Following is a guest post by Geoff Livingston, co-founder of the consulting company Zoetica, a communications consulting company that works with nonprofit groups and other organizations that promote social change.

By Geoff Livingston

In June, I had the privilege of being a part of a four-person fact-finding mission to analyze how the oil spill has affected Gulf States. This fieldwork was just devastating, and it prompted us to create a series of efforts to activate national interest in helping the Gulf.

I've visited developing countries before in Latin America, Egypt, and the Caribbean, and, unfortunately, many of the communities in Louisiana could fall into the same category. Everywhere you go, you see poverty and a malaise resulting from successive crushing events. This area has been dealt many blows in the past five years, most notably Hurricane Katrina and the Deep Horizon accident...