PhilanTopic

A Modest Proposal

As we noted last fall, fiscal 2009 promised to be -- and ended up being -- a terrible year for state budgets. And that's bad news for nonprofits that rely on state payments and contracts.

According to The Fiscal Survey of the States, an annual overview of fiscal conditions in all fifty states produced by the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers, states are

facing one of the worst, if not the worst, fiscal periods since the Great Depression. Fiscal conditions significantly deteriorated for states during fiscal 2009, with the trend expected to continue through fiscal 2010 and even into 2011 and 2012. The severe national recession drastically reduced tax revenues from every revenue source during fiscal 2009 and revenue collections are expected to continue their decline in fiscal 2010. As state revenue collections historically lag behind any national economic recovery, state revenues will remain depressed throughout fiscal 2010 and likely be sluggish into fiscal years 2011 and 2012. The "official" economic recession, which began in December 2007 and may have recently ended, has significantly affected state spending, as more than half the states decreased their general fund expenditures in fiscal 2009, and over two-thirds of states enacted fiscal budgets with general fund spending lower than the previous year....

Back in January, a coalition of nonprofit organizations led by Independent Sector called for immediate financial aid to state and local governments experiencing budget stress as well as a short-term $15 billion bridge loan program for nonprofit human service organizations that, if implemented properly, would help preserve vital services to 7.8 million Americans in need and preserve some 300,000 nonprofit sector jobs over the next two years.

In February, with the national unemployment rate at 8.1 percent, the House and Senate passed, and President Obama signed into law, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which, among other things, set aside some $55 billion for state fiscal relief. There was no provision in the legislation for an emergency bridge loan program for nonprofit service providers.

Today the unemployment rate stands at 10.2 percent -- and it could be higher tomorrow after the November figure is released. Meanwhile, financial service firms that received federal bailout money under the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) are scrambling to pay those funds back so they can "reward" their executives and star traders with the lavish pay packages and bonuses they've grown accustomed to.

With the White House convening a jobs summit and desperately looking, in the words of Tech Ticker, "for any and all ideas to help get Americans back to work," here's a modest proposal. Let's take $15 billion of the $45 billion Bank of America has said it will return to Treasury by year-end and put it toward the nonprofit bridge loan proposal advocated by Independent Sector and others. As Los Angeles arbitrator James Adler, writing on the Huffington Post, notes: "The key to creating jobs quickly is to utilize existing employers, particularly nonprofits who have seen their resources diminish precisely at the time of maximum need for their services...."

This would seem to be that time, no?

-- Mitch Nauffts

Readings (and Other Stuff) - Nov. 11, 2009

Here's what we're reading today:

• Phil Buchanan: The Attack From Within (Philanthropy Central) (h/t @tactphil)
• Sue Halpern, Nicholas Kristoff: The Micro Miracle? (NYRB)
• Matthew Bishop: Raj Shah's Opportunity
• Sam Dillion: States Compete for Federal School Dollars (NYT)
• Michael Luo: A Parent's Unemployment Stress Trickles Down to the Children (NYT)
• Is Your Nonprofit Too Social Media Dependent? (Frogloop)
• Doc Searls: Beyond Social Media (h/t @p2173)

And, on this day of remembrance, maybe the greatest poem written about WWI:

• T.S. Eliot. The Waste Land (1922) (h/t @irasocol)

What are you reading?

Weekend Link Roundup (November 7 - 8, 2009)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Corporate Philanthropy

On the Reimagining CSR blog, Jessica Stannard-Friel shares examples of "companies identifying CSR activities that are relatively cheap for them to carry out, but relatively high value for the community at large."

Economy

On Friday, the National Bureau of Labor announced that the unemployment rate had jumped four-tenths of a percent, to 10.2 percent -- the highest level in twenty-six years. On the Kaufmann Foundation's Growthology blog, a downbeat Tim Kane puts the number into sobering perspective.

Fundraising

In her new book, Reliable Fundraising in Unreliable Times: What Good Causes Need to Know to Survive and Thrive, Kim Klein suggests that fundraisers need to expand their definition of "donor" to include "someone who gives time, shares ideas about how your organization can succeed, says nice things about the work you do, opens doors for you, [and] expresses gratitude for the services you provide." In addition to sharing other tips from Klein, Joanne Fritz, on About.com's Charitable Orgs blog, offers this advice:

Look for people who have a lot of relationships, who offer to help in all sorts of ways, and who are grateful for your services. Then get in contact with them and stay in contact. Say thank you frequently for whatever gifts they provide, and nurture those relationships....

