Archive for the ‘Advocacy groups’ Category

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Making your nonprofit a star–or a pigeon

May 1, 2009

It’s not just Susan Boyle and “Britain’s Got Talent”–the nonprofit world, too, is full of ugly ducklings eager to turn into YouTube swans.  So it’s not surprising that two different groups have just announced plans to assist nonprofits in telling their/our stories on video. The first of these is genuine; the second is a concealed ad for fundraising software.

  • Animoto for a Cause (http://animoto.com/cause) is a new program “that will give non-profit organizations and humanitarians the ability to create dynamic, professional-quality online videos from their own photos and music – for free. . . .Animoto for a Cause will donate pro accounts to groups and individuals who are working to improve their community and the world at large, kicking off with more than 20 launch partners, like Help the Children and Susan G. Komen Foundation. . . . Animoto is encouraging all types of community activists to apply for an Animoto for a Cause account – everyone from college fundraisers to large non-profits will be considered . . . . Now organizations can use the service to promote their cause online in a multitude of ways, from posting and sharing videos on websites, YouTube and social networks, to downloading them to DVD for distribution at events.”
  • Meanwhile, an outfit called www.nonprofitnetworknews.com has created a “customizable video for nonprofits to make their wishes come true. The video then links to free nonprofit resources to help them get through these tough times.”  Well, if by “free nonprofit resources” one means “a commercial Website that doesn’t charge you for visiting,” that’s absolutely true.

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Posted in Advocacy groups, Arts Organizations, Coverage of nonprofits, Environmental, Health care, Higher education, Housing, International, Marketing, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Social Service Agencies, Technology | 1 Comment »

The best thing we can do for nonprofits–and ourselves

April 28, 2009

Have you seen Rick Cohen’s typically smart and on-target piece “The Worst Thing We Can Do for the Obama Administration”?  While he’s speaking about the nonprofit sector and its/our special-interest-group needs, there’s a broader point: that those of us who supported the President’s election because we share his basic principles and values should express that support by remaining independent and criticizing when necessary, rather than by becoming supplicants to or apologists for the people we put in office.  That’s an idea relevant to each and all of us as citizens.

The Nonprofiteer’s own version of this insight struck her while she was raging at news of the Administration’s refusal to investigate and prosecute allegations of torture.  Abruptly she realized she had two choices: struggle to construct a rationale for a constitutional law professor’s apparent indifference to violations of the Constitution, or struggle to make it impossible for such apparent indifference to continue.  So she’s now volunteering with the ACLU,  whose legal work contributed to the release of the torture memos and which is helping to orchestrate public pressure to bring to justice the people who violated our laws in our name.

Politics, it is said, is the art of the possible.  The citizen’s job is to define for politicians what’s possible, and to make sure that the definition encompasses everything that’s essential.

As nonprofit leaders, we know first-hand how much of what’s essential requires the government’s support.  But as Cohen says, our primary job is not begging for that support; it’s giving or withholding our own based on how well the government–our government–lives up to our ideals, and its own.

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Posted in Advocacy, Advocacy groups, Current Affairs, Mission, Nonprofits--General, Public private partnerships, Volunteers/Volunteerism | 2 Comments »

As if nonprofit advocacy weren’t squelched enough . . .

April 22, 2009

it’s now being used as a reason for keeping knowledgeable nonprofit executives out of positions of influence with a friendly administration.

Advocacy is part of the business of being a nonprofit in a democracy–part of, you should pardon the expression, mission.  It shouldn’t be confused with the legalized bribery which passes for lobbying in the for-profit world.

The argument that the President’s anti-lobbying rule can’t be applied only to for-profit lobbying–that citizens wouldn’t understand the distinction being made–is nonsense.  And it’s shocking to hear it being made by the same people who, as campaign officials, operated on the assumption that the American people are smart enough to hear the truth and make decisions based on it.  Usually it’s a good thing when senior officials move from campaign mode to governing, but in this case–not so much.

