This post on Begging for Change is more of a request for help than anything profound to say. Egger makes a compelling case in several points throughout the book that, rather than just bringing people into the nonprofit sector (as employees) we need to ensure that we’re producing leaders in every part of our society who are committed to the values of social justice and progressive social change, and who live those values wherever they are and whatever they do for a living. Likewise, he cites evidence and anecdotes of how people who make their service fit into their lives, rather than expecting that it will stand alone, are better servants of the common good and more joyful in their service.
And I believe both of those things, not just as a social worker and volunteer and activist, but as a mom. I don’t care if my kids grow up to be social workers or not. But it matters very, very much to me that they grow up with a keen understanding of social justice, a passion for creating a better world, and a plan for how to live that commitment every day. And, in my own life today, while I find time to serve the causes most important to me, I’m limited in my off-duty time as a mommy.
That’s why I’m always looking for volunteer opportunities I can do with my kids (okay, just my almost four-year-old; the twins are still too young to be helpful; as their brother says, “they still don’t understand”). Now, I know that a preschooler is no organization’s ideal volunteer. I get that. But, come on, I’m trying to both build on his innate sense of fairness and compassion AND carve out more time that I can spend serving your organization; can anyone help me out?
He’s already collecting money to put water filtration systems in villages in Chiapas, Mexico (he takes that job very seriously, so be ready to part with your coins if you come within shouting distance!). And he ‘volunteers’ to help our elderly neighbors (with Daddy) and to visit some people from our church.
But I’m looking for an organization where we can volunteer together, ideally with some actual contact with the people the organization serves. I want to make this connection, and help him through his questions about the process of helping. I’m trying to plant seeds, here, people, and my sector isn’t helping me out too much.
Please leave comments with suggestions, especially those of you in the Kansas City metropolitan area (but even beyond; I want ideas so that I can advocate with organizations locally to build some opportunities!).


Calculated Epiphanies and Justice in Funding
I saved my favorite of the Begging for Change posts for last; Robert Egger is one of the few nonprofit leaders I’ve ever heard be willing to speak truth to the Rockefellers of the world AND give social service organizations such a clear way to make the connection between their work and advocacy. Since justice not charity and the link between social work and social change are two of my very favorite topics, I was literally flagging almost every other page towards the end of the book.
But this will be a short post, because it’s been a long week of challenging everything we think we know about nonprofits, and it’s Friday, and, you know, there are limits. Two main takeaways:
1. Nonprofit organizations need to be consistent agitators for justice, which means not accepting funding from corporations and others who are creating a lot of the problems that these same organizations are then expected to address. Egger tells a sobering story of a graduate of the DC Central Kitchen program who gets a job in the AOL cafeteria. As the Kitchen’s Executive Director, Egger has these visions of partnerships between AOL and the Kitchen and all of the great work they can do together, until he finds out that the job only pays $8/hour despite requiring a long commute for the newly-minted graduate. It’s like Rockefeller, right? How would our society look different today if, instead of making a ton of money by exploiting natural and human resources and rewriting economic rules to enrich himself, and then donating some of the proceeds, Rockefeller had instead shaped an economy built on justice and prevention of suffering?
So here’s what I’d like to see: the next time that a social worker in a nonprofit organization is offered a grant from a corporation with a poor record of labor or human rights, instead of taking the check and serving as cover for the company’s larger misdeeds, what if the corporation was urged to set its own house in order first, as in the examples Egger provides?
2. Services aren’t enough. We need social change. Egger uses the example of Habitat for Humanity and how much more capacity the federal government, and corporate America, collectively, have to address affordable housing than the efforts of this one (even very large) nonprofit organization. He obviously gets it, that we need to cultivate our political strength and then wield it to bring about policy change. So you know I’m nodding along. And then he goes further, giving nonprofits a visual that I love–the idea of reaching decision makers’ hearts through your service work, like a Trojan Horse, and then helping them to reach the realization of their own powers to work alongside you towards a common goal. He calls this ‘calculated epiphany’, the idea of slipping into someone’s conscience to bring them along on your cause, and I think there’s a ton of truth to it.
In my own advocacy, I know that we won the most when we could first connect to lawmakers’ values around family, the story of a welcoming America, the promise of youth…and then they, often reluctantly, were forced to admit that making those values reality required policy change.
So what can be your Trojan Horses? How can you leverage your direct service work to build relationships with influential people in your community who are in a position to effect significant change? How can your organization become a place, as Egger says, where “people see the impossible made plausible”? What will you do to make lightbulbs go on…and stay on?
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Posted in Analysis and Commentary, Inspiration and Examples
Tagged advocacy, reviews, social justice, social services