Using language like "we haven't heard from you" or "we want you back," says John Thompson on the Donor Power Blog, is a sure way to weaken rather than strengthen your donor relationships.

Social networking site MySpace has announced that it is dropping the online fundraising application Causes "due to the lack of activity." Amy Sample Ward argues that this will negatively impact nonprofits on MySpace and their "communities of supporters," while Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb suggests that it might not matter at all.

Impact/Effectiveness

On the WiserEarth blog, Diane Scearce, a consultant at the Monitor Institute, offers a few things to keep in mind when evaluating network effectiveness in terms of social impact.

Journalism/Media

In a two-parter at the Cohen Report, Rick Cohen looks at the looks at the emergence of online nonprofit news and investigative journalism venues and speculates about whether the Newspaper Revitalization Act introduced by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) can save the industry.

Leadership

Live blogging from Independent Sector’s annual conference in Detroit, Rosetta Thurman shares some questions for emerging sector leaders posed by panelists David Simms, managing partner at the Bridgespan Group, and Michael Watson, senior vice president at Girl Scouts of the USA .

And in a different post, Thurman recaps the breakfast plenary session featuring Jeff Raikes, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Philanthropy

"Got a story about how many times you were asked to give in one shopping trip?" If so, Lucy Bernholz wants to know. Click here to share the "embedded giving" story from 2009 "that made you scratch your head."

Speaking of embedded giving, Philanthropy Action editor-in-chief Tim Ogden says the real problem with the approach is the "near complete lack of transparency (who gets the funds? when? how much?) in the industry."

Guest blogging on Tactical Philanthropy, Charles Bronfman and Jeffrey Solomon, chairman and president, respectively, of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies and co-authors of The Art of Giving: Where the Soul Meets a Business Plan, argue that understanding WHY you give is just as important as figuring out how and where to give. Their post has generated a lively comments thread (thirty-plus and counting), and visitors to the blog can also read an extended excerpt from the book.

Riffing on that conversation, Nathaniel Whittemore at the Social Entrepreneurship blog asks, "Is there such a thing as selfless giving?" Whittemore doesn't think so but does believe that "giving can be much more self-aware -- and in the process, much more fulfilling, sustainable, and effective."

Social Media

Nonprofit marketing guru Nancy Schwartz shares three tips for managing your nonprofit's reputation on social networking sites that she picked up at the recent Communications Network conference in New York City:

• Use what you hear: 1) To better serve your networks by knowing what they're saying to others and to you; 2) to respond to and/or engage critics; 3) to stay abreast of the latest developments in your area of work.
• Overcome objections that listening is unnecessary: Compile and share online conversations related to critical keywords and themes over a week or a month. Provide some concrete examples of how not listening to or participating in those conversations meant that others spoke for (and defined) your organization.
• Use the best free listening tools: 1) Google Alerts and RSS feeds for keywords (org name and URL, issues, leadership names, competitive/colleague org names); and 2) Twitter search/hashtags for real-time tracking.

Schwartz also recommends following Amy Sample Ward's advice about creating a one-stop listening dashboard.

Technology

"Just as we are phasing out snail mail a few decades after email first became popular," writes Kristin Ivie in an interesting post on the Case Foundation's Social Citizens blog, so may "many offline opportunities eventually be phased out as well."

In yet another information-packed post, Beth Kanter reminisces about the early days of the World Wide Web and offers her take on how nonprofits can use Twitter's new "Lists" feature to filter the growing flood of information that comes to us courtesy of the Internet.

Transparency

Building on a recent blog post by Lucy Bernholz, Allison Fine takes a closer look at copyright expert Lawrence Lessig's claim in a recent issue of The New Republic ("Against Transparency") that "there is such a thing as too much transparency in government." While Fine doesn't buy Lessig's argument, she does agree with Bernholz that "requiring too much transparency of foundations may drive them into the dark, back rooms...of donor advised funds." Writes Fine:

Even with their enormous tax breaks, foundations are private entities that more than any other kind of institution have very little incentive to make their operations and programs more open and transparent except out of a noble assumption that by doing so they will be more effective....

