"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail...."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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In the latest installment of our monthly podcast series, hosts Larry Blumenthal and Bill Silberg talk to media expert Jeff Jarvis about his notion of the "radically transparent foundation" -- a concept he put forward in a session at this year's Council on Foundation's annual meeting. Jarvis, who is the director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism and author of the BuzzMachine blog, talks with Larry and Bill about the reasons foundations need to embrace this growing trend of "publicness."
Running time: 00:14:56
In the podcast, Jarvis says that rather than revealing more information for the sake of revealing it, a "radically transparent foundation" would be "more process-oriented" and would think more collaboratively. It would also find "ways to leverage resources more wisely." What do you think? What are the characteristics of a "radically transparent" foundation?
Do you have a topic you'd like to hear Larry and Bill address? Let us know in the comments section below, or drop us a line at mfn@foundationcenter.org.
Giving by the nation's approximately 2,700 grantmaking corporate foundations remained basically unchanged in 2010, at $4.7 billion.
According to Key Facts on Corporate Foundations (6 pages, PDF), giving by corporate foundations (in current dollars) increased 0.2 percent year-over-year in 2010 -- but fell 1.6 percent when adjusted for inflation.
Other key facts from the survey:
As the chart below shows, education (22 percent) and human services (20 percent) were the top funding priorities of corporate foundations in 2009 (the trough of the economic downturn), followed by public affairs/society benefit (19 percent), health (15 percent), arts and culture (14 percent), international affairs (4 percent), environment and animals (4 percent), and science and technology (2 percent).
Compared to community and independent foundations, however, the larger corporate foundations included in the Foundation Center's grants sample were more likely to allocate funding for the arts and public affairs/society benefit. Indeed, much of the support for the latter reflected giving for philanthropy/voluntarism, including federated funds.
According to the report, the top corporate foundation by total giving (includes grants, scholarships, and employee-matching gifts) was the Sanofi-Aventis Patient Assistance Foundation ($321,376,881), followed by:
Looking ahead, just over half (52 percent) of corporate foundations responding to the Foundation Center's annual forecasting survey expect to increase their giving in 2011.
For a list of the top twenty-five corporate foundations by total giving and/or to download a copy of the report, click here.
Although 2010 marked the first consecutive-year decline in community foundation giving since 1981, a majority of community foundations say their giving will increase or hold steady in 2011, a new Foundation Center report finds.
According to Key Facts on Community Foundations (6 pages, PDF), giving by community foundations declined an estimated 2.1 percent in 2010, following a 7.1 percent decline in 2009. The outlook is improving, however, with half the respondents (50 percent) saying they anticipate that their giving will increase in 2011, while 16 percent expect it to remain flat.
Some other key facts from the survey:
As the charts below show, education (28 percent) and human services (22 percent) were the top funding priorities of communty foundations in 2009, followed by health (14 percent), arts and culture (12 percent), public affairs/society benefit (10 percent), environment/animals (6 percent), religion (4 percent), international affairs/development/peace (2 percent), and science/technology (2 percent). Community foundations were also more likely than independent or corporate foundations to provide funding for education and human services, and less likely to provide funding for health, international affairs, and science and technology.
Finally, the report found that the largest community foundation by total giving in 2009 was the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation ($183,493,211), followed by:
For a list of the top twenty-five foundations by total giving and/or to download a copy of the factsheet (6 pages, PDF), click here.
(Bruce Trachtenberg is executive director of the Communications Network, a nonprofit that works to provide resources, guidance, and leadership to advance the strategic practice of communications in philanthropy. Bruce is also an occasional contributor to and frequent commenter here at PhilanTopic. This post was published earlier today on the Network's blog.)
What a story the Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr. Fund has to tell about "First-Person Stories."
Among the the things to know about the storytelling project making its debut on the foundation's Web site are these:
First-Person Stories draws its inspiration -- and technical assistance -- from a nonprofit called the Voice of Witness that was started by author Dave Eggers to depict "human rights crises around the world through the stories of the men and women who experience them."
