Archive for the ‘Housing’ Category
June 2, 2011
This branch of Habitat for Humanity has chosen to charge volunteers for the privilege of helping out.
When the Nonprofiteer pointed out that volunteers give more readily to the agencies they serve than non-volunteers, she wasn’t advocating admission fees. Volunteers may have paid to paint Tom Sawyer’s fence, but Twain’s point was that they were stupid. Your volunteers aren’t.
Even if mandatory “contributions” (oxymoron watch!) weren’t offensive in suggesting that volunteers’ time has less than no value, they’re practically the definition of penny-wise and pound-foolish: people will pay what you require (or not) and then regard their giving to the agency as being done for the year.
Or forever. Please stop this idea before it kills again.
Tags:501c3, Benefit events, charity, donors, Fundraising, Habitat, Habitat for Humanity, human resources, Management Advice Day tip, Marketing, nonprofit, Nonprofit management, nonprofits, not for profit, personnel, philanthropy, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders, volunteer, volunteering, volunteers
Posted in Benefit events, Charity scandals, Coverage of nonprofits, Current Affairs, Earned income, Finances, Fundraising, Housing, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Personnel Issues, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders, Social Service Agencies, Volunteers/Volunteerism | 4 Comments »
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.
Tags:advertising, Arts Organizations, charity, Environmental, Health care, Higher education, International, Marketing, nonprofit, Nonprofit management, not for profit, phony news, video
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 »
January 22, 2009
Dear Nonprofiteer,
I’m in the unenviable position of Executive Director of an agency serving ex-cons. We help them find housing, support services and jobs–though all three are in incredibly short supply right now. And so, of course, are funds to keep us going.
Here’s my problem: whenever I tell donors how desperate we are, I get a sob story about how desperate THEY are. (The next person who tells me he simply doesn’t read his 401K statement is getting a swift kick in the pants.) It’s obvious these people have money; they just don’t want to share it with us. What’s your advice?
Signed, Getting Conned on Two Sides
Dear Con:
First, my advice is to get the chip off your shoulder. If you’re no longer able to bring commitment and enthusiasm to your work, that’s an infectious disease that will soon lay low your entire organization. Maybe you just need a weekend off–how long’s it been since you’ve had that? Take a day or two, and then come back ready to rumble with the problem rather than with people who constitute the solution.
Second, remember this: people don’t give to agencies they think are desperate; they give to agencies they think are successful. Of course they understand that you need resources, and of course they want to be assured that you’re not wasting those resources on wine, women and song; but beyond that, they don’t want to be asked to feel sorry for you. In the current economy, they’re too busy feeling sorry for themselves.
It may be accurate to say, “Without your $100, we won’t be able to house our clients tonight.” But it’s just as accurate, and twice as effective, to say, “With your $100, tonight Charles and David will have a place to sleep and access first thing tomorrow morning to telephones and computers to continue their search for a job.” As the song says, “Ac-cen-tu-ate the positive . . .”
Finally, talk about Charles and David–not about “clients” or “the men” or (God forbid!) “ex-cons.” People like to hear–more, people NEED to hear–concrete stories about actual individuals who’ve been helped in specific ways by your program. “When Charles showed up in November, he was really pretty desperate. But we helped him put together some decent job-hunting clothes and he went through our interview workshop, and he found a job at the Pick n Save. Now he’s working on his G.E.D. at nights.” If you can, figure out whether the prospective donor’s $100 would underwrite those same services for James, who sleeps in the next bed. Make it real for your listener.
And really, really finally: of course you feel resentful of people who are actually well off yet complain about their financial circumstances. But these people are genuinely shaky about their long-term financial futures, as are we all. You can acknowledge their concerns–and share them, putting yourself in their corner–without accepting those concerns as a refusal of your pitch: “I know, it’s the same with me. Even those of us who have education and assets and jobs are feeling nervous; so you can imagine what it must be like for people who are on the edge to begin with. Anything you can spare will make an enormous difference,” and then offer a specific.
There’s never a good time to be poor; but in a tough economy it’s easier for the well-off to identify with the poor and therefore be motivated to assist them. Why do you think Social Security passed during the Depression? If this be Depression II, let’s make the most of it!
Tags:401K statements, Executive Directors, financial insecurity, Fundraising, Management Advice Day tip, Marketing, nervous rich people, Nonprofit management, Poverty, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders
Posted in Current Affairs, Fundraising, Housing, Marketing, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Poverty, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders, Social Service Agencies | 2 Comments »
January 19, 2009
Regular reader Yana Davis writes to ask our thoughts on “a new kind of social service network:”
Premise
There are many adults today living alone, not because they necessarily want to, but because they are not in primary relationships, their families and friends are distant from them, they have no immediate families or other reasons.