Fine goes on to suggest that nonprofits, which are not public or as "private as foundations," should ask themselves the following questions as they try to strike the right balance between transparency and confidentiality:

• Will sharing this information advance our mission?
• How can others build on our content and make it better?
• Will revealing this information improve morale and make staff feel better informed and able to make decisions on their own?
• Will sharing this information better connect us to our network and help us build the relationships that we need to be successful?

Last but not least, on the Social Actions blog, Christine Egger rounds up a number of thought-provoking conversations on the topic of transparency and data standards in the sector.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!

-- Regina Mahone

Sunk Costs and the Need for Social Innovation

(Farnaz Golshani is director of programs and services at the San Francisco-based Tides Center. This is her first post for PhilanTopic.)

I've been thinking a lot lately about the concept of "sunk costs." In economics and business decision-making, sunk costs are unrecoverable past expenditures that, under normal circumstances, should not be taken into account when determining whether to continue or abandon a project, effort, or initiative because costs that are already "sunk" cannot be recovered.

Inevitably, thinking about sunk costs reminds me of my "Saab stories." I purchased a used Saab for $15,000 a number of years ago and then spent more than $5,000 on repairs for it over the next few years -- not to mention the considerable time I spent at the repair shop and the stress I experienced each time the "check engine" light would blink on. But I kept sinking dollars into that Saab, if only to justify all the money I had already "invested" in it.

Organizations and bureaucracies often behave in a similar fashion. Rather than innovate, they choose to stay the course and keep sinking money into existing projects and initiatives simply to justify their previous investments. Indeed, government does this all the time. Two glaring examples -- failing workforce development systems and inadequate treatment of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) -- are particularly noteworthy, given that we are fighting two wars and the unemployment rate is the highest it has been in decades.

On the workforce development front, the federal government continues to fund WorkSource Centers through the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). In 2009, the Department of Labor had a budget of $53 billion, a good part of which funded WorkSource Center "One-stops," even though the average WorkSource Center only has a 20 to 40 percent success rate.

In contrast, truly innovative workforce development organizations such as Chrysalis, the Delancey Street Foundation, and Rubicon have achieved phenomenal outcomes with the "hardest to employ" -- the homeless and individuals with multiple felonies. Even in this challenging economy, Chrysalis, a workforce development organization based in L.A.'s Skid Row area, helps more than 80 percent of its homeless clients secure jobs each year using transitional employment opportunities.

Sadly, the innovative workforce development models pioneered by these organizations receive only a pittance from DOL, forcing them to rely on variable and much more modest revenues donated by individuals, corporations, and foundations. Adding insult to injury, stimulus funds now going through DOL are simply getting dumped -- sunk -- into existing WIA programs and contractors/agencies already in place. This precludes workforce development programs lacking WIA contracts from receiving stimulus funds, even if those programs have been proven to be more effective.

It also pains me to see the government sinking funds into ineffective treatment for veterans rather than investing in proven models with better track records. The federally funded Veterans Affairs (VA) system offers a largely ineffective thirty-day Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) support program that leaves most of the young men and women who complete it with persistently high levels of anxiety and depression and often no recourse other than to turn to drugs, alcohol, violence, homelessness, or even suicide.

There are existing programs that actually help veterans with PTSD develop the coping skills they need to face their anxieties and reintegration challenges. One such program is the Pathway Home for Returning Veterans, an LLC of Tides. Most veterans entering Pathway are referred by other VA hospitals because their PTSD or traumatic brain injuries were so severe that they had attempted suicide or were still suffering from seizures. Through its holistic 90- to 120-day program, Pathway has helped veterans with PTSD overcome their fears, secure jobs, and live healthy lives with their families. Indeed, its graduates consistently attest that the program saved their lives, armed them with the coping mechanisms to deal with anxiety, and even helped their families to better understand their PTSD.

Pathway's successes could not have happened in the VA -- they are the result of innovative partnerships involving nonprofits, the state of California, and donors who are committed to doing right by those who put their lives on the line for our country. Yes, a 90– to 120-day program is more expensive, but the long-term cost of PTSD is far greater when you factor in the social costs of homelessness, violence, long-term medical issues, drug problems, and so many other problems plaguing our veterans.