Like Voice of Witness, Haas, Jr. is using oral histories as a way to "humanize difficult and complex subjects," says Chicola. More so, Eggers is lending his expertise to the Haas, Jr. effort by editing the first-person stories submitted to and subsequently posted to the foundation's Web site.
From his work with the Voice of Witness, Eggers has already seen firsthand the power of first-person storytelling:
Again and again we see narrators who feel empowered and self-possessed after telling their stories. It's actually a process of reclaiming the narrative of your life. When we published our book about exonerated prisoners in the U.S., the narrators wrote to us saying that it was the first time their story had been told accurately and in full. That's a big deal, especially to someone who's felt wrongly accused or misunderstood. To finally have their narrative reclaimed -- it's very powerful. Even life-changing.
The first to tell his story on the Haas, Jr. Web site is Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico in the 1980s. In his early years, he worked as a migrant farm worker, and -- against all odds -- made his way to Berkeley and Harvard Medical School before becoming a renowned brain surgeon. Says Chicola, "In his own words, 'Dr. Q', reflects on his remarkable journey and on what America means to him."
The fund intends to add a new story to the First-Person section of its Web site on a regular basis.
While largely a communications department-managed project, program staff plays an important role by helping Chicola identify the themes that best embody or reflect the nature of the foundation's grantmaking. For instance, Dr. Q's story is about the challenge of being an immigrant in the U.S. Other stories might portray other aspects of immigrant life, such as what it's like to be a native-born child whose parents are undocumented.
The foundation's Web site invites people to submit their ideas for stories that can help broaden awareness and increase more engagement around issues such as gay and lesbian rights, immigrant rights, and education opportunities, and community initiatives. If the story seems right for telling, the foundation will follow up and request that the person write it up and send it in.
Chicola says the foundation is open to the possibility of some day letting people post their stories directly on the Haas, Jr. Web site as a way to "promote an even deeper level of understanding and engagement." He adds, "As a funder, we have access to so many amazing stories."
There are a number of ways to view First-Person Stories. We can label this a smartly designed communications project. Or we can describe it as a productive collaboration between communications and program colleagues. But, in this case, it could be considered something more than even those two things combined. It's an example of how a foundation is trying to make our society more just and the cultural life of communities more vibrant -- and not just by relying on its own resources, but by giving voice to people we rarely hear from and are better off when we do.
-- Bruce Trachtenberg
Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....
Communications/Marketing
On her Getting Attention blog, Nancy Schwartz suggests when the key to crafting an effective fundraising appeal about a difficult issue is to "focus on the positive changes...that will be made by the organization's work" and then describe the strategy to be used.
Diversity
"In the charitable marketplace, diversity and inclusiveness can be powerful strategies for building the capacity of nonprofits and foundations, and helping them fulfill their mission of boosting the capacity of people and places in need," writes Todd Cohen on his Inside Philanthropy blog. "But while they preach diversity, far too few nonprofits and foundations will take on or can handle the difficult job of practicing it...."
Fundraising
Future Fundraising Now blogger Jeff Brooks shares this chart from Jessica Hagy of Indexed which highlights why it's important to respect your donors.
With increased postage rates, "shorter attention spans of...direct mail readers, and less discretionary spending capacity by donors," direct mail will be challenging for nonprofits in 2011, writes Joanne Fritz on her About.com Nonprofit Blog. To help development staff get back to basics with their fundraising letters, Fritz shares some advice from professional fundraiser Allan Sharpe.
Nonprofit Management
CBS caused a ruckus last week with a "60 Minutes" segment that accused best-selling author Greg Mortenson of exaggerating the number of schools built by his charity, the Central Asia Institute, and of improperly using funds donated to CAI. Withholding judgment, GuideStar president and CEO Bob Ottenhoff offers a few lessons to-be-learned from the controversy on his blog.
