The Congress over the years transferred basic commitments in public services from infrastructural funding included in the annual budget to Block Grants. By doing so, it made all kinds of programs vulnerable to the whims of political callousness. We are now seeing the fruits of this trend. The money is a small part of the federal spending. These cuts defund programs that are productive and cornerstones of opportunities for vulnerable populations. Funds lost in government allocations are often not replaceable. 

Here is information about one impact on young people: “Youth Charities Protest House Spending Plan. March 10, 2011, 10:22 am By Peter Bolton

WASHINGTON–A coalition of youth charities rallied here on Wednesday to protest billions of dollars in proposed federal budget cuts to youth and education programs, including Head Start, Pell Grants, and Community Services Health Block grants.

The Children’s Leadership Council, which unites 57 organizations that provide services to young people, brought together advocates to protest proposed spending cuts that, if approved, would represent the largest loss of federal funding for youth organizations in nearly 50 years, Matthew Melmed, the group’s chairman and executive director of the youth charity Zero to Three, told a news conference.” To see the rest of this article, follow link.

Posted by Walter Davis

If you are not familiar with the blue avocado blog, here is a good reason to get to know it. This article was published back in May. When I finally got to it, I realized it was a treasure. Jan Masaoka brings points forth of real value, even if you are not a woman executive of color. It also created some controversy but that indicates the issues are real.

I like the very first paragraph of her list of “ten things”:

“1. Note to funders: Give us (unrestricted) money. Give us the chance to experiment, to make mistakes, to sleep at night, to take the time to nurture leaders within our organizations. At one meeting of about 30 women executive directors of color, we talked about what we might ask for as a group. Should we ask a foundation for a special speaker? For a weekend at a retreat center? For a facilitator? For tuitions to expensive leadership development programs? After a long pause, one woman spoke up: ‘Give us money.’”

This blog is about trends in funding social justice work but it is also how we live in a context of relationships. 

I am going to tantalize you with one more paragraph title from the blue avocado article:

“9. Cultural competency includes working successfully with obnoxious people from privileged backgrounds and positions...” 

Read the whole article “Ten Things I Learned About Leadership from Women Executives of Color” and the comments that followed.  

Posted by Walter Davis, Executive Director, National Organizers Alliance

The venerable and respected Guidestar reported recently that the hard times of 2009 might be even worse for 2010 already.  More than 7000 organizations responded to the survey. I took it on behalf of my own organization and know it to be a well constructed collection of data. The trends we found in the SOS survey of community organizing groups are verified by what the non-profit sector in general is facing. 63 percent of nonprofits faced a rise in demand for services.  At the same time, 30% faced a decline in budgets. More work, less funding is a common thread. While our own study showed 4% closed or near closing at the time of survey, the Guidestar finding is 8% danger of imminent closing.

The June 2010 Effect of the Economy on the Non-Profits Sector is available online. It is produced with dramatic graphics to emphasize the findings.

Walter Davis, National Organizers Alliance, September 14, 2010

While not directly related to our discussions of sustaining organizing, a report released earlier this year in North Carolina certainly has serious implications for communities. The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation supported the production of Documenting of Poverty, Economic Distress, and Challenge in North Carolina. It was submitted by the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, January 15, 2010.

The report looks at a state that has faced drastic changes even if there had not been economic upheaval. In a generation, from the 1980s to now, North Carolina saw rapid population growth and a change from a rural based state to an urban majority. Look at a North Carolina map and you will note numerous significantly sized cities spread across the east and middle of the state. A population map indicates that rural areas are losing relative to growth, some have actually declined demographically. In another generation, if the patterns hold, North Carolina will have a population of 13 million. The study includes analysis of trends in African-American and Hispanic communities.

 It is in the contributing factors of poverty that make this an important paper to read. You can compare education levels to areas of household and family poverty rates, severe urban conditions, declining population and economic stress. The report includes a section on unemployment and another on dislocation. The latter matter, dislocation, is a serious concern because the economy has forced internal migration. Workers may leave behind what little support structure they have to move to an unknown environment.

While not directly related to our discussions of sustaining organizing, a report released earlier this year in North Carolina certainly has serious implications for communities. The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation supported the production of Documenting of Poverty, Economic Distress, and Challenge in North Carolina. It was submitted by the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, January 15, 2010.

The report looks at a state that has faced drastic changes even if there had not been economic upheaval. In a generation, from the 1980s to now, North Carolina saw rapid population growth and a change from a rural based state to an urban majority. Look at a North Carolina map and you will note numerous significantly sized cities spread across the east and middle of the state. A population map indicates that rural areas are losing relative to growth, some have actually declined demographically. In another generation, if the patterns hold, North Carolina will have a population of 13 million. The study includes analysis of trends in African-American and Hispanic communities.