——————

Addendum: The New York Times editorial board agrees.

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Posted in Advocacy, Advocacy groups, Conflict of Interest, Coverage of nonprofits, Current Affairs, International, Mission, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General | 3 Comments »

Hospitals get more in tax breaks than they give in charity care

April 17, 2009

according to Crain’s.

The Nonprofiteer is always eager to trash the big corporate nonprofits, the hospitals and universities, while racing to the defense of the scrappy little social service, arts, environmental and advocacy groups.  But she wonders what this same analysis would produce if the smaller agencies were under the microscope.  Though probably social service agencies give away most of their services (if only through being desperately underpaid for providing them), surely most arts organizations get more in tax breaks than they give away in tickets.  And groups whose focus is policy or advocacy are not in the business of doing services, much less giving them away.

Anyone in the health care industry is a tempting target these days, and for good reason: we have a system that enriches very few at the expense of many.  And at least the best-known and most selective of American private universities seem content to sit on a lot of capital while asking teenagers and their families to fork over huge amounts more.

But let’s make sure we’re measuring nonprofits by what society and the tax code actually expect them to do, which is to contribute to the public interest by advancing knowledge and producing beauty as well as by offering services.  Research hospitals produce cures for diseases; we get our money’s worth from the tax breaks they receive even if they never give out a dime of care.

Providing patients with the health-care they need is a social responsibility.  Hospitals surely have a special role in making sure this is done, but it’s not their responsibility exclusively and their social worth (meaning, the tax freedom they deserve) shouldn’t be measured exclusively on that dimension.

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Posted in Advocacy groups, Arts Organizations, Coverage of nonprofits, Disease charities, Earned income, Endowment, Environmental, Health care, Higher education, Mission, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Social Service Agencies | Leave a Comment »

Foundation Friday: “Astroturfing” and foundations

April 10, 2009

A bit of fine reporting, and thoughtful skepticism, from the Community Media Workshop about the relationship between community groups and the philanthropies who fund them.  And another example of the same phenom, from the same dogged source. When foundations fund community groups, whose voice really gets heard: the community’s, or the foundation’s?

This is something we ought to be wary of, as we begin to hear calls for foundations to take over funding newspapers.  If those same foundations are funding a particular approach to school reform, can we expect to see that approach critically appraised in the pages of its captive newspaper?

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Posted in Advocacy, Advocacy groups, corporate giving, Coverage of nonprofits, Finances, Foundation Hall of Shame/Stupid Foundation Tricks, Fundraising, Mission, Nonprofits--General, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders | 3 Comments »

Dear Nonprofiteer, Does refusing to describe my job mean I can refuse to do it?

April 9, 2009

Dear Nonprofiteer,

The Executive Director of our mid-sized environmental advocacy nonprofit never actually does any work.  I take up the slack from my perch as Program Director, with a lot of help from the Development Director; but all we can do is make sure the day-to-day gets done.  We don’t have the power to push the group in the new directions made necessary and possible by a collapsing economy coupled with a President who’s actually pro-environment.

Here’s the problem: though the E.D. is weak in the sense of not doing the job, she’s strong enough to resist the occasional calls for a job description.  So I can tell you that she never actually does anything, but the Board can’t exactly fire her for failing to measure up to a completely nebulous task.  What should we do?

Signed, Doing Double Duty

Dear Double,

The Board CAN exactly fire her if it wants; that’s its job.  But if it wants to avoid litigation, it won’t do so without first giving Lazy Exec warnings and the opportunity to mend her ways–and, right, it can’t do THAT without having a written job description against which to compare her performance.

But I don’t understand “strong enough to resist . . . calls for a job description.”  Very few employees write their own job descriptions, and lest we forget the Executive Director is merely an employee.  The Board is the employer, and it should write a description for the job it expects her to do.  (If the Board has a Personnel Committee, writing descriptions of this type is its primary–perhaps its only–task, though many such committees instead amuse themselves by interfering with the Executive Director’s management of the staff.)

