Tag Archives: nonprofit organizations

The Power of One

Posted on January 30, 2012 by | Leave a comment

One fairly influential individual

There are a lot of sort of pop psychology, bumper sticker motivationals out there about the difference that one individual can make…they all sort of run together for me, but you know what I mean, right?

Probably the best known is attributed to Helen Keller, “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”

Beautiful, right? And capable of making me feel guilty when I’m, say, on my way to the fabric store instead of a rally.

The belief in the power of the individual is very much rooted in our culture, but much less frequently seen in how we build capacity for advocacy and social change.

Bet you never thought about that while stopped behind someone at a red light, hunh?

See, when it comes to how we invest in building power to make a difference, we tend to focus almost exclusively on networks of people, on the connections that bind us together, and on how we create structures that leverage those relationships for power.

Sure, it’s obvious that no social movements are the sole work of any individual, even those that are commonly associated with one. But isn’t it also just as true that single individuals do, perhaps not as often as we would wish, change the course of history in amazing ways?

So why is the organization, or the community, most often our focal unit, when we think about what we need to develop in order to reach our goals? Why do we sometimes sort of gloss over the individuals who populate those entities, as though they are somehow replaceable, even when history so clearly teaches us otherwise?

I’ve been particularly thinking about this over the past couple of weeks because of the work that I do with The Sunflower Foundation and its Advocacy Fellows initiative. The initiative is somewhat distinct, particularly in the philanthropic world, because it revolves around advocacy, specifically, rather than a more diffuse sense of nonprofit leadership, and yet, unlike many other advocacy capacity-building efforts, individual advocates are clearly the emphasis.

The theory of change animating the Advocacy Fellowship is this: “the Sunflower Foundation believes that increasing the number of nonprofit health leaders who advocate on behalf of their constituents informs public policy and leads to real solutions for those in need. By becoming involved in advocacy, nonprofit leaders are advancing their causes, building public trust, and helping the people they serve.”

Notably missing, then, is discussion about the organizations in which these individuals work (indeed, they fairly frequently move organizations during the Fellowship or quickly following it) or about the sector as a whole. Instead, the idea is to find promising people, who happen to be working in nonprofit health organizations, and to work intensively with them to develop the knowledge, skills, and, yes, relationships they need to be effective advocates themselves. They are the ones held accountable for moving their work forward, and they are seen as the keys to advancing a vision of a healthy Kansas.

We’re still very much in the early stages of evaluation, but the indications at this point are, really, that the model works–that, no, their organizations do not necessarily greatly increase their advocacy capacity, but they as individuals do, and that that makes a difference. They are quoted more frequently in media accounts of related policy debates, they engage in those debates more often and with more influence, they are more respected by a larger circle of potential targets and allies, and they are increasingly sophisticated and outspoken in their advocacy.

It’s a bit of a gamble, this business of investing in individuals. We feel safer, sometimes, with organizations, because of the law of averages, but those same “averaging” tendencies can dilute and stall the radical message we want to convey: that, in the end, justice hinges on you (and me).

Here’s to sparking movements, one soul at a time.

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When we fall into the same old traps…

Posted on January 10, 2012 by | Leave a comment

In this second post for Organizational Transformation week, here at Classroom to Capitol, I’m tackling an ugly reality of nonprofit social service work and, in the interest of full disclosure, my parenting, sometimes, too.

Because the truth is, sometimes the ways in which we interact with those we serve (or parent) serve to replicate the same power imbalances against which we rail, when we view them on the “outside”.

You’ve seen it, no doubt:

  • Eligibility rules that are ambiguous and seemingly arbitrary, the sort of institutional equivalent of “because I said so”
  • Organizational cultures that afford greater prestige to men, and to those higher in the hierarchy (like when we refer to the Executive Director as Mr. SoandSo but the receptionist as “Maria”)
  • Programmatic requirements that force everyone to attend the same classes, fill out the same paperwork, not because those activities actually contribute to the amelioration of the social problems that prompted a particular individual to seek services, but because that’s how people prove that they “deserve” help

    We fall into these patterns of power and oppression not because we’re bad people, of course, but because we’re people, and people tend to seek comfort in regularity and predictability and status, and those pursuits are not necessarily compatible with the promotion of maximum empowerment for those who have historically been marginalized and oppressed.