Solution
Creation of “working families” through placement of compatible adults, including single parents, in “US Family” homes with 3-4 adults, spanning several generations, who would share expenses, coalesce into family-like units, and provide the same kind of support for each other that biological families provide.
The idea sounded familiar to the Nonprofiteer, but she couldn’t think why until she remembered the Chicago-area nonprofit H.O.M.E., Housing Opportunities and Maintenance for the Elderly, which among its other programs provides cross-generational communal housing. While focused on the financially needy (rather than the merely lonely), the concept seems much the same: created families, so to speak.
The H.O.M.E. system has proved its merit over some years, and the Nonprofiteer suggests that Yana investigate joining forces with people who’ve already perfected the model. Like all social service agencies, H.O.M.E. struggles to secure enough support to serve its clients; perhaps a project focused on those whose needs are social rather than financial would help cover the costs of its core work.
Tags:created families, H.O.M.E., intergenerational living
Posted in Housing, Mergers, acquisitions and consolidations, Social Service Agencies | Leave a Comment »
January 8, 2009
It’s probably too late to keep Harry Reid and the rest of the forelock-tuggers masquerading as Democrats in the U.S. Senate from caving to Rod Blagojevich and seating Roland Burris; but here’s a nugget from the Nonprofiteer’s world for them to chew on (H/T Tim Novak and Carol Marin):
As the Chicago Sun-Times reports, a couple of developer pals of the Mayor’s got hold of some prime land near Chicago’s downtown by helping to arrange a new home for its inconvenient preexisting resident, the Chicago Christian Industrial League, a charity serving homeless men. And when the move to a new building left the charity in financial trouble–for, like many shiny daydreams before it, the scheme turned out to be a money pit–the group did what any right-thinking Chicago institution would do: it hired the Governor’s wife as a highly-paid fundraiser. Yes, that would be the same Governor caught on tape trying to sell the President-elect’s Senate seat to the highest bidder.
Could Patti Blagojevich possibly have been recommended for this lucrative gig by Christian Industrial League board member Fred G. Lebed of Burris & Lebed Consulting, when yes, in fact, that IS “Burris” as in “Senator-Designate Roland Burris”? And could Fred’s doing a favor for Rod’s wife Patti possibly have redounded to partner Roland’s benefit?
Inquiring minds . . .
N.B.: The Nonprofiteer feels terrible being so suspicious of the people who are running charities and governments in her city and state. Shame on that wicked Patrick Fitzgerald for making her feel that way.
Tags:Blago, Boards of Directors, Burris, Christian Industrial League, Conflict of Interest, Fundraising, Nonprofit management, pay to play, Real Estate
Posted in Boards of Directors, Charity scandals, Conflict of Interest, Coverage of nonprofits, Current Affairs, Fundraising, Housing, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Public private partnerships, Real Estate, Social Service Agencies | 1 Comment »
May 27, 2008
The Nonprofiteer knows she’s supposed to be horrified by the spate of rulings (described in yesterday’s New York Times) revoking the exempt status of various nonprofits. But–though the lawyer in her itches to point out all the inconsistencies in courts’ and legislatures’ handling of charities–she really thinks that challenges to the status of certain charities are long overdue.
Admittedly, the Times article doesn’t contribute to the quality of the conversation when it notes that 88% of charitable revenue comes from fees, with only 12% from donations; this is a pointless pair of statistics as long as charities serve as government contractors, receiving what is almost always insufficient compensation for providing state-mandated services to poor people. It’s not the fact of getting paid in and of itself that renders a transaction un-charitable–it’s the fact of getting paid market rate. Very few social service agencies have much to fear from a test articulated that way.
And what if they did? Wouldn’t that mean we’d have to have a long-overdue discussion about who’s actually supposed to be providing health care and services for veterans and the developmentally disabled and the homeless and the hungry and everybody else we’ve been pretending can be served by private charity? If in fact nonprofits are doing nothing but taking government payments and providing services–and if in fact there are for-profit businesses doing exactly the same thing but paying taxes for it–then the nonprofits should be deprived of their tax-favored status, whereupon they’ll go out of business, whereupon we’ll finally have to require the government to do what’s really been its job all along. And, frankly, the only way for governments to do that is precisely to raise taxes–for instance, on businesses masquerading as charities.
The only problem with this scenario is that charities are less a good source of tax money than a badly-defended source of tax money: most are too unsophisticated and too focused on mission to lobby. But they’re also too poor to be worth very much, so it shouldn’t take too long (under a Democratic administration) for legislators to figure out that, as Willie Sutton said, it’s better to go where the money is.
