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We just had our AmeriCorps*VISTA orientation last week—which to our delight and hard work turned out great—and one of the things I’ve been ruminating on since then was one of the powerful dialogue we had around poverty. AmeriCorps*VISTA’s mission is to help individuals and communities out of poverty rather than focus on making poverty more tolerable; so it should come as no surprise that we talked a lot about poverty. But the substance of the discussion made me think a lot about how I view poverty. Making it doubly interesting, of course, is that I was running the orientation and manage our VISTA program.

I realized I take a very broad view of poverty; perhaps as broad as they come. One of the activities involved each of us (about 40 people in all) writing on a tacky note their definition of poverty. My definition I gave was:

Poverty is the inability to fully participate in or benefit from society.

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I was really excited about this year’s Grassroot’s Use of Technology Conference because I had submitted and had accepted a great proposal entitled “Facebook to Phone Trees: Multi-Generational Outreach Strategies” that was to be co-presented with Angela Kelly of Mass Peace Action and Daniel Karp of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). Unfortunately I was forced to call-off the session because I’ve been worked to the bone at my daytime job and ended up running out of preparation time.

So, despite the session’s ultimate non-existance, I thought it might be valuable to post my notes for it here.

The impetus for the sessions came from some of my frustration with many technology initiatives that seek to tap into social networks like MySpace and Facebook. I often hear these initiatives couched in terms of “keeping up with the joneses” (or just tech-fetishism) rather than a measured communications strategy. Sometimes tried-and-true tools are overlooked or even forgotten. The goal of the session was to move people from thinking of the newness of a tool, to thinking of their audience (i.e. constitutents, donors or members) and what tools would most effectively reach them. We were really hoping to get an age diverse audience who would remember what things were like before the internet. …read more

An article on nonprofit challenges from the British org Yorkshire Culture:

In business, we are told that the customer is king; in the non-profit sector it is more like Jack, Queen and King — multiple stakeholders ranging from funders, to brokers to end users. The problem is that the end user or recipient often has very little say in what is being ‘purchased’ on their behalf. To most non-profit organisations the crucial relationship is that shared with the funder or broker, not the end user. If cultural non-profit organisations are to fully exploit their enterprise potential, relationships need to be rebalanced.

And the challenges:

1. Satisfying the needs of the funders
2. Pricing and cost
3. Unwilling funders
4. Restricted income
5. Handling surplus
6. Investment problem
7. Overheads in service delivery

Because of constructive criticism of some of my organization’s archaic language, I asked the Mission Based Massachusetts Listserv, a nonprofit discussion list, what terms they use in place of “poor people”. Below are all of the responses I got, which were awesome!

Some terminology…

• low-income
• under-resourced
• under-served (Barbara humorously notes that “overserved” is a euphemism for intoxicated)
• people living in poverty
• historically and persistently marginalized groups

(thanks Michelle, Felicia, and others who are quoted below)

Some general strategies…

• Use a preposition: Instead of “poor children” the phrase “children from low income households”. Therefore, it’s not the subject themselves, but rather their circumstances. (thanks Barbara!)
• Use a specific measure, like “125% of the federal poverty threshold” or “50% of area median income,” whatever’s most appropriate in the context.
• For a grant proposal, look at the language the grantmaker is using and follow their lead. (thanks Dennis!)

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Brief article on getting a nonprofit job from the NY Times

Q. What are the biggest misconceptions about switching from the corporate world to the nonprofit world?

A. Many people are surprised to find the hours longer and stress greater than in the corporate world. Brian Olson, who left the private sector for a nonprofit in 2006, found the decision-making process to be unfocused.

“No matter how good a volunteer board is, it’s not the same as a corporate board, because everyone has a different agenda,” said Mr. Olson, who returned to the private sector a year later to be vice president for public affairs at Video Professor Inc., a company in Lakewood, Colo., that sells self-tutorial programs. “There was a purity to corporate life I missed,” he said.

There is value, he said, to “a company just getting the job done based on the needs of the marketplace.”

Makes me think of my friend’s snarky t-shirt idea: “Get a Nonprofit Career: Make a difference in someone’s life. Your own.” or simply “Nonprofit jobs let you feel good about yourself”.

