Week Ten - Foundations

Wow, last blog. This term has kind of flown by. Here is a current article about country wide mayors speaking out on how foundations are building the local economy and keeping employment rates up:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mayors-speak-out-about-impact-foundations-have-on-local-jobs-and-economies-117577473.html

How to do good and prove it

            Mulago Foundation seems to have a pretty good grasp on choosing good nonprofits and causes to fund. I agree with all of their demands of nonprofits. I liked how the article started out stating that it is not enough to even do well anymore. Nonprofits must put time and energy in measuring their impacts. There is not an endless supply of money, as there was during the better economy, for nonprofits. There are also a large number of nonprofits starting, the last five years has seen the largest growth in the NP sector. As Kevin Starr states, nonprofits must be designed for impact, they need a short and direct mission statement and they must integrate impact into their DNA.

            In this article I found the part interesting that stated only the final impact counts, ‘the rest is just input, which is worthwhile by not good enough on its own’. Some NP’s get too complicated in their mission statements. They may have a great cause, but even if their mission statement is not direct people will not listen. It is also important that the mission statement is short so that these organizations actually know what they are trying to accomplish. When mission statements get complex, employees might actually get confused of what they are trying to accomplish. I agreed with the end of the article discusses the danger of poorly designed nonprofits that keep on growing. He states, “stop raising money until you sort that out”, referring to not measuring impact.

A newly powerful grant-making force

            It is interesting to see how foundations are stepping up for what they believe. Traditionally, foundations have not gotten involved in political affairs dealing with their support. This has recently changed when the Smithsonian removed of a video of AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz, because of criticism. Artist endowed foundations have grown by more than doubled in the last fifteen years. Some of these foundations give money to solely to arts, but others give to social causes as well. These artist-endowed foundations reported $2.7 billion in assets for 2008. This is very impressive for a sector that is relatively new.

            The article stated that even though the economy is weak, artists continue to give. It stated, “All of this suggests that while most still fly below the radar, artist-endowed foundations merit attention.” These foundations are going to continue to grow as more people see the importance of art education and performance. I personally think that these art foundations are a doing great things. I think it is important that art is heavily incorporated into elementary education and money continues to flow into the art sector.

Donors and Nonprofits Defining Moment

            I thought this was a fantastic article. The next few years is really going to be a defining time for nonprofits. It is so true that people are going to want to return to how life was before the recession. As the economy is struggling and millions are left unemployed, nonprofits are playing a big role in educating and helping these people. The article states that after the recession, NP’s need to play a bigger role in the mechanics of the country. The idea of ‘Social Impact Bonds’ is a brilliant idea. It is the same idea of going into an area and starting a new organization to solve an issue, while at the same time there is already a long term organization in the area that already has ties with the community and is making a lasting difference. It makes no sense to start something new while good things are already taking place. These bonds will give government money to organizations that have proven that they are accountable with their finances are making a lasting difference.

Budget Plan

            I have to admit that I am still confused after reading this article. I do not really understand the tax cuts that are happening. I did find this quote interesting, “The cost to fix that tax for three years is more than $300-billion, roughly the same amount that would be saved.” I am interested to read my other group members blog to learn more about they think.

I also read the Nonprofit nation chapters, it discussed how foundations have grown and their finances. The articles on blackboard were all very good.

Cheers.

Week 9 - International Development

The international relief and development nonprofit sector is one that I want to work in. My parents both work for a relief and development NGO so these organizations are ones that I am familiar with. They work for a great organization called World Relief. Check it out:

http://worldrelief.org/

Nonprofit Nation

            The book stated that in 1998, the total assets from international relief and development nonprofits was just over five billion. I am sure that number has at least doubled as these organizations have grown rapidly and there has been a stronger push for good organizations that can effectively respond to disaster. I thought the whole chapter was interesting, I especially liked the conclusion, which stated that the international nonprofit sector is very new compared to other types of services, but it has had an impact on millions and millions of people since World War I. This sector has definitely opened the gate for international and local businesses, allowing these new organizations to flourish.

Mercy Corps

            Mercy Corps is a great organization; I am actually in the application process with this organization. There are not many international relief and development organizations based in the Northwest, only two large ones like World Vision and Mercy Corps. Exploring their website they seem to be a good organization based on good values. They definitely are making a strong impact across the globe. I know that they are involved in aid to North Korea, which is pretty awesome. They do have a beautiful building right downtown Portland.