Of course, we’re all collegial and non-confrontational in nonprofits, so the description should be presented to Lazy Exec as a draft for her input; but whether or not she provides input, the description should be adopted at the next Board meeting and it should be clear at the time of adoption that it’s the basis on which Lazy will be evaluated going forward.

But how to accomplish this from your post on the program staff?  First, be specific: what does Lazy not do that an Executive Director should be expected to do?  What’s slipping through the cracks?  Put your head together with the Development Director and make a list: Lazy refuses to meet with your biggest funder, leaving DevDir to do it.  Lazy didn’t review the evaluations from your last public program and instructed you to repeat portions of the program that attracted condemnation from all quarters.  Or whatever.

Then bring these to the Board’s attention as tactfully as possible.  How?

  • Drop them by-the-way into your own reports to the Board.  “Oh, no, we didn’t get a MacArthur grant this year.  They require the Executive Director to participate in the site visit.”
  • Mention them off-the-record to a friend who happens to be a Board member.  (You never heard me say this because staff members should NEVER go around the Executive Director to the Board.)  Remind your Board friend that without a job description Lazy Exec can’t be held accountable for anything, and urge him/her to raise this with the Personnel Committee.
  • Agitate within the staff and informally among the Board for the agency to conduct a strategic planning process.  Then make sure “Human Resources” is one of the strategic planning teams, and that someone with HR expertise is invited from outside the agency to participate in the process.  Trust me: before the process is through, creating an Executive Director job description will be high on the list of Board tasks.

The third technique is actually most productive, because it’s easiest to determine the Executive Director’s tasks when the agency’s direction has been recently and ambitiously spelled out.  Besides, what Program Director ever got in trouble for suggesting that her agency think and act strategically?

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Posted in Advocacy groups, Boards of Directors, Evaluation, Mission, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Personnel Issues, Strategic Planning (and the tactical kind, too) | Leave a Comment »

More “useless” volunteers

April 8, 2009

All these lawyers in Chicago are doing is providing legal services to people who can’t afford them; how useful is that?

One of the less-noticed consequences of reduced investment in news coverage (usually shorthanded as “the decline of newspapers,” but actually the decline of original reporting) is that it exacerbates the media’s preexisting tendency to copycat.  If the New York Times reports a story on Monday, you can be sure that by Friday a version of the story–with a dollop of local or original material–will have shown up in a dozen other outlets, and suddenly it’s conventional wisdom.

One of the stories du jour, unfortunately, is that nonprofits can’t use and don’t know what to do with the volunteers who are flocking to their doors.  The Nonprofiteer has already written about the Times piece on this subject, but it was followed in short order by a complementary story on Chicago Public Radio in which a labor economist bemoaned the high cost of using volunteers.  Between them, those two media outlets probably dominate mind-share among well-educated people with leisure in the Chicago area–as a result of which, those people are probably just getting around to deciding that they won’t bother with volunteering after all, because nobody wants them anyway.

While there’s no question that volunteer management is a challenge, and while the Nonprofiteer was always among the first to point out that volunteerism couldn’t replace adequate funding of social services provided by professionals, it’s simply false to keep repeating that nonprofits have no use for volunteers.  And repeating that falsehood gives prospective volunteers (that would be our fellow citizens) the equally false notion that they’re worthless and that the outcome of responding to the President’s call for service will only be disappointment and disillusionment.  The Nonprofiteer doesn’t know who profits from this version of the story–who, in other words, wants the President and the rest of us to fail–but she does know that it’s essentially dishonest.

But what to do?  Well, as our colleagues at the Community Media Workshop remind us all the time, it’s up to nonprofits to tell their/our own stories to members of the press.  It’s up to all of us, in other words, to change that story du jour from “Volunteers are useless” to “Look what volunteers can accomplish.”  Kudos to CARPLS, and to the ChiTown Daily News, for helping to do that.