In his first months in office, President Obama said it was time for the government to invest in social innovation. Most of us in the social sector were delighted to see our efforts and good work finally get some recognition -- even if it meant we had to ignore the fact that the federal government was willing to sink $85 billion into AIG to keep the giant insurer afloat or spend $13.4 billion on rescuing General Motors but was only willing to invest $30 million in social innovation.

That was then. The "official" unemployment rate in the U.S. is now over 10 percent. We continue to put the lives of brave young men and women on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's time for the public, private, nonprofit, and philanthropic sectors -- as well as individuals -- to invest in best practices and proven models of successful social innovation and to stop sinking money into organizations and efforts that no longer work, or never did.

Even I managed to learn that lesson. After four years of waiting in dealerships for more bad news, I finally bought a new car.

-- Farnaz Golshani

Foundations' Year-End Outlook for Giving

Our Research colleagues here at the Foundation Center have issued a new advisory (5 pages, PDF) that looks at how foundation thinking has evolved since the center conducted its last giving forecast survey in January.

Based on a follow-up survey of leading funders conducted in September, the advisory suggests that foundation giving will decline by more than 10 percent this year -- toward the middle of the 8 to 13 percent range estimated by that initial survey -- and that overall foundation giving will decline further in 2010. Indeed, consistent with findings from the January survey, a larger share of respondents expect their giving to be lower next year (26 percent) than higher (17 percent).

Other findings from the advisory:

• More than two-thirds of respondents have reduced their operating expenses in order to shore up their giving or for other purposes, with cuts to staff travel budgets and conference attendance the most common action in the cost-cutting area, followed by freezing or reducing staff salaries, reducing staff training and professional development opportunities, reducing/cutting institutional memberships, reducing the number of publications produced, cutting staff and the use of consultants, and reducing staff benefits.
  
  
• Grantmakers expect the field of philanthropy to become more strategic as a result of the economic crisis, with 78 percent of respondents agreeing with that statement, 7 percent disagreeing, and 15 percent opting for "no opinion."
  
  
• The majority of funders believe that the nonprofit community in general was not sufficiently prepared to weather a significant economic downturn, but most (though not all) expect the sector to emerge stronger from the crisis. Still, skepticism that anything good will come of the crisis abounds, with one funder saying that "in a weak sector like the not-for-profit sector, crisis creates more weaknesses rather than increased strength," and another remarking that nonprofits "will lose good people with years of experience and will not be able to replace them."

What do you think? Will 2010 be an annus horribilis for nonprofits and the nonprofit sector? Will organizations, both good ones and those that are underperforming, fail in unacceptable numbers? Or will most find a way to muddle through and emerge stronger as a result? And what will be the most important quality or compentency for nonprofits in the new Reset Economy?

Use the comment section to share you thoughts....

-- Mitch Nauffts

'The Philanthropist': Going, Going, Gone?

Back in July, we ran a nice piece by Diana Campoamor, president of Hispanics in Philanthropy, about NBC's summer replacement series The Philanthropist. Over the course of eight episodes, the show, which featured a hard-partying, skirt-chasing businessman-cum-philanthropist by the name of Teddy Rist (played by James Purefoy), provided viewers with a whirlwind tour of (and brief history lessons about) some of the poorest and most conflict-ridden places on earth.

It also rubbed some people in philanthropy the wrong way. Campoamor wasn't one of them. In her piece, she made the point that

for the first time in recent pop culture history, a depiction of someone who calls himself a philanthropist (until recently, one of the most boring words in our language to most people), will have a chance to enter our homes and make us all aware of the need for the truly lived, philanthropy-centered life. That in itself is a big accomplishment....

Now, two fans of the show, Deborah Brancheau and Tamara Rudorfer, are trying to use the Causes application in Facebook to save the show from cancellation and, in the process, generate some donations through America's Giving Challenge for Human Rights Watch, the U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting and promoting human rights around the world.

According to the two women, the show is a great example of how capitalism and philanthropy can coexist and work together to solve tough social and economic problems in war-torn and poverty-stricken regions.