William Easterly

∫            This is a great post by Easterly. There is so much money that goes into and foreign aid, yet there is not much change. People and organizations alike think they can bring people out of poverty when they are not very educated on the issues. I know of one organization that is trying to send used shirts to Africa by the truckload. It’s ideas like this that destroy local African businesses and give no thought to what is really needed. I have seen large NGO’s waste so much money on poorly thought out projects. I think that one of the problems is that some of these organizations are not culturally educated or sensitive. People need to be educated on how to get out of poverty, not a short-term solution that will keep them poor.

Millennium Development Goals

            These eight goals were set out by the UN in 2000. The hope was to have all the goals accomplished by 2015. It is looking like some of these goals will not be accomplished because of poor spending and program management by some key organizations, namely the UN. These goals are great. It is definitely a right of every human being to have basic needs met. In the process of meeting these goals, lots of the money has gone through some very dirty hands. It is important that there is a bottom up approach to these goals. Some governments have shown that they are not responsible enough with the money that they have received. I believe it is very important that these goals are met soon.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

            One interesting thing she said in the video is that 61% of all Africans are under the age of 24. This is a crazy statistic. The youth of Africa are truly the people who can change the continent for the better. It is important that institutions and businesses are built up so these youth can help the economy. Many African countries rely on aid, not on their own infrastructure. As she said in order to move the continent forward, Africa needs to get young people employed. This was an interesting video.

Well that’s it.

Cheers.

Week 8 - Advocacy and Arts

When I read or hear about advocacy, all I can think about are the current revolutions that are currently happening all over the Middle East. Advocacy, especially social media, played a huge role in dethroning some of the long lived tyrants. Here is an article from the New York Times a few weeks ago that discusses the role that Facebook and Youtube had in the protests. Enjoy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/middleeast/06face.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=egypt%20social%20media&st=cse

Nonprofit Nation

            I enjoyed reading about the societal impacts that the arts and advocacy have on our society. I found the section of measuring advocacy impact especially interesting. I believe that advocacy and education are very important in not just the nonprofit world but also in human and environmental issues. There is a lot of advocacy for many issues in the world, which is good. The problem I see with advocacy is how it is pushed for many of these issues. Let me share an example to clarify what I mean. Over the last ten years, the Darfur region of Sudan has been hit with terrible violence. There is the Save Darfur campaign and other similar initiatives, which are all good. The problem is when advocacy or social justice becomes a fad or ‘the cool thing to do’. Advocacy is just one step in solving an issue. From there, programs need to be implemented that can reverse a certain problem. As in the Darfur case, if you asked a person in the US what possible solutions to the problem are, they would most likely not be able to tell you, partly because their friends were wearing a save Darfur bracelet. Now don’t get me wrong, I strongly believe in advocacy, I just don’t like to see uneducated advocacy. This may sound very cynical, but I hope it makes sense. All this saying, the book stated that it is very difficult to measure the societal impacts of advocacy.

Senate Bill 40

            This short, educational article really helped to explain the issues raised in SB40. I confess that I knew nothing about this bill prior to reading this article. It is very important that nonprofits are transparent with their resources and money. It is sad to see the way that some of these nonprofits spend their money that was donated to them for a specific program or purpose. One of the problems with donating to a nonprofit is you think you are donating to a specific program but the money just goes into a big pot. This is hard for nonprofits because they can make the most money off the most emotional stories and they tell you that your money is going to programs like that, but it may not be. This bill could really help to provide the transparency that organizations need to have. It is cool to read that Oregon nonprofits are pushing for this bill because they know that they are being good stewards of the money that is given to them. That is very encouraging to read. 

The Power of Nonprofits

            Advocacy may be one of the most important tools in freeing the oppressed and in solving social and environmental problems in our society. What I enjoyed most about this article was the part that expressed how nonprofits had a role in the ‘I have a dream’ speech. Discussing King, the article states, “Surrounding him were countless nonprofits – in the forms of churches, the Congress of Racial Equality, the NAACP, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.” And because of this vast support, Congress passed the Civil Rights act of 1964 that banned discrimination. This was a very proud moment for nonprofits. It is truly amazing to see the impact that many of these organizations have had on our society over the past hundred years.

Other articles

            The other articles continued to discuss Senate Bill 40 and the impact that it will have on Oregon nonprofits. This article stated that the Nonprofit Association of Oregon supports the crackdown to keep nonprofits accountable with their finances.

            “Nonprofit arts groups, including museums, orchestras, theaters and dance companies, contributed $166.2 billion and 5.7 million jobs to the U.S. economy in 2005”. Wow, this is really an amazing thing that many nonprofits accomplished. This proves to show that the arts need to be continually funded.