Philanthropy
On his White Courtesy Telephone blog, Greater New Orleans Foundation president Albert Ruesga writes an open letter to younger people in philanthropy. In the letter, Ruesga explains what he believes needs to happen in order for philanthropy to change. Says Ruesga,
I believe [philanthropy] will only evolve into an engine of transformation by the efforts of people -- young and old -- who are honest about the gap between its aspirations and its outcomes, and who offer an alternative to what has become, in my view, an especially expensive means of maintaining current systems of social, economic, and political oppression....
Social Media
Networked Nonprofit co-author Beth Kanter shares some examples of how arts and cultural organizations are using QR codes -- bar codes that can be scanned by a mobile phone and are currently being printed in magazines and on T-shirts to point people to more information online.
And on her Non-Profit Marketing blog, Katya Andresen explains why "it's crazy to participate in NO social media, and...equally nuts to participate in ALL social media."
That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a happy Easter!
-- Regina Mahone
(Nick Scott is assistant to the publisher at Philanthropy News Digest. In his previous post, he looked at burgeoning civil society movements in the MENA region.)
Taking my seat in a crowded conference room at Philanthropy New York earlier this month, I felt a bit like an interloper in the company of so many foundation presidents, investment bank VPs, and executive directors. But banishing my insecurities, I settled in to listen to an excellent workshop moderated by Foundation Center president Brad Smith.
The panel of speakers featured Stephen Heintz, president of the New York City-based Rockefeller Brothers Fund (and a former co-founding president at Demos: A Network for Action & Ideas); Dr. Bassma Kodmani, executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative (and a former senior program officer at the Ford Foundation's MENA office); and Anthony Richter, associate director at the Open Society Foundations and director of OSF's MENA initiative and Central Eurasia project.
A Limited Role for U.S. Foundations in the Arab World
It was clear from the outset that the major theme of the evening was going to be caution and restraint. Political reform in the Middle East is the kind of topic that gets international funders excited, but the panelists all agreed it is important for Western foundations, NGOs, and development agencies to respect the fact that the democracy movements in the Arab world are homegrown and driven by local actors. Moreover, the appropriate role for an outsider is almost always a supporting one -- and only if requested. Kodmani spoke of the hyper-sensitivity to Western intervention she experienced firsthand recently in Egypt. Change, when it comes, "will be on our terms" was an oft-repeated sentiment, and outside funders, she said, need to understand that the debate over issues such as minority rights, religion, and women's participation would continue to be an internal conversation. The events of the last decade have made citizens of many Arab countries wary of American interventionism, so any attempts to influence the political discourse -- well intentioned though they may be -- are likely to be met with resistance.
Her comments left me wondering whether there's any role for U.S. foundations in the Arab world during these tumultuous times. The other panelists agreed there was, but warned that it needed to be low profile and focused on building the capacity of local groups. As Smith noted, foundations should understand that money isn't the only way they can help; philanthropy at its best should be about ideas, not just financial assistance. Richter mentioned recent meetings he had had with NGO leaders in the region who often didn't want money but instead were interested in talking with legal experts, constitutional scholars, and other authorities on governance. He also noted that OSF's policy was to work through local contacts and provide funding to indigenous organizations that would then re-grant the funds to other local actors. Both Richter and Heintz said they would be spending a lot of time speaking with such groups to get a better sense of what the greatest needs were.
"Hardest Work Is Still to Come"
While unprecedented change has swept the Middle East since President Zine El Abidine fled Tunisia in January and Hosni Mubarak was forced out as president of Egypt in February, the situation in every country remains in flux. All the panelists agreed that pro-democracy movements in the region are likely to experience setbacks and that they will develop in their own way and at their own pace. Grantmaking organizations thinking about working in the region should make sure they are ready for a carefully considered, long-term commitment.
