Week 10: Funders and Mutual Benefits

Alright last week guys! Okay so O’Neill chapter 10 talked about funders and their position in the nonprofit world. I was somewhat disappointed that there is a history and reputation of unethical and selfish behavior on the part of some funders. I was interested to hear that despite their small number though, they have a large effect on the sector they are involved with. It was interesting to read that corporations give very very little to religion, it was quite different than other sectors. In the next chapter, titled mutual benefit, talks about the organizations on the periphery who benefit the mutual benefit. While they only number half a million they have a large effect on society especially on political parties and labor unions. I was actually surprised at all of the organizations I was aware of yet didn’t know were involved in the nonprofit sector, like fraternities, breast cancer groups, AIDS groups, and support groups.

Moving on to the articles....

In the article "Budget Plan Brings Big Changes to Tax Incentives for Donors" the main idea is that in order for President Obama to start minimizing the budget one of the things he plan to get rid of are some tax deductions for charitable contributions. This is connected to the question we have been asking since one of the first classes, if tax write-offs for charitable donations are reduced or exterminated what effect will that have on charitable donations? I supposed we will have to see how this plays out....

In the article titled "Donors and Nonprofits Face a Defining Moment in Responding to a Crisis" I found it interesting at first that during this economic recession charitable donations didn't decrease but instead topped $300 billion. I was interested to learn about the "new normal" which Mr. El-Erian said would be healthier for the global economy because it focuses on emerging market economies as opposed to the United States. Ultimately, it would have a large affect on the donors and charities because aid to entrepreneurs  could be accelerated and have stronger growth. What I really liked was the possibility for nonprofits, donors, and philanthropists to create a better balance and connection between economic growth and standard of living. I hope that the nonprofit world capitalizes on this new state of global affaires and measures up to the challenges of tomorrow. I think that in terms of international aid basic human needs and standard of living are the important things to focus on, not just the raw amount of money that goes into an area. 

In the article titled " A Newly Powerful Grant-Making Force: Artist Endowed Foundations" I was impressed and pleasantly surprised at the actions of the various donor groups to the removal of the David Wojnarowicz exhibit. My previous knowledge about donors and foundations were that they usually took a backseat to political matters but apparently the fact the these were artist-founded foundations had some bearing on their actions. I was really surprised at the growth and revenue that these relatively new foundations have acquired and with that apparently some power, and not just economic power but copyright and influence power. I ma interested to see how these foundations exhibit their power in the future. 

I really liked the article "How to do Good and Prove It" because I felt like it took a practical and smart approach at measuring impact and effectiveness. It was enlightening to read his view about raising awareness, saying it simply wasn't enough, that instead, the final impact needs to be shown. The organization Wild4Life was a a great example of a group that was really making a difference and could measure there success tangibly and they actually were lowering the rate of HIV, thats amazing! I felt like this one one of the most helpful articles that we read because it really outline an articulated, successful plan of action for a nonprofit. Here is the link for Wilf4Life which is a really cool organization...you should check it out:

http://www.wild4life.org/Site/Home_.html

Week 9: International Non-Profits

So to start with out with O’Neill, I think that his chapter, while pretty concise, was pretty interesting, though I may be a little bias since international nonprofits are the kinds of nonprofits I want to delve into in the future. Like many nonprofits, I wasn’t surprised to read that many international organizations receive much of their revenue through private contributions (like 62%!). I found it a little disheartening that only 3% of american adults reported volunteering for international or foreign organizations and there were only 21,000 reported international nonprofit employees. I would think that in an increasingly globalized world, there would be more involvement with international institutions. 

After looking through the Mercy Corps website I found myself really impressed. I liked their main goal "to create more secure, productive, and just communities. Their website says they serve more than 16.7 million people a year and it was one of the first international groups to strengthen civil society through relief and development. It seemed like they work in many, many at risk areas around the world and do a lot of good. I think that international organizations like Mercy Corps are really important for connecting people and helping different peoples across the world. 

The video "Why Does Foreign Aid Fail?" by William Easterly focused on Easterly's opinion on why he feels that the foreign aid system has failed. He essentially says that the problem with the foreign aid system is that the poor, who are the customers and beneficiaries of the aid, have no way to respond to the aid given. The poor have no voice to give their opinion on whether or not a certain type or amount of aid has actually worked. I like how he made the differentiation between how much money is spent and the effect that money has. Just because a certain amount of money is spent, even if it is a lot of money, that doesn't mean that the poor are actually helped. 

In Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala's talk on "aid versus trade" I found her perspective on the future of Africa smart, educational, and beautifully optimistic. Just like what William Easterly talked about, one of the most important things when looking at and  offering  aid outside and within a country, is the importance of the peoples voice, wants, and needs. Their voice and opinion is essential in building up the continent and bringing it into the next phase and chapter. 