    But I promised you that this wasn’t just a post about how you should change what you do in your organizations, right? I understand that changing the way we view those with whom we work, in every way from using language like “constituents” instead of “patients” to authentically making room on decision-making bodies for the full participation of those we serve, isn’t easy.

    I understand not just because I’ve been there, as a nonprofit leader and as a consultant to the same.

    I understand because I fight the same internal battles at home, too, where parenting offers opportunities every day to choose to live power imbalances that put me purportedly on top, versus a challenge to figure out how to make our family a sort of laboratory for empowered living.
    On a daily basis, that means that I can’t change the rules without accountability, even though I’m the mom. It means that the kids’ preferences on little things matter just as much as mine, and that, even on the big stuff, I can’t disregard their views without an honest discussion and a full examination of my own rationale.

    It’s not a democracy, exactly, any more than a nonprofit organization is. That’s what people often fear when we talk about transparency and participatory governance in nonprofit organizations, but it’s more like an excuse to duck our obligations to social justice than a valid concern.

    We’re not a 1-person-1-vote family.

    We’re something more, and better, just like our organizations need to be, too.

    Because avoiding the temptation to fall into the same old bad patterns means starting from the premise that power is only as valid as the way in which we wield it, that we can’t decry the abuse of authority in others without being willing to own it in ourselves, and that our relationships will be stronger when they are based on a presumption of equity than when reinforced through hierarchy alone.

    Ultimately, turning our organizations inside out like this should make us stronger advocates externally, too, because we’ll gain an empathy for those targets against whom we’re arrayed when we understand the universality of the temptation to oppress, at least in subtle ways. It also restores some of our moral authority and reduces our vulnerability to charges that “you do it, too.”

    But, more immediately and much more importantly, it will turn our organizations into places where people learn how to relate fully and equally, as agents in their own rights.

    And that’s what I remind myself every time I so want to say, “because I’m the Mom.”

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    Root Causes: Keep Asking “Why?”

    Posted on January 9, 2012 by | Leave a comment

    It’s organizational transformation week on Classroom to Capitol! I can’t think of a better way to start the new year than sharing some of my thinking about how to help nonprofit social service organizations fully integrate social change activities into their work with the community of readers here.

    I’ve been working with several nonprofit organizations and individual leaders to assess their organizations’ capacities for transformative social change, in pursuit of their visions of social justice, relying heavily on the work of the rock stars at Building Movement Project (if you haven’t already downloaded their free Process Guide, please make that a 2012 resolution!). The Guide approaches social change work from a foundation of quality social services and helps nonprofit organizations engage in cycles of learning and strategy development and action and reflection, as they walk a continuum from status quo-reinforcing to truly revolutionary power-building.

    This process begins (and ends–it’s a cycle!) with exploration of the root causes implicated in the social problems that our social programs are designed to address. Too often, our organizations’ activities are aimed at the symptoms of those problems, rather than the structural realities that perpetuate them, despite all of our best intentions. It’s not that we don’t care about the root causes, or even always that those examinations are too controversial for us to contemplate (although that can be a factor).

    Instead, I think that one of our greatest obstacles to uncovering the root causes that demand our attention is that we…

    don’t think enough like 3-year-olds.

    Because, really, have you ever met an adult with the same “why, why, why?” stamina as a preschooler?

    I didn’t think so.

    The connection was made clear when I was reading The Little Engine That Could to my 3-year-old son.

    Twenty-seven times in one day.

    Every single time, he asked me (on the same exact page), “Why the black engines no help?”

    And it occurred to me, maybe on time 18 (slow, I know), that what he really wants to know is WHY someone (or, in this case, something) would ignore the pleas of another in need. He can’t understand that, and, of course, none of us should be able to. And he wasn’t satisfied with any answer I gave, because they all fell short of really explaining “why”.

    And that commitment to “why?” needs to underscore our organizational evolutions towards social justice orientations, too.

    WHY do racial health disparities persist? WHY are people of color more likely to be uninsured? WHY are unemployment and underemployment rates higher for some demographics? WHY are educational attainment levels different for different populations? WHY are health outcomes tied to income and other social determinants? WHY? WHY? WHY?

    It often takes peeling away many layers to see the linkages between social problems and to uncover the root social inequities that, tragically, are relatively few and achingly predictable.

    How many “whys” do you have in you?