Having worked earlier in his career with transitional democracy movements in Central and Eastern Europe, Heintz was able to share several observations from his own experience with democratization. He emphasized that there is no blueprint for democracy and that context is everything in these situations. Observations based on a different context can be instructive, but regional specificity precludes the extrapolation of concrete lessons from one context to another. Indeed, any organization viewing the Arab world as a monolith whose problems can be addressed through broad-brush approaches is destined to fail. Change will be driven from within, Heintz added, and the most effective funders will be those who work closely with local organizations. As such, funders who have a network of contacts in the region are in the strongest position to help.
Finally, Heintz pointed out that democracy is not just about elections, and it is not a commodity that can be exported. It really only works, he said, when the forces pushing for it are able to foster a "culture of democracy" rather than just its trappings. To truly help the region make that transition, funders must avoid the tendency to exert too much control. A restrained approach emphasizing support for indigenous leadership and a more robust civil society is the best way to make a contribution.
Most people would agree that subtlety has not been a hallmark of American development work in the region over the last decade. It's becoming clear, however, that funders and NGOs are going to have an opportunity over the coming months and years to demonstrate what kind of impact a less heavy-handed approach can have. Let's hope it's positive.
-- Nick Scott
(Frequent contributor Thaler Pekar recently delivered a lecture on the Ethics of Working with Story to Kent State University’s graduate program in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management. Click here to read part 1. The complete video of the lecture can be seen at her Web site, www.thalerpekar.com.)
A wise person once said, "There are always three stories: the story you tell; the story you hear; and the story that is the truth." I will add a fourth: the story you are not hearing.
Thinking about the stories you're not hearing is critical to the ethical use of story. Do you have a responsibility to seek them out? Also, do you plan to label and publicly present the stories you do gather? And if so, how will the context affect the way the audience perceives those stories?
The way you choose to label stories -- "Stories from College Graduates," "Stories from Women," Stories from African Americans” -- can affect the way in which they are understood. When you label, you may lose some of the context and emotion that is critical to true understanding.
Similarly, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie warns, in a 2009 TED Talk, about the "danger of the single story." As Adichie says:
How they are told, who tells them, when they are told, how many stories are told, are really dependent on power. Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person. The Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti writes, "That if you want to dispose a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their story and to start with, 'Secondly...'
Start the story with the arrows of the Native Americans, but not with the arrival of the British, and you have an entirely different story. Start the story with the failure of the African states, and not with the colonial creation of the African state, and you have an entirely different story...."
(I encourage you to watch the entire twenty-minute talk.)
Be aware, as well, of other power imbalances, of people feeling they have no recourse but to say "Yes" when you ask them to share their story. Perhaps you want to use it in an advertising campaign or a public service announcement and are offering monetary compensation or an all-expenses-paid trip. Either may constitute a power imbalance.
Or you may be working with a stigmatized population, in which case you have a special responsibility to protect the sharer of the story. For example, you have an ethical obligation to share any knowledge you may have about what could happen to the person, personally or professionally, if they decide to share their story. Might you need to provide for the person's safety? Does the person sharing his or her story understand how s/he could lose control over the context in which the story is shared, especially in super-public places like YouTube?
The pendulum can swing too far in the other direction as well. I've often heard well-meaning nonprofit executives say "we simply can't tell this person's story; they are too vulnerable, and we must protect them." This, too, involves a kind of power imbalance. People have the right to be fully informed -- and to make their own decisions about whether to share, or not share, their stories.
Before you jump into story-gathering mode take a good look at your informed-consent documents. Better yet, have an outside expert take a look at them. You might want to offer choices about the ways in which an individual's story will be shared (e.g., anonymously, or only in certain circumstances or formats, or only with certain audiences).
Stories are extremely personal, powerful, and persuasive. They can affect great change in organizations, in the way a person perceives a situation or other people, and in the world. To be a true narrative leader, you must respect and uphold the highest ethical standards when gathering stories, sharing stories, and working with the people who choose to share those stories.
As I wrote in part one of this essay, your goal is to empower, not exploit. When you use story ethically, you enable people to be heard, respected, and celebrated.