NB that this “threat” to the sanctity of nonprofits is less sudden than it purports to be: 15 years ago, while serving on the board of her local YMCA, the Nonprofiteer was introduced to the question of what distinguished the Y from for-profit health clubs, such that the Y paid no property taxes and got water free from the city. As long as the Y was also a single-room occupancy hotel, providing housing for people who would otherwise be sleeping on the streets, and as long as it was providing full scholarships to poor kids to go to summer camp, its exempt status was safe. But it was clear that as soon as it stopped doing either of those things, it would have to answer to the city, state and nation why one fee-paying health club was any different from another. And that’s as it should be.
The fact that–as someone in the Times article says–decisions about nonprofit taxability are “rife with unintended consequences” is merely a description of being alive. That doesn’t mean those who are responsible for operating an equitable tax system shouldn’t make those decisions.
The answer to “Why are we a nonprofit?” can’t be “Because we couldn’t afford to operate if we weren’t.” If that’s the case, it just means you’re a badly-organized business.
Tags:charity, exempt status revocation, Health care, nonprofit, Nonprofit management, not for profit, Poverty
Posted in Charity scandals, Coverage of nonprofits, Earned income, Health care, Housing, Nonprofit management, Poverty, Public private partnerships, Social Service Agencies, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 2, 2008
The Council on Foundations yesterday announced the results of its survey of 300 members about their plans to respond to the current economic downtown. As he introduced the report’s findings, Council President Steve Gunderson observed, “Philanthropies’ endowments are feeling the same impact as every other American.”
You’ll forgive the Nonprofiteer if she observes that this is a misuse of the faculty of identification. Foundations’ slightly-less-bulging coffers aren’t even analogous to the belt-tightening experience of actual American people, most of whom have no financial cushion of any kind and have experienced no benefit from years of soaring stock prices. Rather, Gunderson’s comment reminded the Nonprofiteer of the days when Al Franken, now a candidate for US Senate in Minnesota, was still just a comedian on Saturday Night Live. His shtick was to begin pointless speeches by saying, “You’re probably wondering how the changes in the tax laws will affect me, Al Franken,” whereupon his name would flash on the screen.
So if you were wondering how the economic downtown will affect us, the members of the Council on Foundations, the answer is that slightly more than half feel the pinch on their endowments but plan to continue or increase their giving to poor people while slightly fewer than half feel the pinch on their endowments and plan to reduce giving.
If now is not the time for all foundations to spend the investment gains of the past decade (well- or ill-gotten as the case may be), when is? But–apparently inspired by all those people in the for-profit sector who are always urging nonprofits to operate like businesses–nearly half of America’s big grantmakers are so focused on today that if today’s income declines because the economy is in a tailspin and charity is needed like never before, that’s cause for weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth accompanied by a reduction in today’s grantmaking–though economists left, right and center agree that the treatment for reduced economic activity is for those with money to circulate more and not less of it. And at the same time they’re so focused on forever that their argument against making such expenditures is simply that if they spend it now it won’t be there–forever.
So while the report identifies a number of interesting projects to address specific aspects of the economic crisis (including the MacArthur Foundation’s soon-to-be-launched plan to purchase foreclosed homes in the Chicago area and recycle them as low-income housing), it doesn’t suggest any across-the-sector understanding that an economic collapse of this magnitude calls for something other than business as usual, in foundations as in politics.
The report does not say whether foundations planning to maintain or increase their spending on human services, economic development and support for low-income families plan to take that spending from a pot that used to nourish environmental initiatives or the arts. Gunderson noted that in earlier “national and natural disasters” like Katrina, increased foundation spending didn’t come at the cost of other areas; but of course those disasters didn’t hit foundations in the pocketbook and make them feel as vulnerable and impoverished as, well, “every other American.”
It’s important, of course, not to kill the messenger. What the Council on Foundations does in reporting on the inclinations of its members enables the operating part of the nonprofit sector to prepare itself, and for this we’re grateful. The Council’s report offers one more reminder that cultivating giving by individuals–who can certainly feel poorer this year than last, and reduce their giving, but who have a personal attachment to the charities they support–is something charities should begin doing immediately, if not sooner.
Tags:Al Franken, Arts Organizations, charity, Environmental, foundations, Fundraising, grantmakers, nonprofit, not for profit, philanthropy, Poverty, Private Philanthropy, Real Estate, recession, Relations with funders, subprime mortgages
Posted in Arts Organizations, Current Affairs, Environmental, Foundation Hall of Shame/Stupid Foundation Tricks, Fundraising, Housing, Investment, Philanthropy and Taxation, Poverty, Private Philanthropy, Real Estate, Relations with funders, Social Service Agencies, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 23, 2008
In the latest issue of her newsletter, nonprofit lawyer Kathryn Vanden Berk reviews the intersection of the age discrimination statutes with nonprofits’ need or desire to move older workers into retirement. (Copy available on request.)