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    Execution Matters: Evaluation and Getting Advocacy Right

    Posted on December 8, 2011 by | Leave a comment

    In this final post on The Future of Nonprofits, I want to focus on a key point from early in the book, about how many (perhaps most) nonprofit organizations and their leaders are far better at coming up with creative approaches to solving problems (and accomplishing their core missions) than executing those ideas consistently and effectively.

    It’s not meant to be a total bash on nonprofits and their employees; really, given how under-resourced most nonprofits are (related to our pathological aversion to investing in “overhead”–those important functions that, in fact, enable our programs and services to succeed) and how much of our working hours we spend trying to sort of keep our heads above water and look effective (whether or not we really know what “effective” would look like in our specific context), it’s not surprising that we seldom have the chance to step back and think about the kinds of processes and structures within our organizations (and our own workdays) that would raise our execution ability to a standard of excellence.

    Instead, we’re always trying to do more with less (except when we’re admittedly doing less with our less, and busy making excuses for that). We stop doing some of what we should be doing, and close ourselves off to the possibilities of what we could be doing, in ways that mean, somewhat paradoxically, that we have to keep coming up with new inventions to increase our creativity, in order to compensate for how poorly we’re managing to pull off what it is that we do.

    Exhausted yet?

    In the advocacy context specifically, I see this when we develop campaigns that drift towards a new gimmick, or rely excessively on a particular technology, as though those are the tricks that will deliver the outcome we seek. We’re continually trying to one-up ourselves in terms of a slogan or a media event or a high-profile endorser, when what we should really focus on is hiring really good organizers, or investing in our relationships with our constituents, or personally connecting with every target policymaker (or all of the above). Or, we jump from issue to issue, diluting our potency and confusing our targets, lulling ourselves with the truth that “there are so many important causes out there.”

    The Future of Nonprofits has a chart that shows how we can increase our aggregate impact either by raising our execution ability, even rather modestly, or by dramatically expanding our pool of creative ideas. There’s arguably a need for both. Given limited resources, though, it’s much more efficient to focus on marginally improving our delivery, especially because it can ripple into other areas of our organizational functioning, in terms of relationships built and skills enhanced.

    And, so, what would it take to improve our execution in the advocacy arena?

    First, we have to rigorously evaluate what it is that we’re doing: what isn’t working, and what is, and what really tips the balance. We have to identify our organizational and individual advocacy capacities, build up the areas where we are weakest, and develop benchmarks for what we should be delivering. We need to fully investigate where our own efforts have fallen short before assuming that our advocacy failures are to be blamed on adverse political or economic conditions. We need transparency and accountability for what our campaigns set out to do, just as we do in the fundraising and direct services arenas.

    And we need organizational cultures committed not just to innovation, and not just to advocacy, but to excellence, and to intellectual honesty about how well we’re executing our most core programmatic functions, too.

    A few weeks ago, I was reading an article about advocacy evaluation when a Board member for one of the organizations for which I do consulting (we were volunteering at the same event, and I’m never without reading material) looked over my shoulder. She shook her head at the article’s premise that the field of advocac evaluation is far behind that of traditional programmatic assessment, and I think that her critique is largely valid: too often, our obvious good works, in the nonprofit sector, excuse the fact that they’re not always done well.

    In advocacy as in the rest of our endeavors, that’s an oversight we cannot afford.

    In the new year, we may find that we don’t need to continually come up with as many new strategies or “innovative” approaches, if we are consistently doing what we do very, very well. And implementing evaluation systems that allow us–no, require us–to know when that is the case.

    We won’t have to take as many shots, in other words, if we can hit them when we need to.

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    Futurecasting, My Students, and Our Sector

    Posted on December 6, 2011 by | Leave a comment

    In this second post during “Future Week”, here at Classroom to Capitol, I’m sharing an assignment that I created for my two policy classes this semester and how it fits with our critical challenge, as a nonprofit sector, to move beyond strategic plans that assume the world will stay mostly as it is (because it won’t), to instead prepare ourselves (and our future colleagues) to prepare to thrive in a nearly unimaginable (right now) future.