I’ve been reading up on Civic Literacy and so far I’m kind’ve disappointed with what I’m seeing and my own involvement in it as well:

Civic Literacy seems to be geared towards government and politics, as opposed to broad participation in communities and society—especially NGOs or other social groups. They seem to be based on what is an arguably outdated concept of American government providing broad social services. Apparently the Reagan and Gingrich revolution haven’t made it into the curriculum yet.

Also, it appears to be based a lot more around how the government works, as opposed to how to participate within government (and resultantly alter its operation) but that is a standard pedagogical issue.

Some links:

• Institute for the Study of Civic Values
• Urban Agenda Civic Literacy Curriculum

I was really happy with the feedback I received from my last article”Should I get a nonprofit job?” The responses I got, some of which you can read in the comments, helped me focus the message I was trying to convey:

A nonprofit job is not the only way to make a living and make a difference in the world.

In the comments, I think I hit upon the real issue, which is the lack of Civic Literacy I see among people in my age/social group. I don’t mean “young people are lazy/apathetic/ungrateful/whatever”, but that we don’t know how to effectively participate and initiate change in our communities and society—for no lack of interest. We’re having to make things up as we go along, which as I think my parent’s generation would agree, didn’t work out quite the way they thought it would.

So below are three suggestions I have for the intelligent, well-educated (or seeking to be), self-motivated and upwardly mobile individual who can be an ally of the nonprofit sector, but not necessarily employed by it.

1. Serve on the Board

   Executive Boards are the driving force behind nonprofit organizations. Boards set broad goals and provide important oversight for the functioning of the organization. Many boards have term-limits for serving, which means they need a constant influx of knowledgeable and engaged individuals. Boards often run by the Three-G’s—Give, Get or Get out—but an active board will provide great opportunities for involvement beyond fundraising.

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On Slashdot today was an entry about Google Search if it was designed for Google. Basically redesigning the page for a higher pagerank.

Fun, but the interesting thing was a comment from the comments:

Should read: What if Google was a useless site…

…and had to design for Google?

Lets see… counter examples… how about searching Google for the word “shipping”. What do you know, UPS and Fedex are #1 and #2, and their front pages aren’t a mess of useless, Google-pleasing crap. Maybe because they are real businesses and aren’t pandering some direct ship junk or get rich quick scheme.

Makes sense, and is the basis for what I tell people who are concerned about SEO disproportionately to having a useful and relevant website: concentrate on having a good service and a useful website first.

I have a lot of friends and acquaintances considering a job in the nonprofit sector. I’ve been employed within small (under $2 million budgets), community nonprofit organizations for three years now, beginning straight out of college, but have also talked to many people with many different experiences and histories in the sector and outside of it about their experiences. The following is my boilerplate advice to people that asks me about working, or finding work, within nonprofits.

Assuming that you are an intelligent, well-educated (or seeking to be), self-motivated and upwardly mobile individual, your interest probably spans a combination of two distinct (or should be in your mind) issues:

• You want a job, with a modicum of stability, freedom, and disposable income.
• You want to change the world, or a least do it less harm than otherwise.

My advice for you:

Find a corporate job that you like, or don’t feel too guilty about, and that provides you with plenty of disposable income and time. Find a small, local nonprofit (or church, or social group) that meets your standards for doing good, and invest your disposable income and time with them. Join their governing board, connect them with your professional and personal networks and help them grow in a direction you believe in. You will enact more change from a higher level than you could, in most situations, by being a direct employee of that organization.

Non-categorical rationale: …read more

At work I have been furiously engaged in strategic planning in advance of some major grant-writing. This process is a continuation from some vine-withered efforts my coworker and I had made last fall, but due to some changing circumstances—a better understanding of the existing processes at play and increased authority to manage the outcomes—this most recent effort is bearing more fruit.

Perhaps the largest set-back to our strategic planning projects has been the planning of our strategic planning. Without having to recurse infinitely backwards, perhaps the most important things I’ve learned are:

• Strategic planning relies on individuals. Strategic planning usually requires the actions of a single, or a small handful of individuals that not only are motivated, but have the resources and authority (or the full backing of someone with authority) to proceed. This is not to diminish the value of SWOT or SMART, but to reaffirm that strategic planning relies upon someone to begin the process, facilitate it, and ensure that its outcomes are useful.
• Strategic planning should build on your strengths. There is a tendency to relegate strategic planning activities to weak periods or to use it to shore up areas that are perceived lacking. This often means that you aren’t able to properly recognize what led to successful periods or why certain components succeeded.

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