(You can watch all eight episodes of season one, with limited commercial interruptions, on Hulu through September 10, 2010.)

Brancheau and Rudorfer are asking supporters of the show -- and of human rights in general -- to:

1. Become members of "Save 'The Philanthropist' Through Charity" cause by visiting: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/380724.
   
   
2. Make a donation to the cause. The money will go directly to Human Rights Watch. If you have questions about how donations are handled check out: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/help?category=Donation+questions.
   
   
3. Urge the president of primetime entertainment at NBC to reverse the decision to cancel The Philanthropist by following the directions outlined on their Cause page: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/actions/2241?cause_id=380724.

I don't know about you, but I think this might be a cause worth supporting. Sure the show was glitzy and over the top, but how many prime-time network dramas deal seriously (and often compellingly) with things like ethnic cleansing, child slavery and sex trafficking, and desperate poverty? How many mention, let alone try to understand, countries and places such as Myanmar, Kosovo (my favorite), Kashmir, and Haiti? ("None" is the correct answer.)

America's Giving Challenge ends November 6, but Brancheau and Rudorfer vow to continue their efforts on behalf of the show beyond that date. We wish them luck.

-- Mitch Nauffts

Social Issue Documentaries

(Kathryn Pyle is a regular contributor to PhilanTopic. In her last post, she wrote about the annual Robert Flaherty Film Seminar.)

The audience for documentary films is bigger than ever, as evidenced by the increasing number of documentary festivals and broadcast venues, both public TV and cable, as well as streaming and Video on Demand (VOD). And the opportunities to see documentaries are matched by the variety of documentaries available -- from expository to impressionistic, right wing to progressive, local to global, short to very long.

As the field has grown, more funders are considering whether and how they can connect their priorities to documentary films and, indeed, the broader field of media. At the same time, nongovernmental organizations are considering how to use documentaries beyond the traditional "public relations" or "lesson" formats. Confronted by an explosion of social media sites (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook) and the proliferation of "screens" (laptops, netbooks, smartphones), groups are experimenting with technology to see what makes sense for their message and their constituency.

Documentary filmmakers and distributors are challenged to keep up. The familiar venues of the past are not necessarily the best ones today. For example, theatrical release, even in "art houses," works only for films that can attract a broad audience -- An Inconvenient Truth and Fahrenheit 9/11 are anomalies in terms of number of tickets sold and box-office revenues. Which is not to say that a good documentary film without an Al Gore cannot find an audience; it just might be an audience that would rather watch the film on their preferred personal screen rather than in a movie theater.

In previous posts here at PhilanTopic, I’ve written about the work being done by Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media, and in particular about GFEM's Media Database, which links funders with documentary filmmakers. In a post about the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, I also highlighted the LEF Foundation's support for New England documentary filmmakers. Indeed, at several conferences and seminars over the past few months, I've heard foundation representatives and filmmakers discuss how they could work together to merge the art of visual storytelling with urgent social issues. Two different approaches emerged from these events: one involving direct engagement with the issues, and the other counseling a more oblique convergence. Both have something to offer.

At several of these events I've run into folks from Witness ("See it film it, change it"), an NGO that encourages people around the world to use cellphones and video cameras to record human rights abuses and then post them to the Hub, a Witness-supported platform for human rights videos and action. Founded by the musician and social activist Peter Gabriel, and with major funding from the Reebok Human Rights Foundation, Witness has created an important niche for itself in participatory media, providing training and support to other organizations interested in making and using video and also partnering with human rights organizations on a variety of issues. Videos on the Witness site run the gamut of social justice concerns, from a fifteen-minute report on the disappearance of women in Mexico to a two-minute interview with an abused elderly woman that has been featured in the Elder Justice Now Campaign, an effort to get Congress to pass the Elder Justice Act. On the site, you can find video projects dealing with immigration reform, women's economic development, even a panel discussion on the use of viral video to effect change.

Trouble the Water, a documentary about a couple who filmed the trauma of Hurricane Katrina from the porch and attic of their 9th Ward home, gives human voice to government's shameless neglect of the poor during the disaster -- most shockingly through recordings of futile calls to 911 for help. "We wanted to show how needed resources were being diverted to the Iraq war -- most directly in that situation by the fact that the local National Guard units were in Iraq," said producer/director Tia Lessing at a recent Sundance Institute seminar for producers I attended. The film's Web site offers updates on the film's protagonists, links to a variety of organizations providing social services and infrastructure support to Katrina victims, and ways that people can organize a response in their own communities.