    In both my first-year MSW and Advanced Policy courses, students are required to investigate, analyze, and then comment on at least one macro trend expected to influence their current and future organizations, the realm of public policy in which they work, and their own practices. It’s not a research project, as such, in that no one can definitively predict these impacts, and students’ interpretations of the likely meaning of these trends are taken as valid and worthy of consideration, provided that the are based on sound reasoning and a firm grasp of the current state of their respective fields. They have some leeway to identify the trend(s) they want to study, but some that are suggested include:

  • Increasing representation of people of color in the population and among social work clients
  • Rise of mobile technologies and its impact on the digital divide
  • Declining federal financial aid for higher education and accompanying increasing tuition prices
  • Growth of nonprofit administration degrees outside of social work
  • Climate change (disaggregated in the developing and more developed economies)
  • Growth in the older adult population in the U.S., especially as compared to the working-age population
  • Demographic shifts towards the Southeast and Southwest, and away from traditional population centers in the Northeast

    The Future of Nonprofits stresses the importance of “futuring” for nonprofit organizations, as a way to outline some of the potential scenarios in which the organizations may operate, to identify opportunities and challenges embedded within them. As someone whose feelings about more traditional strategic planning are well-known (!), I really appreciated how the authors distinguish between those rather static exercises and this more freeform thinking about what could be, and what that could mean.

    For my students, once they are freed from the anxiety associated with fearing that they need to have some sort of crystal ball, the opportunity to talk with their peers and brainstorm about what could be coming (and how it might affect them) is pretty rewarding. I’m consistently impressed (and pleased!) with how often they identify the potential in these trends, not just the threats–I don’t know if it’s their youth or their innate optimism or what, but they tend to gravitate, even, towards the hidden good, while retaining a focus on vulnerable populations that could be adversely impacted in various future environments.

    I hope that, as part of our work together, my students develop and maintain a true curiosity about what the world holds, how it got this way, and where it might be headed.

    Knowing where to go, with whom to talk, what to read, and what questions to ask in order to figure out what’s going on with the people we serve, the organizations where we work, and the field in which we operate is integral to questioning the world as it is, and to imagining the world as it could be. It requires approaching life a bit more like my oldest son does–absolutely everything is questioned with a “why?” and a “why not?”–and casting a net wide enough to bring in diverse perspectives that can help us answer those most important questions.

    I think it’s more valuable, for them as professionals and for our profession as a whole, than the concrete knowledge (which will soon be outdated) or even the discrete skills I hope to pass along.

    Because, ultimately, I want my students to not just think about what the future might look like.

    I want them to help shape it, for the better. For all of us.

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    The Future of Nonprofits, Part I: Innovating for Advocacy

    Posted on December 5, 2011 by | Leave a comment

    This week, in the spirit of the season of giving, I’m writing three posts related to my thinking on some of the ideas raised in The Future of Nonprofits, and then giving away a copy of the book to a randomly-selected commenter at the end of the week. Today’s post tackles the core of the book–building an orientation to innovation within nonprofit organizations–specifically regarding what I think this means for transforming organizational cultures to embrace advocacy as a central mission imperative. Much of what I’ve written about here before (accepting risk, seeking mission fit, rigorously evaluating advocacy efforts) complements the authors’ insights on what innovation can look like, and can mean, for nonprofits, although I’ve never thought about it as explicitly “innovating” until reading this book.

    I look forward to your comments, from those who have read The Future of Nonprofits and those who would like to, and especially your ideas on what the future can look like for our field, and more importantly, for the causes to which we dedicate ourselves, if we commit to building it together.

    There’s an analogy in the opening of The Future of Nonprofits about how we respond to a moth in the room–taking the time to usher it carefully outside v. swatting at it with the back of our hands–that the authors use to illustrate how we often deal with new ideas in a nonprofit organization (hint: many of us are swatters). Honestly, I’m not totally enamored with the analogy, because what we often need to do is embrace the “moth” and shower it with the attention it deserves as it grows, rather than even kindly sending it on its way, but it did get me thinking about one of the greatest challenges we face in integrating an advocacy orientation into our primarily service-focused organizations:

    We are very anxious about distractions.

    Some of this preoccupation with focus is good, of course: none of us would want to work in (or be served by!) organizations without a clear sense of mission and how its activities advance those goals. We owe our clients, especially, accountability, and we need to avoid the temptation to do a little bit of good wherever we can, instead of developing real excellence that can revolutionize our world.

    But.

    Advocacy is not a distraction.

    Nor is it the kind of small side initiative (like the office recycling program that the authors use to illustrate inventions v. innovations) that we can tack onto what we’re already doing, in the hopes that either (a) it will magically make our lives better and our work more effective or (b) it will satisfy our guilt, at least, about what we should be doing, and get people off our backs for awhile.