It is in the contributing factors of poverty that make this an important paper to read. You can compare education levels to areas of household and family poverty rates, severe urban conditions, declining population and economic stress. The report includes a section on unemployment and another on dislocation. The latter matter, dislocation, is a serious concern because the economy has forced internal migration. Workers may leave behind what little support structure they have to move to an unknown environment.

The report notes: “Place-based economic strategies should provide special focus on economic distress in: 1) chronically-poor, largely rural counties; 2) highly-distressed areas of generally more prosperous urban centers; and 3) communities experiencing the situational poverty and unemployment resulting from dramatic economic change and dislocation.”

You can find the report to read by clicking here.

Posted by Walter Davis

You can find the report to read by clicking here.

Walter Davis

Another study (Recession Pressures on Non-Profit Jobs) shows the sector is doing more for less. Bruce Trachtenberg writing in the Nonprofit Newswire describes a national survey by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Civil Society Studies. The report updates a previous study begun during the early days of this recession.

“Organizations have shown enormous resilience and commitment to their critical missions, but this has come at a price,” Center Director Lester Salamon said of the findings of this Listening Post Project.

The report looks a little deeper at the meaning of cuts, job freezes and workload. Non-profits have their own language to handle times like these. For example, “refined job descriptions” can mean adding new tasks to employees surviving cuts. 49% have refined job descriptions. Such a step can conceal impact of cuts but it only defers some of the costs in morale and longevity in positions of employees.

A startling figure is that among cultural and arts institutions, more than half report they have inadquate staffing to maintain their existing programs. At a time of growing need for family services, child and family service organizations have seen as much as one-third declining in staff capacity. Even among organizations (46% of respondents) that report no staff loss, 40% report they do not have adequate staff. This perhaps reflects an ongoing capacity problem which may well have predated the recession.

This survey included responses from 526 organizations. Among that number were “children and family service agencies, elderly housing and service organizations, community and economic development organizations, museums, theaters, and orchestras.”

I encourage you to read the actual study which includes personal testimonies of the consequences of the current economic crisis. For example, in the state with highest unemployment there is an urgent need for affordable housing. A group working in the field has cut staff by 25% and the remaining workers are being burned out.

The report also looks at coping strategies. Like other studies, the transfer of jobs from paid staff to volunteers has been a common step.

The federal government has presented one relief valve: the Hire Act. Some responses indicated that utilizing the benefits of the act involves expenditures the groups cannot afford. But it opens the conversation about how government policies can support the highly productive and critical non-profit sector.

The report asks whether it is time to reward the dedication of the non-profits and the sacrifices of their employees.

While community organizing groups are not a focus in this survey, the charities and services that benefit their members are extremely stressed. This can have a ripple effect on participation and a pressure on community organizations to pick up the services that fall through the cracks.

The Center at Johns Hopkins has produced other valuable analyses of current impact on non-profits. You can find the study on their website by clicking here.  

Lisa Ranghelli, director of Grantmaking for Community Impact Project, and Julia Craig, research associate at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) report in the NCRP Blog that they were so alarmed by the findings in research they are doing that they could not wait until their report is done. They are sounding an alarm on behalf of NCRP in The Cost of Foundation Disinvestment..”.

Rangheli and Craig are finding deep fissures in funding of non-profits. The economic impact of 2008 is still sending after shocks through community organizations. The writers tell of groups that have lost funding because their states are not “blue” enough. A group in Idaho was to be included in their study but folded before being interviewed. Two key funders pulled out. Idaho is highly dependent upon foundations based elsewhere. Gail Heylmun, executive director at the Fund for Idaho, is quoted as saying in the words of the researchers “that progressive foundations have pulled out of Idaho as it solidified as a red state over the last decade and as the recession took a bite out of their funding capacity.”

This important article also examines a case of late government payments having huge impacts in Pennsylvania.

Perhaps most important about this NCRP story is how it broadens the story of political policy choices influencing funding. The wounds to communities seem to go untreated and the impacts of cuts reach into the future. A question could be asked whether those choices may tend to contribute to polarization of the country as alternative voices (often very successful) grow silent.

Posted by Walter Davis

It is clear that a manmade or natural disaster disrupts the ecology of an entire community, not just individuals. The BP Gulf Oil disaster has produced a lot of collateral damage that does not get much recognition. We know about jobs, tourism, fishing, and animals lost. Beyond those essential parts of a community, there are faith-based and non-profit organizations that depend on people to sustain them. In turn, those institutions give back when there is a crisis. The loss of such structures can be devastating. Isolation, alienation and despair can be worsened because there are no bootstraps left to reach for to get through the disruption of community life. Neither the federal government nor BP has adequately taken into account such group going down because of the BP oil spill. What is true for churches and general non-profits may be even more so for organizing groups. They, after all, are the groups we need to hold the company and the politicians accountable. One such group is Mobile Baykeeper. Organizations in the Gulf are determining what impact the oil spill has had on their short term situation but also the long term consequences for their revenue and their work.  Read more in this Associated Press story Churches, nonprofits fight for survival amid spill