            The last article was about a poetry slam that gives the chance for many young people to express and advocate for issues that are relevant in their life. For example one girl is creating a poem expressing the lies that many African-American women view about their relationships and how society fuels those lies.

Another interesting week of information.

Cheers.

Education

A current news article to open things up. Kitzhaber announced Friday a plan. It states, “The order creates a temporary board that could eventually run K-12 schools, community colleges and public universities.

http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2011/02/11/kitzhaber-plans-education-overhaul.html

Lecture and Nonprofit Nation: Education and Research

            The three major components of nonprofit education are elementary and secondary schools, college and universities, and research organizations. Reading through the chapter, it was interesting to read that 10 percent of America’s K- 12 students attend private schools. I wonder if that number is growing or decreasing as the economy is has been hurting. Or maybe there has been no change at all because most kids that attend private schools come from wealthier families. I did not realize that almost fifty percent of students who attend public postsecondary schools go to a two-year community or junior college. That is a surprising fact because of how many students’ public universities enroll. It may be because after the two years of community college, those students then go to the four-year schools to finish up. As I was reading this chapter I began to think about funding at the University of Oregon. Just today I read an article about this in the Daily Emerald. Though I was not surprised, the three most expensive buildings are athletic buildings. Now I know that the university would never want to turn down private donations, but we have seen that almost all of the money has gone to the athletic department. I am interested to see how far this will go. Will funding to the athletic department help to get money to academics? Or will it run academics dry? In the article there was a plea from a mathematics professor for more money to academics. He said that he just wanted money for scholarships and research funds. A very small amount compared to what is going into the sports here.

            Around the 1900’s, more and more public universities were started because of land grants. The universities were mainly agriculture, engineering and mechanical schools. After World War II higher education grew again because of the GI Bill. There has been a huge increase in higher education funding and enrolment in the last fifty years. A college degree has slowly become a standard stipulation for jobs, it is not becoming a masters degree to reach the next professional level….which is great for us because grad school is so cheap. Ha.

Other Readings:

Subprime Opportunity

            I like how this article/newsletter started out with a few bullet points titled ‘to the point’. That helped me stay engaged as I began to read this article.

            As I began to read this article I couldn’t help but remember a conversation I had yesterday with a gentleman that went to Harvard. We were talking about higher education and the real need for reform in this country. He stated that his education might not have been any higher quality than most schools in the country. One of the reasons that people attend certain programs within schools like Harvard or Yale is to become part of the ‘club’. Kids at a ripe age of 18 go into massive amounts of debt trying to get into this club when they may not be financially able. It was an interesting conversation that I was reminded of as I read this article.

            The article had a strong opening statement when it stated that because of lax regulation, the rich become richer and the poor become poorer. This is a sad but true part of our society, it is imperative that there is equal opportunity for all citizens.

Fed up at the University of Phoenix

            300,000 students. I don’t really know who would expect a quality education with numbers that big, and paying private school rates, its just crazy. Actually I just checked that number and the University of Phoenix enrolls almost 500,000 students, but 300,000 fulltime. I can see how it became a fad all over the country. It seems very east to get an education, but the problems are now coming out seeing that many corners were cut.

Final Articles

            The last two articles were very interesting. One of them discussed that for-profit education could be the next bubble to burst in 2011. We see how this could happen when education like the University of Phoenix is becoming more of an issue. The other article discussed the two types of for-profit schools: the first is a school that operates as a business and ‘attempts to make a profit’, the other is an educational management organization.

That’s it.

Cheers.

Post 5 - Environment

Greetings PPPM 280. I'm back.

I’ll start with the news article of the day regarding the environment from the Oregonian. This article is tracking the current environmental policies that are in affect or about to be introduced in Oregon and nation wide. The article is titled "This Week in the Oregon Legislature: plastic bags, virtual schools, handguns and honey."

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/02/this_week_in_the_oregon_legisl.html

"On Tuesday, the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on Senate Bill 536, the much-talked about bill that prohibits the use of single-use plastic bags at retail stores."

I think this is a great bill that will force people to bring in their own bags to the grocery stores. Small things like this will start a big change in environmental policy.