Several filmmakers featured at this year's Flaherty Film Seminar presented a more nuanced approach to social issues, often because they work in political contexts in which a more confrontational approach is problematic.

For example, Syrian filmmaker Omar Amiralay showed his 1977 documentary The Chickens, the story of a large, ultimately unsuccessful, chicken farm promoted by the government. In the black-and-white film, the farmers comment about their state-imposed transition from artisanal trades to industrial production and the lack of effective government assistance, but the film mainly focuses on the hundreds of chickens as they go about their feathered lives in a huge open building, establishing their pecking order and seeming to strive for some measure of dignity in their overregulated, overcrowded environment. "It"s a metaphorical film about a place where it is forbidden to speak," said Amiralay. "In difficult times we let the animals speak."

In The Roof, another Flaherty Film Seminar documentary, Kamal Aljafari presents his extended Palestinian family, whose home towns of Ramla and Jaffa were taken over by Israel in 1948. Through the quiet details of their daily routines -- a seemingly timeless limbo -- we perceive a resignation and sorrow instilled by decades of marginalization and neglect.

Russian filmmaker Pavel Medvedev participated in Flaherty with several films about the lives of workers in Russia. Wedding of Silence follows a community of deaf families who produce church bells: Medvedev films them at joyful events -- dinners, a wedding, caring for their children -- and at hard labor in a bell foundry. In Vacation in November he presents a community of miners in northern Russia who live in a harsh, frozen landscape shared with herds of reindeer. On the Third Planet From the Sun is about descendents of people who settled on the rich Russian shores of the Arctic Ocean during the Middle Ages; today they risk their lives to gather up debris from the Russian space program in an area formerly used for nuclear weapons tests. Through a camera that lingers on the beaten-down architecture and humanity of these places, Medvedev draws the audience into the larger issues of community and work. "I present ordinary people in problematic situations," he said in an interview with me, "but I don"t try to elicit pity from the audience. I see these people as fully developed, living their lives as they find them. My task is to respect them and show how they are interesting. I dream that the lives of my characters might be better, but my only job is to film them. The more films like these are shown, the more public opinion would pressure for change. But this is difficult in Russia, because there’s no space on television for such films and there are not too many film festivals, though interest in them is growing."

In several films and a video installation at Flaherty, Indian filmmaker Amar Kanwar explored themes of environmental and social violence in the context of Indian history, particularly the 1947 partition of India that created Pakistan. His work directly addresses specific incidents, like the recent assaults on women in India thought to be perpetrated by Indian army soldiers. The challenge for Kanwar is not that he can't speak directly, but rather that speaking directly is not enough; poetry might be a more effective tool. A Season Outside is a video essay of images and scenes from the Wagah border crossing between India and Pakistan, with Kanwar's voice-over on the history of violence and non-violent movements in the region serving to remind us that even those who remember the past are sometimes condemned to repeat it.

These films and video projects have all stayed with me as wonderful examples of effective documentary approaches to social issues. But I've just scratched the surface of what's available. Indeed, we may well be living through the golden age of documentary film. So, the next time you're on a bus, plane, or subway, check out what's on the small screen in the hands of the person sitting next to you. It just might be the next great social issue documentary!

-- Kathryn Pyle

Gen Y and the Recession

Over the past year, young nonprofit workers have watched friends in other industries -- from book publishing to finance -- lose good-paying jobs. Now, with evidence mounting that it's the nonprofit sector's turn in the cross-hairs, many young nonprofit workers are nervously wondering if they'll be next.

So it was a pleasant surprise to come across a recent article by Generation Y expert Amy Lynch in the Cookeville (TN) Times that paints a more optimistic picture of my generation's response to the downturn.