    It requires infusing a commitment to social justice, a willingness to engage even our adversaries, a recognition that standing with our clients requires (at least sometimes) standing in harm’s way, and a passion for mission that becomes a calling.

    And that makes it an innovation, in the clearest sense of that word–something that contributes creatively and powerfully to what our organizations should be doing: “creating ways to deliver on their mission through products and services that are insanely great” (p. 23).

    But how do we get there? How do we get past this fear that stepping up to the advocacy challenges that so demand our attention won’t, somehow, turn us into these political monsters embroiled in every nasty fight we read about in the papers, or, conversely, detract from our services so much that we cease to be relevant to the causes to which we are committed?

    The Future of Nonprofits suggests that what our organizations need, in fact, is more waste. Translating this concept to advocacy, it means time spent contemplating the roots of the problems faced by those we serve, and thinking collaboratively and very intently about the policy approaches that could eradicate them. It means building this time, and respect for it, into our employees’ job descriptions, and into our organizations’ priorities. It means structuring our organizations so that there is room to explore, so that we can be deliberate about our advocacy AND still extremely competent in our services.

    Because, really, we can do more than one thing at a time. Even well.

    It means that advocacy shouldn’t be the prerogative of just the “policy person” in an organization. Everyone who works at a particular organization should be assumed to be passionately committed to its mission (or they shouldn’t be there), and there should be an intentional effort to weave advocacy responsibilities into their regular work, both so that advocacy initiatives have the benefit of multiple perspectives and so that individuals can be a part of something larger, even, than they own specialized functions. I’ve seen this in practice, with childcare workers allowed to travel for legislative visits on work time, and case managers whose advocacy efforts alongside clients emerge as their most treasured victories, sustaining them during draining periods of direct practice.

    It also means that seeing advocacy as an innovation within an organization–a fundamentally new and very potent way to attack the problems that plague us–frames it as an endeavor to be approached with an eye towards evaluation and an acceptance of the risks that inevitably accompany it. That’s a healthy and sustainable way for organizations to embrace advocacy as a core part of their work, rather than that “stuck onto the side” distraction.

    Because it’s not.

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    Institutionalizing “government relations”

    Posted on November 8, 2011 by | Leave a comment

    Sometimes, if we’re paying attention, we can get really good ideas in the most unlikely places.

    It’s why I keep a huge stack of those tiny sticky notes by my bed, and why I read voraciously (one of the great side benefits of breastfeeding!).

    I recently read David Cay Johnston’s Free Lunch, which is pretty terrifically disturbing all around, detailing the myriad of lucrative and often secretive arrangements that companies (and industries) large and small have negotiated for themselves, and the tremendous (and often hidden) costs of such regulatory frameworks (and lack thereof) to American taxpayers.

    It’s a good thing I’m always exhausted, or it might be hard to fall back asleep.

    But this isn’t a post about those deals (one can’t even really call it corruption, since it’s mostly completely legal, if not legitimate), or about the importance of transparency or about the reality of corporate “welfare” and what a true accounting of our investments would look like.

    No, this is, instead, about the good idea, phenomenal really, that was slipped onto page 203, courtesy of former Cabinet member John Snow, at the time head of the transportation company CSX. He talked about how, key to the company’s successes in the realm of self-advocacy (including all kinds of regulatory allowances, special incentives, and opportunities to shape policy for the industry) was a commitment to “institutionalize government relations” within the entire company. The idea was to ensure that every employee, from the CEO to hourly maintenance workers to engineers to the human resources personnel, understood and valued relationships with elected and appointed officials and the government agencies with influence over the company and its work, and that they had skills and tools to deploy in order to contribute to that aspect of the business.

    Granted, Johnston makes a connection between these cozy relationships between CSX and its regulators and an ultimately fatal accident attributed to poor maintenance, but bear with me.

    What if we did that?

    What if advocacy was seen in our nonprofit social service organizations as a core function, an integral part of the job description of every single employee (and, perhaps even more importantly, every Board member), and an essential skill worth considerable investment across the organization?