Posted by Walter Davis

Historic Moment Workshop at US Social Forum in Detroit: The DataCenter and the National Organizers Alliance released a report at the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit entitled: Sustaining Organizing: A Survey of Organizations During the Economic Downturn (download pdf). The report was presented at the end of a workshop called Historic Moment for Funding Social Justice Organizing in the 21st Century (Sponsored by the Funders Network on Transforming the Global Economy - FNTG and the GGJ Alliance with collaborators DataCenter and the National Organizers Alliance).   140 funder and grassroots participants explored the current movement landscape and the broader “social justice ecosystem” within the context of events ranging from the election of Barak Obama to increased organizing on the grassroots Left (as seen, for example, within the USSF process) and through right wing populism (as exemplified by tea partyism). Different strategies and initiatives within philanthropy were examined with regard to social justice and transformative change, and explored what it takes to sustain organizations that benefit our communities.

Four hours were packed with a combination of presentations, panels, role plays and small group discussions, participants explored ways of strengthening the social justice ecosystem that can inform ongoing discussions beyond the USSF in Detroit.  This session made the case that we are in a critical moment for increasing financial support to base-building and organizing, to achieve progressive political victories in the coming years. 

Write to us for a hard copy at info@Noacentral.org. You can still post here in our blog.

Giving USA’s annual report on charitable donations is almost the holy grail for many who watch philanthropic institutions. As a comprehensive examination, it tells us about trends as well as recent moments. Some of the results for 2009 were a surprise and even controversial, to the point that Indiana University’s Patrick Rooney has had to explain the numbers and the record of Giving USA.

I encourage interested readers to refer to Ruth McCambridge and Rick Cohen’s analysis in the Nonprofit Newswire of what they see as “cognitive dissonance’”  In a two part series, they look at significant different slants on the same information within philanthropy, charities and academics. McCambridge writes, “…many were surprised to see that corporate giving had gone up. No one much believed that but that number includes in-kind donations in two areas—pharmaceuticals and information technology.”

One paragraph in McCambridge’s Giving USA and You – Cognitive Dissonance Anyone? Part I has particular interest to those of us in community organizing. Many if not most community organizing groups fall under the “public society benefit” category. McCambridge writes: “…philanthropic dollars are hardly equitably distributed across fields or the country. While giving to “public society benefit organizations” (including the United Way and the various commercial gift funds such as Fidelity and Vanguard) was down only 2.6 percent, giving to human services was down by 13.5 percent and to both arts and education by 11.9 percent. Focusing just for a moment on the human services field, we also know that many human service organizations were slammed with higher levels of need so that the revenue against need equation was even more radically changed than the revenue decline by itself would suggest.”

Of course, corporate giving will not determine whether there is community organizing but many of the service and advocate groups created out of successful organizing do attract corporate donations.

Other concerns examined by McCambridge are how regions are impacted. For the areas that have hit hard economic times, he writes about a “cascade of revenue problems.” She specifically examines Kentucky, 49th in per capita Foundation giving, which is facing even worse conditions this year and next in available government funding.

In Giving USA and You – Cognitive Dissonance Anyone? Part II, Rick Cohen asks,
“Why was corporate giving up 5.5 percent in 2009 just as corporations were taking their damaged P&Ls into federal bailout swan dives, hostile acquisitions, and chapter 11 bankruptcies?”

These two articles do a service in dissecting how corporate giving is calculated. They also raise the issue of how to separate tax write offs and actual cash exchanges. As Cohen writes, “But the overall picture is not as rosy as Giving USA’s estimate of a 5.5 percent increase in corporate charity. Corporate cash grantmaking is down, corporate giving is down for most corporations in general, and some old standby donors have shrunk or even gone out of business. If you’re on the receiving end of pharmaceutical generosity, you’re a corporate philanthropy winner.”

Nonprofit Newswire is an example of the importance of an independent media within the philantrophic sector.

Walter Davis

Florida may be alerting the world of philanthropy to a new front in conservative legislative initiatives. Emmett D. Carson is chief executive officer of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, in Mountain View, California. Carson writes in an opinion piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, “A new Florida law heralded by its supporters as protecting the freedom of private foundations has done just the opposite: It has raised questions about what values foundations operate under and thereby could raise new limits on the tax deductions enjoyed by donors to those foundations.”

The new law, according to Carson, is a road map to secrecy and lack of transparency. It builds a new wall around the information about foundations and how they operate and who they are. Carson sees this as a first skirmish on the way to a federal law. The work to build “glass pockets” over recent decades would be reversed.

“The new law prohibits the State of Florida or local governments from requiring foundations to disclose certain demographic data about board and staff members, as well as grantees, without the written permission of those involved and prohibits the state from requiring a diverse board or requiring a foundation to make grants based on demographic information. The demographic data covered by the new law include ‘race, religion, gender, national origin, socioeconomic status, age, ethnicity, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, and political-party registration of its employees, officers, directors, trustees, members, or owners.’”

Walter Davis