-- Thaler Pekar
(Regular contributor Thaler Pekar recently delivered a lecture on the ethics of working with story to Kent State University's graduate program in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management. Below is an excerpt from that lecture. The complete video of the lecture is available at Thaler's Web site, www.thalerpekar.com.)
Stories can be extremely powerful, and extremely persuasive. Stories connect to and surface people's memories. They are a powerful tool for getting people to visualize, to imagine, even to viscerally sense a situation.
When someone shares a story about something that happened to him or her, they are sharing a piece of themselves. Something similar may have happened to you, but the specifics of what happened to the person sharing a story is unique to that person. The way events unfolded, the way he or she felt, the way he or she thought about the experience -- that is the unique possession of the person sharing the story. Which makes our own stories a uniquely powerful part of each of us.
Because stories are powerful, and because they are wholly owned by the person who shares them, we have an ethical obligation to use story in ways that do no harm. Whether we are asking for stories to better understand an organizational challenge, to use in our organizational communications, or for an advocacy campaign, our goal should be to empower, not exploit.
Let's explore the ways in which we can do that.
To start, be honest about why you are setting out to gather and share stories. Ask yourself not only what your organizational goals are, but how your strategy benefits the person or people sharing their stories.
Is your goal to elicit more stories? Sometimes advocacy organizations do this. An organization working to improve healthcare access and coverage may want to gather stories about the difficulty some Americans have in getting health insurance. Or an organization may want to elicit stories from its clients about their satisfaction with a particular healthcare product or service.
Might you be looking to elicit stories to transfer and share organizational knowledge? Are you sharing stories to spark a conversation? Are you looking to motivate your audience to take action? Is your ultimate goal to build a community?
Whatever it is you are hoping to do, be explicit about your goals and make good on them! If you want to spark a conversation, make sure you provide the time and a physical or digital space in which that conversation can occur. If you want listeners to share similar stories, provide a mechanism for them to do so. If you want listeners to take another kind of action, provide them with the resources to do so.
Being clear and transparent about your goals is crucial. Cynthia Kurtz and David Snowden offer three rules for the ethical use of narrative in an organization:
If you respect the story and the person sharing the story, you will ensure that three additional conditions are present:
You may have noticed that I've refrained from talking about story "collection," or even story "tellers." These terms are transactional, implying a giver and a taker. Story is not a commodity, something that is taken from one person and given to another. This is especially true in development work, where there often is a tendency to take a poor or ill person's story and offer it to a potential donor in exchange for a monetary gift.
The need to refrain from treating story as a commodity goes beyond nonprofit and advocacy work; it should inform all your work with narrative. True narrative intelligence respects the sharer of the story and recognizes that his or her story is a unique part of them that cannot, and should not, be taken and shared without permission.
(Come back tomorrow to read part 2.)
-- Thaler Pekar
Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....
Communications/Marketing
Writing about his favorite topic, social media, Zoetica co-founder Geoff Livingston says he hopes that "amateur hour is over, and that unknowledgeable social media communicators go the way of the dodo bird...."
Disaster Relief
Last Monday marked the one-month anniversary of the massive 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that struck northern Japan, a calamity that claimed the lives of at least 13,000 people and has left more than 154,000 people homeless. On the GiveWell blog, Holden Karnofsky provides a thorough update on the philanthropic response to the disaster.
Diversity
Nonprofit Quarterly correspondent Rick Cohen takes a closer look at a new report from Boston-based Commongood Careers and the Level Playing Institute which suggests that while nonprofits are perceived as valuing diversity and inclusiveness, they often fail to live up to those goals. While Cohen generally agrees with the report's findings, he also notes that "real diversity includes providing the opportunity for marginalized population groups to have a stake in the organizations, not just paychecks."
Philanthropy
On the Deep Social Impact blog, Maureen O’Brien and Cynthia Gibson share findings from the 2011 Millennial Donor survey, which analyzed giving trends among nearly 3,000 respondents between the ages of 20 and 35. According to the survey, "Millennials don't actually prefer to donate through texts, mobile apps, Twitter or Facebook...[and] Millennials, who are commonly seen as following Hollywood trendsetters, are really not swayed to give by celebrity endorsements." Surprised? We didn't think so. But as O'Brien and Gibson note, "The data gleaned from this study are hard to interpret without comparable data from other generational cohorts."