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Posted in Advocacy, Advocacy groups, Current Affairs, legal services, Mission, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Personnel Issues, Poverty, Private Philanthropy, Volunteers/Volunteerism | Leave a Comment »

Social Innovation in the White House

April 7, 2009

In the midst of a thoughtful discussion at the Wagner Center of the competing demands on philanthropies for funding of overtaxed social services and of social-change advocacy, big news: the White House is about to announce creation of the long-proposed Office of Social Innovation to bring together government responses and resources to the concerns of the philanthropic and charitable sectors.

Bureaucratic-style confirmation: the office appears on the list at whitehouse.gov.  Speculation about possible leadership has begun.

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Posted in Advocacy, Advocacy groups, Current Affairs, Endowment, Foundation Hall of Shame/Stupid Foundation Tricks, Mission, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Private Philanthropy, Public private partnerships, Social Service Agencies | 2 Comments »

Of kids and dogs

March 10, 2009

Obviously the Nonprofiteer has been in the business too long, because the press release below–trumpeting an uptick in aid to charities serving Indian children in the wake of Slumdog Millionaire–made her think of nothing so much as the “101 Dalmatians syndrome” dog-lovers mention to explain their dismay that the Obamas are getting a Portuguese water dog.

The dog-lovers fear people will be inspired to copy the First Family’s choice of dog and then abandon the animals when they prove to be too much trouble.  The Nonprofiteer fears that people will be inspired to support children’s charities in India this week and then abandon them when some equally photogenic opportunity emerges next week or month–abandoning the Indian children, in other words, when they prove to be too much trouble.

On the other hand, when she heard the dog-lovers’ plaint she thought, “Oh, get a life!”  Dog adoption on balance is a social good, and shouldn’t be discouraged just because some people who engage in it probably shouldn’t (much like parenthood).

Likewise, donations to children’s charities in India are a social good, and shouldn’t be discouraged just because they won’t continue forever.  What we hope is that people who adopt dogs grow into the responsibilities that go with pet ownership, and that at least some of the people who turn their attention to Indian orphans on a whim will grow to understand the causes of their poverty and thus to support the means necessary to alleviate it.  (Prominent among those necessary means: not just consistent individual giving but an increase in the U.S. foreign aid budget.)

And meanwhile, UNICEF (along with the charities cited below) will be glad of any and all contributions, no matter how passing the fancy which produces them.

CAFAMERICA: SUCCESS OF “SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE” IS AIDING CHARITIES

Oscar-Winning Film Inspires a Boost in Donations to Groups Working With India’s Children; CAFAmerica Offers Simple Means By Which to Target Donations to Best Programs In India.

ALEXANDRIA, VA///March 3, 2008///The Oscar-winning film “Slumdog Millionaire” – depicting the often dire circumstances faced by children in poverty in India – has sparked interest in charities that target the problem, according to CAFAmerica, which promotes borderless charitable giving as part of the CAF International Network that spans six continents and has over $4 billion of charitable funds under management.

CAFAmerica CEO Susan Saxon-Harrold said: “Individuals and organizations that have been touched by ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ should consider donating to aid Indian children. I have seen the excellent work by charities working in the slums in Mumbai. These charities are making a huge impact on the health, welfare and education of children living in poverty with very little by way of resources. The success of the film has thrown a positive spotlight on their efforts. We advise donors on how best to get involved in giving to India as well as how to make donations safely to get the best impact. As well as working with individuals we work with CAF India to help corporations with their corporate community involvement goals in the region.”

According to an estimate by UNICEF, there are currently 11 million children living on the streets of India, many of whom have fled abuse or mistreatment at home.

The film “Slumdog Millionaire” has inspired a boost in donations to the following children’s charities:

* Railway Children (http://www.railwaychildren.org.uk/) reports that has experienced 10 times as many hits on its Web site as normal and is witnessing a new wave of donations. Based in India, Railway Children established its first charity project in India in 1996, working with local third sector organizations to address the problem of homelessness. Chief executive Terina Keene has been quoted as saying: “We just hope that this marvelous film will help put us at the forefront of people’s minds when it comes to helping the charity. The children on the streets of India desperately need our help.”

