Tag Archives: nonprofit organizations

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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    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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    Making it count: demographics and the “new” electorate

    Posted on October 11, 2011 by | 3 Comments

    The new Census report on voting in the 2010 elections was released a couple of weeks ago, and there are some interesting trends there.

    As our friends at Nonprofit Vote describe it, “Last year, Hispanics comprised 7% of voters, the highest percentage ever for a non-presidential election. The percentage of non-Hispanic white voters was 77.5%, down from 80.4% in 2006. Tiffany Julian of the Census Bureau’s Education and Social Stratification Branch noted that “The electorate looks much different than when we first started collecting these data 37 years ago,” yet turnout and registration rates still do not mirror the nation’s growing diversity. There are persistent voting gaps for many of the populations that nonprofits serve. In addition to racial and ethnic gaps, economic gaps remain stark: People in families who earned $100,000 or more were more than twice as likely to vote as those who lived with families earning less than $20,000. Homeowners were more likely to both register and vote than renters.” Furthermore, people with at least some college education made up 68 percent of voters. Individuals without a high school diploma comprised 6 percent of voters.

    These statistics were made all-too-real for me two weeks ago when I facilitated a voter registration and Get-Out-The-Vote training for a local nonprofit organization that serves a primarily low-income Latino community. When we got to the part of the training where I ask people to think of the objections they’re likely to hear from those they’re trying to engage in the electoral process, the responses came fast and furious.

    • “My one vote won’t matter.”
    • “They’ll just steal the elections anyway.”
    • “I couldn’t figure out who to vote for.”
    • “The whole process is corrupt; I don’t want any part of it.”
    • “They’re not even talking about issues that matter to me–it’s a waste of time.”
    • “I have too much going on to spend time figuring out elections and stuff.”

    And on and on and on.

    These nonprofit employees weren’t off the mark. The Census Bureau reports that the most common reason people did not vote was they were too busy (27 percent). Another 16 percent felt that their vote would not make a difference.

    The truth is that there are a lot of barriers that separate the population this organization serves–mostly native Spanish speakers, a lot of recently naturalized citizens who didn’t grow up in our democratic system, families with young children and a million demands on their time and attention–from active and informed participation in our electoral system.

    So that’s why, despite great progress, we still don’t have an electorate that fully represents our population. And the implications are profound, serving to perpetuate policy decisions that, in turn, widen the gap between elected officials and those they should serve.

    Demographics alone won’t change our destiny. It’s up to us–including nonprofit organizations well-positioned to engage our constituents in our democracy–to make sure that 2012′s statistics on voter turnout continue the trajectory of increasing participation by communities of color, and that low-income communities are present in the voting booth at this critical time in our economic future.

    The numbers may be on “our” side–those of us who want a diverse electorate that invigorates our national conversation about the kind of future we want to build–but history is replete with examples when numbers were not enough.

    We’re the missing link, and we’ve got some chasms to hurdle. And not-quite-13-months to get leaping.

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    Posted in Analysis and Commentary

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    Guest Post: Humility, or How I Came to Peace with my House of Cards

    Posted on September 13, 2011 by | Leave a comment

    **Note from Melinda: This guest post is from a relatively new social worker whose career I have watched over the past few years. I have witnessed her family’s financial struggles as she seeks to create what all social workers want: a job opportunity that allows us to use our skills to work towards social justice, while experiencing a measure of that justice–adequate compensation that provides dignity and comfort for those we love–for ourselves. I asked her to write about this journey, and I am so grateful for the very personal and poignant way in which she has shared these very intimate challenges. For me, reading this post prompts all kinds of questions, about economic justice (Why are such valuable jobs so relatively devalued?), women’s rights (How can our female-dominated profession empower women as mothers AND as family wage-earners?), about nonprofit organization reform (If even the best organizations aren’t paying family wages, how can they compete with for-profit companies for the best talent?), and about the future of social services for those whose lives we touch (What will our profession look like in 10 years if excellent social workers can’t afford to stay?). I’d love to hear your comments, in response to those questions and to this narrative. And I thank her so much for sharing.

    I assume that most people are like me – they went to school to pursue their passion. I got a law degree and a masters degree in social work because my passion is, in the most general sense, changing the world for the better of all inhabitants.

    I know that this is not the only reason people go to school, because we also go to school to get a job that will pay our bills, feed our families, and maybe even allow us to have a hobby. But, in the idealist twenty-something head, this is second to passion.
    Upon graduation with both degrees, I got a job at a well-respected non-profit in the state. This is lucky, truly lucky, because it grew out of my second year practicum at a time when job prospects for inexperienced graduates were/are not great. I pursued administrative social work, and this position is the perfect blend of giving me a chance to practice what I want to do and giving me the experience I need to continue pursuing a successful career. It is not a “career” position, but it is an unbelievably fortunate starting point.