The article about the Millennium Development Goals was really interesting, and actually not the first time I had heard about these international goals. I took the class Perspectives on International Development last semester and these goals were discussed at least more than once. To me one of the best part of the eight goals (eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, and develop a global partnership for development) are how varied they are and how they encompass so many different issues worldwide. When reading through the progress that different countries had made with each it seemed to me that while some progress had been made within each goal (in some countries) many of the goals were still not very close to being fulfilled, to me it was a big mix of results. I found this really helpful chart on the progress for 2010:

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mdg/Resources/Static/Products/Progress2010/MDG_Report_2010_Progress_Chart_En.pdf

Week 8: The Arts and Advocacy

Alright, so the theme of this week is Advocacy and Arts & Culture so I’ll start out with our old friend Michael O’Neill. The first chapter titled Advocacy focuses on the nonprofit advocacy organization typically involved with issues like women’s suffrage, abolition, and environmentalism. Among one of the more surprising organizations that fell under the category of nonprofit advocacy organizations was AARP. What also surprised me was the actual difference and impact these organizations have had despite their relatively low number of employees for example minority rights organizations (woman’s rights, african american rights, and LGBT rights).  The second O’Neill chapter focused on nonprofit organizations concerned with art and culture and much like advocacy organizations there organizations have had a pretty large effect despite their size. It was interesting to find that museums are the largest part of this breed of nonprofit organizations. Because of the absent role that government plays in art and culture in todays society, it isn’t surprising that the majority of revenue for these organizations is private donations. Despite governments support of the arts as seen in institutions like the Smithsonian Museums, compared to other developed countries America’s support for the arts is much lower.   

In the article The Power of Nonprofits, asserts that the ideal of being involved in the policy making process is one that has existed since the star of our nation and as a foundation of American people. It has been seen throughout our history that if the American people have seen something they wish to change, they have fought for government to change it. I feel like this ideal and the work that nonprofit advocacy organizations do, is one of the best parts of America today. I think that it's awesome that in the Middle East right now, so many people in these nations are doing this exact thing. They are seeing things that exist in their government and they are standing up and advocating for things to change. 

It was interesting and kind of sad to read the information on Senate Bill 40 and to read what the Nonprofit Association of Oregon had to say about the bill. I think it is sad that this bill needs to be passed in the first place, that being said, I think that this is a good thing to have in oregon in order to monitor nonprofits as well as create more trust and comfort for the public when it comes to donating to these organization. 

In the article about arts and the money they have pumped back into the economy was really interesting. I was surprised to hear that these non profits economic impact grew by 24%  between 2000 and 2005. With these numbers the organization Americans for the Arts is boldly asking for a 40% boost in funding. While I do think that the arts are important, I find it hard to believe they will get what they are asking for especially in this economy where  cuts are being made across the board. Here is an article about how recently some art nonprofit funding is being cut:


http://www.reporternews.com/news/2011/feb/08/historic-sites-local-arts-nonprofitsthreatened/

I think that article that for me showed the importance of art nonprofits was the article Poetry Gives Teens a Voice. I like how the article gave a face to all of the numbers and showed how the Youth Speaks nonprofit had a personal, positive and important effect on these youth. For me this kind of article speaks more to the importance of art and culture nonprofits than the fact that arts groups pumped $166.8 billion back into the US. 

Week 7: Education

So, this week's topic: education. O’Neill talks about a few things including charter schools which I was super interested in because I went to a charter elementary school, and it had some of the best teachers in the area.  I did some extra research on charter schools and found that since 1990 the number of charter schools has rise drastically and that now there are over 3,500 charter schools. While I went to a charter school I really had no idea what it was or how it differed, but it sound pretty innovative to me.

Next, I'd like to talk about the Education Trust Subprime Report. This report essentially talked about the role of for-profit colleges and universities and how they deal with poorer students. First of all, the role of for-profit colleges has risen since the enrollment at such schools increased by 236% between 2008 and 2009, which I thought was crazy considering that most people were dealing with the housing crisis and a slow economic period, I would have expected most people to be enrolling in public or non-profit colleges and universities. When I read that most of the increased employment was due to heavy recruitment of low-income students I was even more confused yet everything made sense when it came out that 66% of for-profit colleges and universities revenue comes from federal student aid through Pell Grants and other federal student aid programs. Despite all of this money coming in to for profit schools, I still figured it was a win since more and more low income students were getting the education they deserved and need, yet I was surprised again to learn that many of those same student don't graduate and then they are straddled with student loans and debt to pay back. I found myself extremely disappointed in the actions of these supposed centers of growth and education, to me it just seemed like another for-profit institute looking to make more and more profit on vulnerable students.