* SOS Children’s Villages of India (http://www.soscvindia.org/soswebsite/index.php) is a non-profit, non-government, voluntary organization, committed to the care of children in need. The aim and objective of SOS-India is to provide long term family based care to parentless, homeless and abandoned children and to strengthen disadvantaged families as a preventive measure against abandonment and social neglect of children. Since its inception in 1964, SOS-India has expanded its services for children at a rapid pace.

* Save the Children, India (http://www.savethechildren.in/index.html) is an independent member of the International Save the Children Alliance. The organization fights for children’s rights and delivers immediate and lasting improvements to children’s lives in India. Save the Children has existed in India since pre-independence days and is currently working in 11 states and union territories of India.

Both SOS Children’s Villages and Save the Children, India have reported an increase in donors and sponsors in the wake of the release of the movie Slumdog Millionaire.

Individuals and organizations that wish to rely upon the knowledge and due-diligence capacity of CAFAmerica to investigate these and other overseas charities at http://www.cafamerica.org/cafa/SearchModule/NpPublicProfileSearch.aspx, can donate to help Indian children by going to CAFAmerica Home page and clicking the donate Now button
at http://www.cafamerica.org/dnn/Home/DonateNow/tabid/148/Default.aspx.

CAFAmerica helps companies, family and community foundations, and individuals to manage their international philanthropy efforts and strengthen charitable activity around the world. It also advises on fundraising and grantmaking, allows online account management and provides an online giving mechanism for nonprofits to place on their websites.

ABOUT CAFAMERICA

CAFAmerica was founded in 1992 as a member organization of the London-based CAF International Network, which provides charitable financial services to nonprofits, individuals and companies. The CAF International Network spans six continents and has over $4 billion of charitable funds under management.

CAFAmerica is dedicated to expanding borderless charitable giving by providing guidance and international grant making options for donors. CAFAmerica’s range of innovative charitable solutions for US donors and overseas nonprofits include Donor Advised Gifts, Donor Advised Funds, Matching Donor Advised Fund and most recently, the ‘Friends of’ Charity Fund.

CONTACT: Patrick Mitchell, in the US, (703) 276-3266 or pmitchell@hastingsgroup.com; and Fiona Fountain, in the UK, +44 1892 544035 or fiona@fionafountain.co.uk.

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Posted in Advocacy groups, Current Affairs, Fundraising, International, Marketing, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Poverty, Private Philanthropy, Public private partnerships | Leave a Comment »

Obama 2.0: Barn-raising or rabble-rousing?

February 4, 2009

A friend asked whether Organizing for America–the effort to transform the Obama campaign’s guerilla forces into something more closely resembling a traditional standing army–would provide volunteers with policy input or would leave them as mere foot soldiers.

The Nonprofiteer thinks another question comes first, which is whether the political arena is even the appropriate context for using the campaign’s stored-up energy, or whether–you guessed it–that energy belongs in the voluntary sector more broadly defined.  In other words, are we trying to sustain the kind of communal feeling that goes into a barn-raising–localized, personal, concrete, time-limited–or the kind that goes into planning the Boston Tea Party?

In its phrase “the personal is political,” the women’s movement encapsulated the notion that time spent on barn- (and consciousness-) raisings wasn’t wasted but instead was the necessary precondition for making real change. While any politician would do what the Obama campaign is doing with an e-mail list of 13 million, the Nonprofiteer remains free to wonder whether immediate rabble-rousing constitutes putting the cart before the horse, and whether in fact a solid year of barn-raising wouldn’t ultimately produce a political army far stronger than any attracted by the aura of The Permanent Campaign.

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Posted in Advocacy, Advocacy groups, Current Affairs, Nonprofits--General, Volunteers/Volunteerism, Women's Issues | Leave a Comment »

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