"For the last hundred years Americans have given about 2% of income to charity," writes Sean Stannard-Stockton in a recent post on his Tactical Philanthropy blog. "This percentage has been remarkably consistent during good times and bad. Maybe the key to increasing the amount given to charity is to get away from the 'give because it is good for you' (good for your soul, good for others, something you 'should' do) approach and embrace a philanthropy as junk food mentality...." Read the rest of Sean's post to see what he means.
A number of philanthropic leaders who traveled to Philadelphia this week for the Council on Foundation's annual conference shared their thoughts and perspectives on Kris Putnam-Walkerly's Philanthropy 411 blog. We especially liked the posts by Levi Strauss Foundation social media fellow Jorge Cino, who in a three-part series provided a look at how the foundation communicates its work through stories; Draper Consulting Group president Lee Draper, who recapped a lecture on diversity and philanthropy by Ambassador James Joseph; and Horizons Foundation executive director Roger Doughty, who discussed the importance of investing in fundraising to increase overall giving.
National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy field associate Christine Reeves shares her top ten themes and takeaways from the Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy conference, which also was held last week in Philadelphia.
Social Entrepreneurship
Philanthropy Action's Tim Ogden commends the "Microfinance in Crisis?" panelists at this year's Global Philanthropy Forum for acknowledging that it's time for the industry to reflect on where it is and where it is going. But Ogden being Ogden, he goes on to criticize the panel and the industry at large for not digging deeper into "how microcredit clients are managing cash flows and the rest of their financial lives when they no longer have confidence in the availability of microcredit."
Volunteerism
In conjunction with National Volunteer Week, Idealist's Amy Potthast shares three volunteering ideas "that even busy professionals -- including folks with families -- can try."
That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!
-- Regina Mahone
A new report from our Research Department colleagues here at the center finds that, despite the uneven economic recovery, giving by U.S. foundations held steady in 2010.
According to the report, Foundation Growth and Giving Estimates (16 pages, PDF), the nation's more than 76,000 foundations gave a total of $45.7 billion in 2010, almost matching the $45.8 billion they gave in 2009. This followed a record 2.1 percent year-over-year decline in foundation giving from 2008 to 2009. The report also found that foundation assets increased 5 percent, to $612.7 billion, from $590.2 billion in 2009.
Here are the giving numbers, broken out by foundation type:
| Foundation Type | Est. 2010 Giving (billions) | Est. Change, % |
|---|---|---|
| All | $45.7 | -0.2% |
| Independent | $32.5 | -0.8% |
| Corporate | $4.7 | 0.2% |
| Community | $4.1 | -2.1% |
The inflation-adjusted figures always tell an interesting story, as the chart below shows:
As for 2011, the center's latest "Giving Forecast Survey" found that giving by the nation's independent foundations should increase by between 2 percent and 4 percent, with seven out of ten respondents saying they expect to either boost their giving (52 percent) or keep it about the same (17 percent) and three out of ten (30 percent) saying they expect their giving to decline.
Looking ahead to 2012, grantmakers appear to be fairly optimistic, with just 6.5 percent of respondents anticipating lower levels of giving next year, 50.6 percent anticipating that their giving will remain steady, and 27.2 percent saying they expect to increase their giving; the remaining 16 percent are uncertain at this point.
To download a copy of this year's Foundation Growth and Giving Estimates report, which includes more great charts and detail, click here.
(Under the leadership of Ana Oliveira, the New York Women's Foundation has established itself as the key institutional opinion leader on issues facing women, girls, and their families in New York City. Last week, more than five hundred people from more than sixty countries gathered at the Brooklyn Marriott in New York for the annual meeting of the Women's Funding Network (WFN), whose board Oliveira chairs. Frequent contributor Michael Seltzer interviewed Oliveira on the eve of the conference.)
