want to make a difference. Learn about our Agenda, our annual policy conference, our 2010 report on the Gulf and more.
Here’s a video we first highlighted in 2008 that outlines the mission of the Center for a Better South. Learn about the exciting research projects that have been published and are on tap by the Center for a Better South, a regional nonprofit to provide policy information for thinking Southern leaders. The video includes clips from Center founders Andy Brack, Leo Fishman and John Simpkins.
Center for a Better South’s Andy Brack outlines how the counties in the southern tip of South Carolina won the designation as one of the nation’s Promise Zones, a federal program to help areas with economic challenges get help to grow and change lives. Also part of the Sept. 9 meeting agenda for the designation’s partners and supporters: The lead organization, SouthernCarolina Alliance, and Vernita F. Dore, a deputy undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. More.