    Shortly after I began this well-paying job, I realized how insufficient the pay really was. I couldn’t pay the bills, buy the gas, food, and pay rent. I couldn’t afford to send my children to daycare, because my husband, if he were to get a job outside the home, would only make enough to cover the costs of sending them – effectively paying to have someone else raise our children. I couldn’t afford health insurance, and there were times that we were selling our book collection by the box so that we could afford enough food and gas until the next pay day. We couldn’t go to the doctor, go visit family, buy Christmas presents. Everything was going toward staying afloat and avoiding shutoff services.

    The financial strain my family was feeling began to seep into my work. I was frustrated. I was the least paid attorney there, and I worked hard. I applied for a higher position, and, although I was led to believe I was a shoo-in, I didn’t get it. I started coming in late. I was sarcastic during meetings. I spent a lot of time online.

    How on earth did I not get fired? I have no idea. But I had the good fortune of having an understanding supervisor who had a serious meeting with me. My supervisor made it clear that my job was not in jeopardy before beginning to speak, but let me know that what I was doing wasn’t going unnoticed, and my job could be in jeopardy if I continued as I was. My supervisor made it clear that she knew that I had the skills and personality to do this job well, but I had to make the choice to do it with integrity. My supervisor was respectful but honest, and she gave me the decision-making power. It was truly a reflection of the work of the organization – empowerment.

    I was humbled. Sometimes it takes someone on the outside who cares for us to show us what a petulant whiner we’ve become. And I was. Sure, I was struggling – I was a first year graduate, just passed the bar. I have children and a family to support. This is stressful stuff, and it hasn’t gone away. Women as breadwinners for their families have unique issues that society hasn’t even begun to address. Seeking balance is important, and sometimes it’s not immediately possible. My life was beyond balance. My focus was solely on supporting my family.

    I forgot that I was also working for an organization that looks at the bigger picture and does work that I believe in. I signed up for this job as an opportunity, and I was no longer seeing it that way. I saw it as beneath me, as something I had to do because I couldn’t find something that would pay me “what I was worth.” I knew it was important work, but I had to find a way to support my family, so I only paid lip service to the mission of the organization. Almost immediately after the conversation with my supervisor, I began to change my behavior. I also continued to pursue the next step in my career.

    The first three or four resumes I sent out, I would spend a lot of time fantasizing about the position, my life, paying off credit card and student loan debt, having even ten dollars in the checking account on pay day. I would think about the office, buying a house, having health insurance, fixing the car. The first three or four rejection letters I received, I was crushed. Crying, feeling like the world was against me and my family, not being present, and not giving my whole heart to the job I had again.

    It was a slow and painful process, but I’ve come to a pretty good place. Nothing has changed. I don’t make more money. I don’t have an office with a window. The book collection is still dwindling. I hope that my children don’t break a bone or come down with something horrible because a financial blow like that could crumble this fragile house of cards. But I do have perspective. Nothing I was doing was making things better. It was making them worse.

    I firmly believe that faith is necessary in our lives. We don’t have to be spiritual in the sense of having a religion or faith community, but we have to have faith in something – be it god, Buddhahood, the almighty dollar, personal ethics, or whatever. I have faith that I still have something to learn. I have somewhere to be, and right now it is right here, whether I’m completely at peace with that or not.

    I haven’t stopped putting out resumes, and I still sometimes find myself fantasizing about some positions. I only apply for jobs that I would be passionate about, so it’s hard to refrain sometimes. But I’m here. Putting my heart into my job. Searching for the next step while remaining present where I am. I don’t know where I’ll be in one year or ten years. But, that’s no longer daunting; it’s exciting. Every rejection letter I receive makes the mystery more intriguing, because I have to tell myself that this wasn’t it, it wasn’t the perfect place for me to be. Someday that job will show up, and I will be able to move forward with dignity and integrity, because I know that I’ve worked hard, and I deserve it.

    I write this not to show how wonderful I’ve become. I still have petulant days, disappointing moments, and plenty of times when I’m not as present in my work and life as I’d like. I just hope that this helps someone who may be there right now, perhaps saving them a trip to their supervisor’s office to have a humiliating conversation. Starting a career is hard, especially today when one position receives sixty applications from highly qualified, experienced people, and we are merely fledglings trying to learn to fly. May we all end up exactly where we need and want to be, and may we learn the lessons that we need to learn without too many growing pains.

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    Posted in From the Trenches (Guest post)

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