    What if we didn’t have a “policy department”, but instead every individual charged with programmatic responsibilities (and, ideally, those participating in the programs, too) had strong knowledge of the policies that shape their services and how to make the case for them? What if, every time there was an event in our organizations, we were including elected and appointed officials, so that they would understand and value our efforts as well? What if our Board members could speak eloquently about our work when they encounter policymakers in other settings? What if each of our direct-service employees spoke a few times a year with their own elected officials, building relationships and confidence that would contribute to advocacy on behalf of the agency, too? What if everyone saw interfacing with those who make the decisions that shape the future course of our organizations and our communities as part of their daily job responsibilities, and wove that advocacy into their every activity? What if it was really seamless, so that advocacy wasn’t something at the bottom of the to-do list that seldom gets done, but instead an orientation to our work that resulted not in more sheer doing but smarter, more visible, and more powerful efforts?

    What if?

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    Election Year Resolutions

    Posted on November 1, 2011 by | Leave a comment

    I’m a resolution-maker.

    My husband, quite emphatically, is not. He claims that, if there’s something he wants to change about himself, he just does, and he doesn’t need to wait for a new year to do it.

    The crazy-making thing is, he really does.

    For me, though, there’s something powerful about the symbolism of committing oneself to a new goal, and of starting fresh towards a new end. And I love, love, love crossing things off lists. I’m eternally grateful for a husband who lets me even cross things off his list, since he just doesn’t get the same satisfaction out of it that I do.

    I have some rules about my resolutions, primarily that they have to be things entirely within my own control (so I can’t make resolutions about things that I want done around the house, since it’s seldom I who do them, or about the state of the world, since, regrettably, I’m not in charge there, either), and they have to be concrete (so no, “exercise more” or other vague statements; those are too easy for me to forget about, or to fudge).

    This year, I’m setting a special set of resolutions for a special “year”, the countdown to the very important 2012 elections. It’s just about one year until our nation will not only elect a President but also send a strong statement about the direction of the country, and, here in Kansas, of our state Senate, in particular. And there are some things that I simply must do, if I’m going to be able to look myself in the mirror, in November 2012, and feel that I’ve done my best this year. So these are my Election Year Resolutions.

    As always, I’m most interested to hear yours. What are you planning to do to make your mark on the electoral process, and how do those goals fit into your overall advocacy vision between now and next November? Or, if you’re not a resolution person, what are you doing today to shape the course of the next election?

  • Donate at least $100 towards citizenship application fees for a new applicant: It costs more than $600 to become a U.S. citizen, even if you don’t have to pay an attorney. In today’s economy, and given the labor market facing many immigrants, that’s a pretty steep entrance fee to our democratic process. I know many people who really want to become citizens, and whose voices are desperately needed, for whom the fees are a real barrier. We need to provide some financial assistance in order to broaden the scope of political participation; it just might mean public policies that reduce the demand for ameliorative services on the back end, too.
  • Organize another citizenship workday: One of the most fun and rewarding activities in doing immigrant rights work is helping people become citizens, and, when you can work with dedicated immigration attorneys who donate their time, it’s a true joy. We processed 85 new citizens at a workday last July, and those folks should be eligible to vote in 2012. Individuals applying for citizenship now may not complete the process in time, but it’s about building momentum for the future, and about redeeming the vision of an American Dream.
  • Register at least 50 new voters: So registering voters can be a drag. I know that all too well. I’ve been cursed at while conducting nonpartisan voter registration drives in 100+ degree heat, and that’s no one’s idea of a great time. But I’ve also received phone calls of gratitude from new voters who relished their first ballot, and those make it worth it. I’ll volunteer my time to work on voter drives, either in conjunction with nonprofit organizations, organized voter efforts, or through my own connections to grassroots groups.
  • Door-knock at least 5 days for candidates I support: Going door-to-door is abundantly more fun now that I can take a kid with me; people just don’t yell at people with kids as much. We’ll probably do some primary work in June (hopefully before it gets too hot) and again during the general election. My sons like to race each other to see who can get up to the door first for literature drops, too which saves me a few steps!
  • Make at least 5 campaign contributions, most likely at the state level: We have four kids, so money doesn’t exactly flow abundantly around here, but money is a critically important part of the political process, and there is a real satisfaction in supporting candidates whose vision I believe in. I started to receive solicitations a few months ago, so the hardest part will be winnowing those requests down and being strategic about my contributions, but they’re in the budget, so we can make them happen.
  • Provide at least 25 hours of pro bono consulting assistance to nonprofit organizations looking to integrate GOTV strategies into their work: I don’t have a lot of time, either, but I know a fair amount about how nonprofit social service agencies can be effective in their voter engagement work, and I know that I can make a contribution in that arena. I’ve started to talk with some organizations that are interested, and we’re working up some strategies that will, we hope, have both a 2012 impact and lay a foundation for years to come.