Philanthropy News Digest: A few weeks ago, Iman al-Obeidi, a postgraduate Libyan law student, courageously confronted Muammar Gaddafi's henchmen in a hotel room in Tripoli that the Western press was using as a base of operations. In the process, al-Obeidi, who earlier had been gang-raped and beaten, succeeded in exposing the brutality of the Libyan regime to the world. How is it that women burdened by such oppression and brutality are able to find their voice?
Ana Oliveira: The violence committed against Iman al-Obeidi reveals the depth of the role of women as pillars of society. Women's bodies are a battlefield. And, it pains me to say, seeking to destroy or violate or hurt or devalue women is part and parcel of the breaking down of communities, cultures, and societies in times of war.
PND: Are we seeing an escalation of violence against women?
AO: Rape has been with us throughout history. It is a weapon of war. What we are seeing now is an increase in all forms of sexual violence, an increase in murderous conflicts, an increase in systemic genocide against women. Women are often both the first line of defense and the first to be attacked. But women around the globe are rising up, and they will continue to rise up. They must, in order to survive and make a better world for themselves. We saw it in Chile under Pinochet and in Argentina under the military dictatorship in the 1970s. And we are seeing it today across North Africa, where women are playing a pivotal role in the struggle for democracy.
PND: Let's talk about the United States. How does your organization address the issue of violence against women in New York City?
AO: Funding from the New York Women's Foundation is very much based on the principle of the integrity and wholeness of women's lives, women's leadership, and women's economic and physical security, otherwise known as safety. But it's more than just freedom from violence; we're talking about the ability to thrive, personally and as fully integrated members of a larger community. We support low-income women who organize themselves into community-based organizations, who embody the same spirit of resistance to the status quo as their historic and contemporary counterparts, who ignite in each other a sense of collective power.
PND: How are these uncertain economic times affecting women, their families, and their neighborhoods?
AO: Economic strife is increasing -- and will continue to increase -- this year and into next. Even though the recession was officially declared over back in 2009, it's my view that we have entered the second phase of the economic downturn. For working communities, for working women, for lower-paid workers, economic conditions are going to get worse, as those communities and people begin to lose many of the public supports they had enjoyed through the states.
As you know, state government is both an employer in these communities and a supplier of safety-net support for single mothers, one-parent heads of households, and low-wage workers. But because there has been serious public and commericial under-investment in these communities and populations, it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to keep their heads above water. In the neighborhoods where we fund, there are very few institutions that support a decent quality of life for residents -- institutions like banks, well-stocked supermarkets and stores, accessible public transportation, and so on. It's not unusual for the people we support to have to take a subway, a bus, then another bus to get to their destination. Where are the firehouses? Where are the police stations? Where are the libraries and parks? Where are the playgrounds? Where are the decent schools? Things that most Americans take for granted.
In the communities we serve, the numbers are lower in all of the above-mentioned categories. At the same time, you'll find a higher number of single parent heads of households, most of whom are single women; a higher rate of unemployment; more dropouts; higher infant and maternal mortality rates. The list goes on.
PND: You've just described a pretty bleak situation. What can a foundation like yours do to change it for the better?
AO: One thing we do is to fund ParentJobNet, a community-based organization in East New York established by a local parent to help women become job ready and find employment. Program staff engage women who are interested in assessing their skills and help them create a resume and find a job. If they already have a job, the program provides them with additional training so that they can get a better-paying job. It also helps women who are working and who are eligible for food stamps to receive them. That way, household income increases, children get better nutrition and begin to do better in school, and families start to do better economically and socially. But, like every organization doing this kind of work, we need more capital to help move people and low-income neighborhoods toward that crucial tipping point where positive feedback loops begin to kick in. That's what our sister women's funds in the United States and around the world are doing, and I can't think of a better use of a society's resources.
-- Michael Seltzer
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