The basic idea of this movement, A Piece of Pizza for Peace, is to bring together three networks to promote a pizza peace for one day. Promoting peace for this one day will involve these three networks working together to raise awareness of peace and to raise financial support for peace locally, nationally and globally sponsoring International Day of Peace on September 21st.
What are these three networks?
First is the collection of small local pizza shop operators in a given community.
These are owners of one, two, or three pizza shops in that community. The brand of pizza doesn’t matter. These folks are a network because they’re all in the same business. They all have the same mission: Provide pizza to a local community or trade area.
Second is the group of multi-denominational, interfaith, or community peace organizations in a given community.
These are organizations that are peace-focused. Interfaith groups typically have as one of their main tenets working promoting peace.
Does an organization have to be faith-based to be included in this network? No — organizations that aren’t faith-based, but are focused on peace are included.
A couple of examples: Local chapters of The Peace Network, Peace Alliance, or Love Thy Neighbor. These organizations can be both beneficiaries of the donations of local pizza shop owners and participants in the network. But these two examples are not the only such organizations that can be included.
Other types of peace-focused organizations can also be part of this second network. The make-up of this network will vary from community to community. The important thing is for every community to be able to look at this format and adapt it to their own unique situation.
The third network is comprised of organizations like Business Networking International (BNI). LeTip, Master Networks and Gold Start are other examples of referral networking organizations that would be a good fit for a Pizza Peace Campaign Partner.
BNI is a perfect fit for this network, but not the only fit. In BNI, a structured networking organization, the philosophy of ‘Givers Gain’ is paramount. This means members go in to meetings with the mindset that if you give business to the members of your chapter, they’ll want to give business back to you.
A Piece of Pizza for Peace sums up BNI in this way: “They’re farmers, not hunters. Farming for business revenue to grow their business as opposed to hunting for it. Planting the seeds, helping out neighbors, adding fertilizer, then sitting back a little and watching the results grow. This is as opposed to hunting, expending energy and competing against other hunters for that same revenue source. Farmers work together.”
There are thousands of chapters of BNI with millions of members. You only have to do a Google search for BNI to find the local chapters for your community. This is a good organization to network with and get the word out about A Piece of Pizza for Peace.
Essentially, BNI is a good platform for the other two networks to meet and work together to promote peace. BNI wins because they get exposure and may have more visitors join their group. The movement wins because everyone is connecting with like-minded individuals and will be more likely to get their buy-in for the movement.