Few of today's 20-somethings, Lynch reminds us, escaped childhood free of financial worries. Also know as Millennials, the oldest members of Gen Y were toddlers during the great downsizing wave of the early 1980s, were in elementary and middle school during the recession of 1991, and graduated from college just in time for the dot-com bust, the Enron fiasco, and the recession that followed the terrorist attacks of September 11. Members of Gen Y "have never experienced a sustained period of financial prosperity," says Lynch, "and they have no memory of job security. They don't even expect Social Security to be there for them later on. In one study, young adults said they believed they were more likely to see an alien spacecraft than ever to receive a Social Security check."

What does that mean in the context of the current downturn? And what qualities do Gen Yers bring to business during tough times? "Try optimism and hard work," writes Lynch. "You'd expect a generation raised on insecurity to be cynical like the Generation Xers who preceded them," she adds,

but that's not so. Prodigious volunteers and politically active (look at the record numbers who voted in this election), 20-somethings tend to bring can-do confidence to big problems. If you think of this group as trust fund babies, think again. In 2006, 37% of Ys between the ages of 16 and 19 held jobs.

Lynch goes on to list four things employers can do to ensure that their young workers weather the financial storm:

• Share information with them freely. Don't let them hear news about your business or your industry from anybody else first. Info is the air Millennials/Gen Yers breath. They respond to lots of info, even bad news, with trust. And trust creates loyalty.
  
  
• Tell the young people in your organization that it's time to be entrepreneurial inside the organization. Ask them to show you how they can be useful and what extra projects they can take on. Expect them to rise to the challenge, and many of them will.
  
  
• Be prepared to follow their lead. Because they're so heavily networked, Millennials/Gen Yers are the people most likely to scout out new trends, ideas, and markets first. Charge your Ys with finding solutions that will see your business through the crisis.
  
  
• Last but not least, put your mentoring programs on steroids. Link Millennials with your most experienced baby boomers. Pairings with professionals who have seen hard times before will enhance loyalty among the Gen Y talent you want to retain at a time when you need it most.

Good advice. Do you know of an organization that has done something creative to take advantage of the talents of its Gen Y employees during this downturn? What other steps can nonprofit leaders take to put the experience of their employees, of all ages, to good use? Use the comments section to share your thoughts....

-- Regina Mahone

2009 CGI: Where Did Our Love Go?

Can't put my finger on it, but the mood at this year's Clinton Global Initiative is, well...different. I'm not saying the event has jumped the shark. But something -- okay, a lot -- has changed over the last year. In no particular order, here's a short list:

• The Democratic Party has a new star, and his name is not Clinton.
• The rich donors and donor countries that were supposed to save the world almost drove it off a cliff (and still might). The idea that nonprofits and NGOs have much to learn from Wall Street and Harvard MBAs has been opened to question, if not ridicule. People don't want to hear the CEOs of Goldman Sachs and ExxonMobil, both of which pulled in record profits last year during the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, talk about leverage or incremental approaches; they want to hear what resource-rich organizations are doing to address and fix problems now.
• The financial crisis has drawn the curtain on the complex, interdependent systems that drive the global economy, causing many people to feel helpless and/or disempowered. Who can say that he or she is master of his or her own destiny anymore?
• In the wake of the financial crisis, previously flush-feeling donors and foundations have cut back on funding, leaving many to anxiously wonder what philanthropy in the Reset Economy is going to look like.
• The explosion of social networking and social media tools -- and the collapse of traditional media business models -- has put lots of people out of work and served as a reminder to the rest of us (as if we needed one) that all bets are off, there are no guarantees, and the only constant at this hinge moment in history is change itself.
• The suffocating security in advance of President Obama's appearance at the opening plenary on Monday (and, for that matter, ever since) is a sobering reminder that extremism, foreign-bred as well as homegrown, is alive and well.

Or maybe it's just because since Sunday I've been battling what I hope is only a cold.

So as not to be a complete drag, I'll leave you with this thought from Alan Cohen, the popular speaker and best-selling author:

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power....

I hope so.

-- Mitch Nauffts

Still Hurting

Financial armageddon has been averted. A second Great Depression is off the table and, thanks to the bold actions of central bankers and governments around the globe, the "Great Recession" is on its way to becoming an unpleasant memory. Or so policy makers and the financial press would have us believe.

Not surprisingly, the reality for folks on Nonprofit Street is a little different, as two new snapshots of economic conditions in the Midwest make clear.