One perfect example of these disappointing institutions is the University of Phoenix that was mentioned in the Education Trust Subprime Report as well as the article "Fed Up at the University of Phoenix". According to the article, it is "the largest chain of for-profit colleges in the country" and have a reputation for straddling their students with student loans as well as private loans. 

In the article "Will the For-Profit Education Bubble Burst in 2011" an interesting topic was explored. According to the some new legislation, the government can now pay for veterans and military members who have served to attend college. If they choose however, to go to one of these for-profit universities or colleges then taxpayers are essentially paying to send they men and women to places where the quality of education is sub-par. Is this right? Should our tax money go to institutions that take advantage of young, vulnerable students?If the government were to exclude these institutions, who it be to big-brother-ish? 

Despite reading all of the negative evidence for for-profit colleges and universities, I tried to keep my mind open for the last article about the positives of for-profit schools. Despite the possible advantages for for profits schools, like the fact that a good business model with a good business model eventually benefits the student because they depend on providing a quality education. This however, I found easily countered in the previous articles since most for profits make money for every person they get coming in, what does it matter if they get a good education or not? So I see why it was hard for Bob to find the other side to this argument, though I do appreciate his try. Apparently, this is a pretty partisan subject in Washington, here’s a good article on it: 

http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2011/02/07/the-partisan-battle-over-for-profit-education

Week 6: The Environment

And so we move to the environmental nonprofit world. Side-note: no offense to Mr. O’neill but I did enjoy the absence of Nonprofit Nation reading this week. I’ll dive right in with the McKenzie Watershed Council and their work to manage water in the McKenzie River Basin. I thought their work along with their accomplishments were quite impressive. I really liked how one of their main focuses was promoting education within schools and throughout the community. I was impressed that through their their numerous and varied partnerships they were able to put on events like Annual McKenzie River Cleanup. I think because of environmental organizations like this that have community and school education programs more people become more concerned and aware of the problems that exist in the environment and therefore it leads to more action on the parts of citizens. I know that Oregon is known for it’s views on environmental conservation and I definitely think that it is in some part due to the success of organizations such as the McKenzie Watershed Council who involve their communities and educate youth. One non profit that exhibited a similar attitude toward education, I found in the “Guide to Non-Profits” document. The non profit is called Conserve Our Ocean Legacy and they work to educate people about the dangers of overfishing and habitat destruction. If you haven’t got it by now, I think education is really important; it involves communities, raises awareness, recruits potential supporters and or donators, and gets word out about the issue. Here’s a really cool group of women who also think that education is really important and so they have set up their own program to educate kids in schools across the country about environmental issues:

http://manhattanbeach.patch.com/articles/nonprofit-spotlight-grades-of-green

It thought the article “Saving the Environment for Profit” by Susan Raymond brought up an interesting idea about the benefits of a issue being the focus of for profit companies or non profit organizations. Looking at raw numbers where about 6 billion dollars comes in from various sources like private donations and grants. On the other side the global environmental market was estimated around 600 billion, about 100 times that of the non profit sector. So by a purely numerical analysis, the emerging environmental market strongly benefits environmental conservation and sustainability efforts. So overall this seems pretty good, and I think it was totally awesome that Al donated his salary to an environmental nonprofit.

And finally, I have to say, I found Mr. Paul Hawken’s speech quite inspiring. What really struck me was how he said that at this point in time “the greatest movement the world has ever seen” is occurring with so many people working towards righting the wrongs they see in the world. I think this class is great evidence of such a movement, here we all are attending a class twice a week to understand a whole community dedicated to serving, aid, kindness, and selflessness, it’s great!

Week 5: Health Care

               So this week in Nonprofit Nation, we learned about the role of healthcare in the nonprofit sector which actually has a large stake in not only the nonprofit sector but also the US economy. While nonprofit hospitals are the largest in the healthcare sector (57%) , I was intrigued to find that the for-profit hospitals as well as government controlled hospitals were on the rise, specifically, I was interested in the “for-profit conversions”. It saddened me that many nonprofit hospitals had to convert or be bought out by for-profit hospitals to be able to operate, pay off debts, or acquire new/ proper technology. The article “Mergers of for-profit, non-profit hospitals”  by Jenny Gold spoke to the same issue. In the article, however Ms. Gold paints two different views: first that the for-profit hospitals are helping nonprofit hospitals by giving them the funds they need to operate efficiently and serve the needs of their community and secondly that the for-profit hospitals see an opportunity for more capital gains in the nonprofit sector. Obviously, I would like to think it is the first one but I think most of the time it is a mix of both. Below is an article showing the upside of for-profit conversions as well as an alternative view about the purchase of the Detroit Medical Center. 