Mckenzie Watershed Report

The McKenzie Watershed Council seems to be doing great things in the McKenzie river basin. The purpose of this council is to maintain the water quality and life in the area. As development increases throughout the state I’m sure that it has become much more difficult to maintain water quality standards. Looking at the map of the watershed projects, you can see the city of Springfield. There is not doubt that Springfield is the type of city that grows out not up due to its demographics. This council is going to have to prepare for major change as the economy turns and development starts again in full force. It is very cool to see all the projects that the council is doing in the area. From rebuilding culverts to maintaining water purity, they are doing work that is needed in the area for improved living standards. It is also important that people in the area of Eugene and Springfield are educated on the work of the watershed council in order that the people see the importance of the work.

Paul Hawken’s Commencement Address

What a powerful commencement address. I really like the quote from the address, “ the earth needs a new operating system, and you are the programmers.” From this article I am going to focus on the section where Paul discusses people working for the environment, social justice, human rights and many others. He states that this is the biggest movement in the world. I think this is a very cool thing. To see people helping other people that they have no connection to shows a certain quality in people to help those less fortunate. By this being the biggest movement this is where the jobs are in my opinion. As I am about to graduate I am seriously looking where the best opportunities are. I have a passion to work and travel overseas helping those who do not have the basic human rights and needs. Paul states, “But for the first time in  history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit.” This is an awesome thing to see in a world that is full of violence in war. It is truly our generation who must take a stand for the injustice in the world.

A Guide to Environmental Nonprofits

This was an interesting little article that shows how some organizations can look similar in name but their focus is quite opposite. Some of the organizations work to protect marine life by lobbying for less off shore drilling. While another organization says that they are an oceanic research nonprofit, but they work for more drilling. Most people will not be able to tell a difference between these organizations by just looking at their names. And that is what a lot of people do, they don’t really look into organizations cause before donating their time and money. It is important that we know about the organizations we support or are prevalent in our community to know if they truly have good intentions.

Saving the Environment for a profit

This was a very interesting article that discussed nonprofit versus for profit environmental organizations. Much more money goes into private businesses that are working on environmental technology. Environmental commodities will be valued at 1 trillion dollars by 2012. That is a crazy number that shows how much money is in environmental technology within the private sector businesses.

Well that’s what I have for everyone.

Cheers. 

Post 4 - Health Care

Article of the day

I like The Week, it’s a news magazine and website that was started in Great Britain. There is now an American version. The magazine does a great job of keeping the reader updated with current events locally and around the world. For issues like health care, they do a good job showing both sides of the argument. I have enjoyed following The Week throughout the whole health care process. Check it out…

http://theweek.com/article/briefing_blog/28/health-care-reform

Nonprofit Nation – Health Care

Chapter five of the textbook discusses the health care system in the United States. I have always known that this sector is big, but it wasn’t until the last few years that I realized how important this sector is in supplying jobs and meeting the needs of every citizen in the country. The book discusses that the health care sector has been at the center of many controversies. We have seen this in the last few years, especially with the new health care bill that has been thrown back and forth in the government. The text states on page 91, “During the last half of the twentieth century, as the rapid growing health industry became more bureaucratic and less visibly charitable and as government looked for more sources of tax revenue, some argue that nonprofit hospitals were for profit in disguise.” This is a very fascinating point. In many peoples eyes hospitals are there for you no matter what, but what this quote states is that hospitals are more after your money than helping you. Our country is in desperate need of rebuilding the health care system. If it is truly going to be nonprofit then it needs to truly be nonprofit, if it is for profit then people need to know that.

The book discusses the sheer size of the health care system; it is truly one of the foundations of our country. If it fails, then the United States will be in deep trouble. The health care system comprises of 13.2 percent of the total GDP as of 2000. This book was written in 2002 and it states that 44 million Americans still lack health insurance. It is now 2011 and that number has definitely increased as costs have gone up. As ‘democratic’ as our country is, the politicians need to step up and stop worrying about their re-election campaigns. We are in crisis mode and change needs to happen.

Very interesting chapter of the book, it will be interesting to see what next steps are made in the future to boost the health care system.

Green Bay Packers

I do not know much about American football, one thing I do know is, it is not just absurd, but out of this world how much money is spent on pro football. I had no idea that the Green Bay packers were publicly owned by thousands of citizens. I think this is brilliant. I am sick of hearing stories of billionaire owners with the hottest heads around making decisions that make the fans pretty ticked off. It is great to see a team that people are truly passionate about have a say in the decisions. Very interesting article would never have thought that an NFL team would be an official non-profit.