Vanden Berk is too polite to say so, but hidden inside the recent attention to nonprofits’ difficulties recruiting young workers is the simple fact that [we] Baby Boomers won’t get out of the way. And hidden inside that in turn is the slightly more complicated fact that bringing in younger workers is not the cost-cutting measure among charities that it is at for-profit enterprises. Indeed, older workers actually pull down median salaries at nonprofits, because so many of them came into charitable employment at a time when getting paid adequately was a sign of insufficient commitment. (And, lest we forget, because so many of them are women and thus routinely underpaid.)
So the real question is not whether nonprofits CAN remove older workers when it’s time for a change of direction, but whether they WILL. Or will they cling to low-paid veterans not because their experience is invaluable but because donors want to continue providing society’s most important features–social services, education, the arts–on the cheap?
Tags:Arts Organizations, charity, compensation, Education, Environmental, Health care, labor relations, nonprofit, Nonprofit management, not for profit, older workers, personnel, Relations with funders, retirement, succession plan, Women's Issues
Posted in Advocacy groups, Arts Organizations, Education, Environmental, Health care, Housing, Nonprofit management, Personnel Issues, Relations with funders, Social Service Agencies, Women's Issues | 1 Comment »
March 10, 2008
This piece about the construction of new nonprofit theaters prompts the Nonprofiteer to offer a pair of cautionary notes.
As a theater critic (alternate life) she’s seen a number of fine companies succumb to New Building Disease, characterized by an overuse of high-tech toys (trap doors, lifts, revolves, flies) and an underuse of the imagination that made patrons want to support the theaters in the first place. The first three to five years in a new space tend to be a theatrical wasteland; so patrons of the house-proud companies mentioned in the Times article might consider subscribing to a good storefront troupe while they wait for the big guys to settle their new plumage.
But–more important to readers here–the Nonprofiteer has seen the way new buildings risk sinking the very companies they’re supposed to anchor. The risks include:
- the abrupt onset of enormous fixed costs at institutions whose strength has always been the ability to cut back on expenses if a couple of innovative shows in a row are bombs;
- collapse of the Board of Directors, let down after the excitement of a successful capital campaign, producing a fundraising lull just when audiences are expecting more, bigger and better; and
- distraction of artists and administrators alike from their mission of creating art to their entirely new and not necessarily congenial role of running a building.
Of course city governments love the idea of having a theater make a
huge contribution to municipal infrastructure. If the goal is
gentrification or reclamation of a downtown core, one theater company
is worth dozens of individual artists in lofts! But municipal
enthusiasm, however intoxicating, isn’t strictly relevant, nor is the
enthusiasm of donors who may want their names on the wall, floor or
atrium.
Sometimes an arts group’s new space can make a terrific and positive difference in the art it’s able to create: Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s repertoire exploded as soon as it had a rehearsal space big enough for the creation of new dances. But that’s the point: the question worth asking about any proposed building project is NOT "Does a fine arts group deserve a beautiful environment?" (who could say "no"?) but "Will that new environment help produce so much more/better art that it’s worth not just the financial but the human and institutional costs?"
And unless the answer is not just "sure" but "We’ll be able to generate an entire new play series from this black box space alone" (or words to that effect), the savvy arts leader will treat the idea as the snare and delusion that it is, and return to dreaming of scripts and scores instead of bricks and mortar.
Tags:Arts Organizations, Boards of Directors, Real Estate
Posted in Arts Organizations, Boards of Directors, Current Affairs, Housing, Nonprofits--General, Real Estate | Leave a Comment »
March 5, 2008
Often the satire on GiftHub goes right over the Nonprofiteer’s head, but she was charmed by the site’s proposal that philanthropies consider for-profit prisons as a species of mission-related investment. Given the number of American poor people who will experience that particular form of public housing, what could be more appropriate?
But she takes seriously the site’s equally satirical notion that community foundations become payday lenders. While it wouldn’t be appropriate for them to charge the usurious interest rates currently associated with that market, why shouldn’t community foundations take seriously the need poor people have for short-term loans and their difficulty in securing them? Why shouldn’t do-good investors, seeing the shortage of short-term financing available at reasonable prices, step into that breach?
So at the end of the second period, the score is: irony 1, earnestness 1. A draw.
Tags:Advocacy, Endowment, Poverty, Private Philanthropy
Posted in Advocacy, Endowment, Foundation Hall of Shame/Stupid Foundation Tricks, Housing, Investment, Poverty, Private Philanthropy | 1 Comment »