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2011/02/01/hca-seals-deal-for-mercy-hospital.html

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-transactions-and-valuation-issues/8-issues-surrounding-a-for-profit-companys-acquisitions-of-non-profit-hospitals.html

Alright, for the other readings, I found the article about the publicly owned Green Bay Packers quite interesting. I thought it was, well, cool that the team was a nonprofit sports team where 60% of their proceeds go to charity and most of the employees were volunteers. I found myself wondering and hoping that if the same level of dedication and commitment from members, owners, and fans was exemplified in other nonprofit, how much bigger and influential would the nonprofit sector be?...all I know is, I’m pretty much a Packers fan now. 

The article that I was really interested in though was the article about ADD, “ADD Grows Up” by Rebecca Leung. I was really interested in the fact that now more and more adults are being diagnosed with ADD and I was especially interested that with this rise in diagnoses, the drug industry has benefited immensely.  As I was reading the article, I was amazed that this disorder has mainly become a way for private companies to make money.  One quote from the article said that today there are “also push medications, self-help books, videos, organizational software, personal coaching and even therapeutic swings” furthering the unavoidable and pretty blatant fact that this a ploy from private companies to make money selling people things for problems that they came up with and promoted in the first place. All of this really makes me question the motives of private companies and their place within the health care system. Finally, this brings me back to what I was first speaking about to me the question is, is it really good for the healthcare system and the people it serves to be privately owned by for-profit companies whose motives are, at a basic level, solely to increase their profits? 

Week 4: Social Service

To start off, for the most part I found chapter four of Nonprofit Nation interesting especially the history behind the evolution of nonprofit social service organizations. I thought it was interesting how after the world wars, because of the plethora of cash, more people have the ability to give to social services. Additionally, the Great Society programs radically changed funding for social service nonprofits giving them grants and contracts so that present day 60% of revenue for social service nonprofits is provided by the government. 

In the article “Understanding Tools” by Malcom Keaton, he explains the tools for helping people in lower income housing who are trying to make it through the difficult economy. He talks about bettering certain policies like the application process for Section 8 payments and how social service nonprofits that build low-income housing receive a lot of money from the government to do so. Giving and supplying low-income communities with the tools the need in my opinion, is very important because like Antonio Pizano is president and CEO of MAAC Project said “hopefully some day, [they] will remember and likewise will help us to give back to the community they came from. Why? Because is the decent and right thing to do.” I think that providing social service tools and opportunities is one of the most important nonprofit sectors. 

Moving on, I thought two articles “Louisiana Housing Assistance” by Richard Thompson and “Chronic Problems Plague Auburn Family Residence” by Eliza Ronalds-Hannon side by side were an interesting pair. Both centered around the difficulties of areas with lower income people to deal with harsh weather conditions in the face of federal budget cuts. Luckily for Louisiana residents who cuts were only slashed 11% while most others areas were cut 13% grant money awarded by the federal government helped to mitigate the weather and help citizens pay their bills. The more truly upsetting article was about the Auburn Family Residence where conditions for the homeless families left many freezing during the night and exposed to lead paint, mold, leaking ceilings, and broken appliances. What I really found upsetting was the fact that many regulatory organizations like Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance and the NYC Department of Homeless Services were well aware of the issues that plagued the Auburn Family Residence yet all that came of it were notifications that the residence needed to fix their problems. In this economy, with all the budget cuts however, the ability to do so was too difficult. I did some research and found another social service nonprofit with worries about being in the same condition:


http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_2b6691da-28f7-11e0-9687-001cc4c002e0.html

I think that my favorite article was probably “Redeeming Value” by Diane Dietz, that spoke to the good business practices of St. Vincent de Paul right here in Eugene. I was thoroughly impressed that through the recent economic downturn, St. Vincent de Paul actually increased their revenue in addition to increasing their workforce by 10% in the past recent years. The success of the organization were a bit of an eye-opener seeing as in last weeks blog I bluntly stated the I was “pretty sure” non-profits already have enough trouble in times of economic unrest without taking away their tax deductions....or something of that nature. Basically, I was wrong. I found their trial-and-error business plan incredibly risky and brave, yet it seems to have paid off for them. One of my favorite parts of the article was when Executive Director Terry McDonald was explaining the ideas that had made them successful in the past. For example, importing used, not fire-proof-certified furniture from the UK that was basically a win/win for both parties, brilliant! I admired how sometimes Mr. McDonalds theories didn’t work but the company’s knack for an entrepreneurial-like approach to reinventing and remolding their business paid off extremely well not only for them but for the many, many people they serve. 

Have a good week!