    So, again, what are YOUR election year resolutions? What will you do to influence the world we’ll wake up to on Wednesday, November 7, 2012?

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    Posted in Events and Calls to Action

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    Mission Essential: Nonprofits Vote

    Posted on October 27, 2011 by | 2 Comments

    One of my favorite finds, in some of my research for this blog several months ago, is Nonprofit Vote, an organization dedicated to helping nonprofits do voter engagement work right. That means that they identify, support, and applaud efforts that are sustainable, integrated, mission-consistent, and, most of all, impactful.

    As we tick down to one year until one of the most important elections I can remember (and, yes, I do kind of say that about most of them!), I’ve been reading through some of the case studies and empirical analyses of what makes a successful voter effort by a nonprofit organization, particularly with an eye towards models that work for social service agencies. Nonprofit Votes has hosted some webinars highlighting successes, and there are some lessons learned that are very much worth sharing.

  • Face-to-face contact is by far the most effective way to increase voter turnout (increasing turnout anywhere between 6-14%, depending on the population and the type of election), especially with underrepresented populations. Of course, making those face-to-face contacts with potential voters is very time-consuming and extremely expensive…unless you happen to see them on a regular basis anyway because, I don’t know, maybe they are your clients?
  • The particular study from which I’ve pulled these data was conducted with nonprofit social service agencies, working with a variety of constituencies, in Michigan, and it’s a scientifically rigorous examination of how agency-based voter engagement, specifically, impacts voter behavior. That means that they had random assignment to control and “treatment” groups, the latter defined here as one group at each agency that received a voter registration appeal only and one group that had more sustained communication around voting and its significance. Importantly, some of the participating agencies had NEVER done voter work with their clients before, which makes the results all the more promising, especially for those who might be (wrongly!) thinking that it’s too late for them to develop a 2012 strategy.
  • The key findings, the ones that I think are so exciting? Clients in both treatment groups had a higher likelihood of voting than those in the control group. The likelihood of voter turnout increases proportionally with the nonprofits’ level of voter engagement effort, so it really does pay to go beyond just putting up the “Please Vote” posters (probability of voting increased by about 9% with each contact). Clients in both treatment groups were not only more likely to vote, but also more likely to encourage their family and friends to vote, which means that the same “word-of-mouth” system on which we rely for referrals and health education and so many other critical functions works for encouraging civic participation, too, allowing nonprofits to expand their reach far beyond those they directly serve. Among all forms of voter assistance nonprofits provided, new voter registrations and voting reminders were the two forms of contact that make the biggest difference in increasing voter turnout.

    There’s nothing “magic” about these organizations, or about the people they serve. Your clients are likely just as responsive to thoughtful, targeted, sustained communication about voting and why it matters as these folks were, and your organization just as capable of integrating these activities into your work.

    In the world of social services, we devote considerable energy to emerging practices with success rates that are anything but guaranteed.

    We know that changing the face of the electorate in the United States will make a difference in the kind of hearing our concerns receive, and the kinds of public policy priorities that rise to the top of the agenda.

    And now we know something more about how to make that happen.

    And so we must.

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    Posted in Inspiration and Examples, My New Favorite Thing

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    Economics of Studying Social Work: Guest Post from The Professional Intern

    Posted on October 13, 2011 by | Leave a comment

    **Note from Melinda: I was approached for a guest post by Jesse from The Professional Intern, a blog/website written by and for high school, undergraduate, graduate, and adult education students. One of the frequent topics on the blog relates to the financial aspects of higher education, and life beyond, and I think that the resources contained here, and on the site, will be helpful for social work students and recent graduates, too, particularly given how frequently my students’ career decisions are influenced by very real financial considerations. In an ideal world, the important work that social workers do–whether 1:1 with clients or on the macro level–would be compensated so that social workers can take care of their families and pursue their individual financial goals, too. That will take reforming the incentives facing nonprofit organizations, valuing the contributions we make to society, and creating public policies accordingly. Until then, consider Jesse and his colleagues fellow travelers on the quest to “do well while doing good.” Thanks, Jesse!

