Bringing a pizza home was always a two-hour project when Bill Shore was growing up on Alderson Street in Squirrel Hill.

That's because his father was Nate Shore ("Nushie" to those who had grown up with him in the Hill District), a legendary figure in Pittsburgh politics in the 1960s and 1970s, and that meant a lot of schmoozing on the sidewalk to and from Mineo's.

A longtime aide to Democratic U.S. Rep. William Moorhead in an era when congressmen didn't frequently return to their districts, the elder Shore served as Moorhead's eyes and ears in Pittsburgh, ready and willing to listen to anyone with a problem, whether it was about getting Uncle Vernon into the Veterans' Hospital or tracking down a lost Social Security check.

"My father was the least preachy guy in the world, but the example he set was so compelling that my sister and I both got attracted to the idea of public service at an early age," said Shore, now 48.

Today the son is carrying on his father's legacy, albeit from a different locale: Washington, D.C., instead of Squirrel Hill. Bill Shore's constituency is somewhat different from his father's, too. Instead of just middle- and working-class East End residents, Shore is aiming at a much larger population: the poor, the hungry and the nonprofit organizations across the country that are trying to help them.

Since founding Share Our Strength with his sister Debbie in 1984, Shore has become one of the leading proponents of a new model for doing good in which nonprofits sustain themselves by making money rather than asking for it.

By persuading the chef, the salesman and the CEO to contribute their talents in the service of charity, Share Our Strength, which helped pioneer licensing agreements between anti-hunger groups and big corporations, has raised more than $100 million for poverty programs in the past 20 years and has become a case study for students at Harvard Business School. A second program, Community Wealth Ventures, helps nonprofits find their strengths -- and profit-making potential -- in untapped labor pools, artistic or culinary talent or organizational skills. Revenues are then redirected into the nonprofit's original mission, which keeps them from spending valuable time and energy raising money.

On Tuesday, Shore will return to his hometown to deliver the keynote speech at a Grantmakers of Western Pennsylvania conference of some 700 nonprofits in the region. Social entrepreneurship is the theme of the conference, which is being held at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

And while he no longer lives here, Shore's influence in Pittsburgh is palpable: If you've ever attended a local "Taste of Pittsburgh" event -- or any "Taste of the Nation" event in the United States, for that matter -- in which chefs cook their favorite dishes for charity, that's because of Bill Shore.

And when Bethlehem Haven, a local social service agency, bought the secondhand clothing store Ambience to bring in revenue, they got help from Shore's consultants at Community Wealth Ventures, who analyzed their strengths and their income-earning potential.

And Life's Work, a vocational rehabilitation program, will be opening a Ben and Jerry's "partner" shop in Squirrel Hill next month, where young people will be trained in sales and marketing while serving ice cream. Shore's Community Wealth Venture, which has been working with Ben & Jerry's in other cities, helped open the store after the company expressed an interest in Pittsburgh.

Shore doesn't claim to be the first to have come up with the idea of nonprofits sustaining themselves by harnessing the free enterprise system. Goodwill Industries has run thrift shops practically forever. Bill Strickland, president and CEO of Manchester Craftsmen's Guild and Bidwell Training Center, seized on the idea decades ago.

But Shore is credited with being one of the most articulate and persistent spokesmen for the concept.

"He has broadened the thinking about social enterprise and opened the door to partnerships between corporations and nonprofits," said Martha Perry, associate executive director of the McCune Foundation.

Shore has attracted the participation of big, profit-making companies, who, eager to add the adjective "socially responsible" to their resumes, have entered into long-term agreements for corporate sponsorship of Share Our Strength in sales of books, jewelry, even coffee. There are some big names on this list, from Calphalon cookware to American Express, from Northwest Airlines to Barnes & Noble.

Shore has also written three books that combine stories about his own personal journey from workaholic political aide to Gary Hart (the only two times in his life, Shore writes, that he was inconsolable was when his mother died and when scandal forced Hart to end his political career) to social entrepreneur "guru."

The books (the most recent, "The Light of Conscience," was published by Random House earlier this year) have developed a kind of cult following among those committed to public service. The blurbs on the back jacket of "Revolution of the Heart" and "The Cathedral Within" include Colin Powell, former Sen. Bob Kerrey and Dr. Robert Coles, but the books also have attracted local fans such as Bill Isler, chair of the Pittsburgh Board of Public Education and longtime producer of "Mister Roger's Neighborhood."

"I think Bill Shore is one of those people who has led the way toward helping organizations strengthen themselves. He feeds my enthusiasm," said Isler, who noted that Fred Rogers formed a similar nonprofit enterprise, Family Communications Inc., that directed revenues from "Mister Rogers" back into programs for children.

Muzz Myers, former owner of The Balcony in Shadyside, who now coordinates programs for disadvantaged students at Westinghouse High School, was a childhood friend of Shore. He described him as a natural leader who helped defuse racial tensions at Allderdice High School.

"I read one of his books about five years ago and sent him an e-mail, and when he came to town after that we got together for a cup of coffee. He's still the great guy he always was. He was a leader then and he's a leader now," said Myers. "And he's a good writer, besides."

Shore doesn't get 100 percent approval from everyone. Some nonprofits are uncomfortable with the notion that they must go into business, said McCune's Perry, who recalled hearing a woman at a recent conference on social enterprise venting in frustration.

"She stood up," Perry recalled, "and said, 'First the government tells us they're cutting back on funding, and now the foundations are telling us we have to find something to sell!'

"Part of it is just about change. It's hard for people to change when they've been doing something one way for a long time. Organizations are still reeling from cutbacks in government services, so it's hard to get your hands around something new."

Not every nonprofit, she said, can become a profit maker overnight. "It's not necessarily about selling something or having a Ben & Jerry's, or running a store, but it's about establishing partnerships with businesses that do know what to do and can help them in many ways."

Judie Donaldson, executive director of Grantmakers, has seen the same resistance by some local organizations to Shore's vision.

"They worry [that] if they simply adopt business strategies, they will lose a sense of the mission, of the uniqueness and essence of what they're trying to do. But Bill Shore never loses sight of that uniqueness when advising these groups. It's at the heart of his strategy to preserve that."

Shore hopes his message about creating what he calls "community wealth" -- the kind created by the community for the community, rather than for shareholders of a business -- won't scare off people who might not feel they have the knowledge or background to pull it off.

"Ninety percent of our work is kind of cultural," he said, "about changing the culture of nonprofits so that they start thinking about things like accountability and efficiency, about sales and marketing, all those things. And that isn't easy."

But the benefits are huge. If individual nonprofits can learn to share their strengths and, in doing so, sustain themselves, one organization at a time, they will be the architects of a new kind of social justice system that extends well into future generations. As Shore writes in "The Cathedral Within," community wealth is, like a cathedral, created one brick at a time.

And when his energy flags, he remembers those long walks home from Mineo's with his father, when he watched Nate Shore change people's lives, one person at a time.

"It's not always acts of Congress, but acts of conscience, of doing the right thing at the right time, that have real consequences and ripple effects, both historic and contemporary," Shore said.