The Value of Nonprofit Health Care

This was a very interesting article on how nonprofit hospitals and clinics can build communities stronger. There were a list of pros of having nonprofit health care; it was interesting to read that nonprofit health care will truly provide the best possible health care. A great part of the article stated, “The top-rated health plans for quality and member satisfaction have been predominately nonprofit. In addition, nonprofit health plans typically have higher medical loss ratios, meaning that more of the premium dollar is spent on actual health care services rather than on administrative costs and profits.” The last part of that quote is what really stuck out to me, that more of the dollar would actually be spent on health care. This is one of the major problems with our current system. Health care is so expensive because administrative costs are so high, if those costs are brought down by truly having nonprofit health care, then this will really help the situation. This was a great article.

Wow…I’m already out of space.

I also read the Merging in Michigan and Disease Mongering articles. The Michigan article was about a hospital system that had served thousands of poor people was at the verge of being sold to a for profit hospital.

 It was very interesting to read how ADD affects millions of people in the US and the world. A quick quote from the story:

"If you want to stir up worry in the public, and you've got the advertising dollars to do it, you can turn almost anything into a disease," says Dr. Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania

I think this is very true of our society; we get scared of things to easily and do not allow our bodies to grow to fight some diseases.

Cheers. 

Post 3

From this blog on I will break down into categories for organization purposes. This was an interesting week reading about social service and the importance it holds in our society and the work it does.

From outside the readings and class, I have been thinking about social services and how important they are in our society. This is a recent news article that talks about social service cuts in Oregon.

http://news.opb.org/article/51736-kitzhaber-warns-deep-cuts-social-services/

This is a serious issue especially considering the current state of Oregon's economy

Now to the readings....

Chapter 4 – Social Service

Social Service holds a very big role in our country and local communities; these services serve millions of people in need. I did not fully grasp the magnitude of the social service sector until reading this chapter. We see the importance directly from this quote, “Social service may be the most widely accepted and admired part of the nonprofit sector” (pg 73). Our society would be drastically different if we did not have these services.

The extent of social services is huge, we see this on page 80 discussing the American Red Cross, “the Red Cross provided community services to 43 million people and health and safety services to 15 million.” While these services help millions of people, they also provide many jobs for people across the country.

We see in the last fifty years how the trends of non-profit finances as changed. In the early years of non-profits families and churches provided the finances for the social services, but in the 1960’s the model changed to the government paying for it and non-profits providing the services. The change started with the Office of Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 and the 1967 Social Security Act. At this time the ‘federal government infused a large amount of money into nonprofit social service organizations through grants, contracts and purchase-of-service arrangements’ (pg 83). Again by the government pouring the money into these services, there needed to be the right non-profits to hand the funds and do the job right. This is when a real competition started for non-profit jobs and the non-profit sector was finally taken seriously as an important part of the country.

St. Vincent de Paul

We all know what St. Vincent de Paul is; it is a place to buy used and affordable ‘stuff’. Anything your heart desires is available at your fingertip for a small price, it may not be the most quality but it will get the job done. But who would have thought that during the hardest economic times in the last seventy-year this organization would be booming. This is in fact true, when many organizations and companies were struggling to stay alive, St. Vincent’s ‘increased its revenues and grew its work force each year by more than 10 percent.’ This is true feat for the organizations and Lane County.

DC Affordable Housing Toolkit

I think the idea of using these toolkit vouchers is a great way to provide affordable housing. It is a sad, but true fact that as development comes into an area, residents of low-income housing get pushed out and relocated. This is not right, it is good that the government is promoting non-profit development in the low-income housing sector, we see this from the article, ‘Governments also offer tax credits to nonprofit developers of affordable housing.’ This is a tough dilemma, there needs to be development in these poor areas to provide jobs and safety. This needs to happen without kicking out the poor residents of the community. Good article!

Louisiana Housing Assistance

I was not aware that the government provided funds as stated in this article. As the article states, low-income residents in Louisiana have been provided with help for utility bills, namely heat and air-conditioning. The state was recently awarded an additional 10.5 million for these funds. This is a great thing that the government is helping its citizens, but the question is ‘do you provide the fish or the fishing pole.’ Once these funds stop the people will not be able to pay their utility bills. I believe that the tax revenue should go into helping people find jobs where they are able to support themselves and their families in the long term.

Final Two Articles

I read the final two articles and will briefly prove that I did in fact read them. The auburn family article discussed families living in low-income housing and shared how Fort Green Snap, a community advocacy organization, is helping with the situation. The other article was a Q&A with the MAAC CEO. This organization works with the poor in the San Diego community.

Okay, hope this all makes sense, excited to read all your posts…