    People who go to school for social work aren’t in it for the money. They realize they’re facing a lifetime of being underpaid and overworked. But just because you’re never going to strike it rich doesn’t mean you have to carry a load of debt around with you.

    Before you go
    One of the most important decisions you can make when you’ve decided on your career path is where to go for your degree. This is one of those times when you have to be real with yourself. Going to a pricey private college may not be easy for you later if your parents aren’t helping you pay your loans. Admissions counselors will tell you that 99 percent of students will get financial aid. While that’s completely true, they often leave out the fact that this is only a few thousand on a $35,000 price tag.
    A more affordable option is attending a state school. They tend to run at about $16,140 a year. With scholarships, they can often be brought down to about $10,080, according to a recent report. Scholarships will only knock private school tuition down to about $21,020.

    If you need to work while you’re attending college, look into an online degree or a community college. Many state schools can also have more flexible schedules with night classes that will help you in your quest to do it all.

    Once you’re there
    Student loans can often be used for any educational expense. This can be stretched easily to include some things that you might not actually need, so it’s one of those times that we have to apply the advice we often give to others–how should we prioritize our budgets?–to our own financial decisions. Remember that you’ll have to pay this money back sooner than you’d think.

    On that note, any money you take from your technical loan money should be repaid by the time you graduate. If you have loans that charge interest, pay those back immediately. For the loans that don’t accrue interest, go ahead and put the money in a savings account that you can’t access through a bank card. If you need extra help ensuring you don’t spend it, ask your parents to put their names on your account and require that you all be there to remove it.

    Consider signing up for AmeriCorps if there is a program in your area (or another, similar service program). AmeriCorps is a government-funded program that allows people to give back to their community in various ways. In return for your service, you receive a living stipend. Upon completion of the program, you also receive an education award, which can be applied directly to tuition costs or loans. Depending on the amount of hours you put into the program, you could end up with a couple of thousand dollars on top of your living stipend. It’s best to do the AmeriCorps program as an internship, since it will take a considerable time commitment. Many of the projects that members can sign up for are directly related to social work and can provide valuable experience along with the much-needed money.

    And now, the fun part
    The fun, of course, comes from having your degree. If you’re unable to find a job right out of college, take one that you can find and continue searching hard for a job in your field (ML: again–the same advice social workers often give our clients!). With the economy the way it is, even low-paying jobs are sometimes hard-to-find. In the meantime, call your loan provider and see when you’ll need to start paying back your loans. Most have a waiting period of about six months. If you graduate in May, your first payments will begin around December. You can usually find out everything you need to know by going to their website and digging around. However, if you call you will get an opportunity to talk to real people who know your situation and can help. Memorizing the number might be the most important step you can take.

    If you have trouble paying back your loans, here are some options you can take.
    • Defer your loans:
    Deferring your loans is the first step you should take when you lose your job or can’t make payments on a low salary. All it takes is a call to your loan provider and a short explanation of why you need a deferment. You only have a set number of these to go through though, so be sure you’re using them only when absolutely necessary.
    • Extend your payback period:
    If your loans exceed a certain amount, your payback period may be eligible to be extended. Remember that this will make it harder to buy a home and a new car later on down the road, since you’ll have more money already tied up in loans. The amount you currently owe back is also reflected in your credit score, so be sure to check and see how much it’s affecting you before you extend it another 5-10 years. The average loan’s standard payback period is 10 years, but can go up to 15-20 if you meet the requirements.
    • Consolidate your loans:
    In the funny loan world, you can have two separate loans from the same provider, both due separately. If you find this has happened to you, simply call your loan provider to ask them to be combined.
    • Check the time of month:
    If rent is due the same week as your student loans, most companies will allow you to switch the due date. Remember that it will take a month or so to go in effect, so don’t think you can use this to get a couple weeks of free deferment.
    With all of these options available, you should be able to manage loan repayment on even the tiniest salary. Remember to also list the amount you’ve paid towards them on your taxes, as some of that money will be tax deductible. Be proactive about your loans, and you’ll be able to stay on top of them.

    Does anyone else have advice to share? Recent graduates, what are you encountering in the job market, and what has worked for you? Those with longer tenures in the working world, what has this perspective taught you that you wish you’d known before?

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    Posted in From the Trenches (Guest post)

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