Based on a survey of nearly four hundred nonprofits in the Milwaukee metro area, the 13th Annual Report Card on Charitable Giving from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation found that the economic downturn has caused a drop in giving, with 63 percent of the respondents saying the state of philanthropy in the region is getting worse. And of organizations providing direct services to clients, 62 percent said that demand for assistance is increasing.

Other findings from the report:

• More than 80 percent of organizations have cut costs due to budget constraints, and one in four has laid off staff;
• Only one in four organizations describe themselves as financially healthy and not currently vulnerable;
• Over half of the organizations surveyed have six months or less operating reserve, while 31 percent say they are running an operating deficit in the current fiscal year;
• Half the nonprofits responding to the survey have considered collaborating with another nonprofit within the past year, nearly one in three has explored merging with another nonprofit, and five have considered closing.

The news isn't much better in Chicagloand, where the most recent installment of Metro Chicago Vital Signs, a monthly report from the Chicago Community Trust, found continued distress in the metro area's economic health. To wit:

• The region’s unemployment rate remains above the state and national averages at 10.5 percent;
• While remaining steady in the second quarter, layoffs rose sharply in July to 25,119 -- well above the 7,674 at the same time last year;
• Food security continues to be a problem for many in the region, with the number of households relying on food stamps reaching record highs, at more than 470,000, and the number of individuals relying on food pantries climbing back above 400,000;
• Calls for homelessness prevention aid remained steady in August, at over 5,400;
• A drop in foreclosures around the region in the second quarter, which many attribute to the Illinois Homeowner Protection act signed into law in April, may be short lived, with preliminary data for the third quarter revealing a sharp increase in foreclosures after the 90-day period in which homeowners are allowed extra time to deal with possible eviction.

As New York Times columnist Bob Herbert has been pointing out for months now, the country is in the midst of an employment crisis. Indeed, in the current issue of TIME magazine, Joshua Cooper Ramo reports that the number of long-term unemployed (more than twenty-seven weeks) in August was the highest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the number in 1948, while the total number of nonfarm payroll jobs today -- roughly 133 million -- is about the same as it was in 1999.

"That is why," writes Ramo, "the problem of how America works needs to become the focus of an urgent national debate. The jobs crisis," he adds

offers an opportunity to think in profound ways about how and why we work, about what makes employment satisfying, about the jobs Americans can and should do best. But the ideas Washington has delivered so far are insufficient. They reflect a pre-9%-11% way of thinking as much as old defense policy reflected a pre-9/11 notion of who our enemies were. The funding for job creation in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was based on an assumed 8.9% unemployment rate. Now 15% is a realistic possibility. And yet we're hearing few interesting ideas about how to enhance America's already groaning unemployment support system as millions of Americans sit idle. Tangled in the debate over health care -- and bleeding political capital -- the White House may find itself too weak and distracted to deal with the danger of joblessness....

That would be a tragedy.

Starting tomorrow, I'll be blogging from the 5th annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in midtown Manhattan. CGI is one of the premier gatherings of the movers, shakers, and thought leaders responsible for maintaining and improving the architecture of globalization. And globalization has been one of the most important factors -- if not the most important -- in the restructuring of the American labor market over the last thirty years. I'll be very interested to hear what the many panelists -- and former President Clinton himself, who voiced his concern at last year's CGI meeting about a populist backlash in this country against free trade and global money flows -- have to say about the issue.

In the meantime, you can vote on whether the recession is over in our current PND poll. Or weigh in below on the jobs crisis, the growing pressure on safety-net services, and/or the impact of globalization on American workers.

-- Mitch Nauffts

Weekend Link Roundup (September 19 - 20, 2009)

This week's roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Communications/Marketing

Marketing expert Seth Godin riled up a few people earlier this week by suggesting that the problem with nonprofits is that they tend to resist the very thing they profess to be about: change. Writes Godin:

When was the last time you had an interaction with a non-profit (there's that word again) that blew you away?

Please don't tell me it's about a lack of resources. The opportunities online are basically free, and if you don't have a ton of volunteers happy to help you, then you're not working on something important enough. The only reason not to turn this over to hordes of crowds eager to help you is that it means giving up total control and bureaucracy. Which is scary because it leads to change.

If you spend any time reading marketing blogs, you'll find thousands of case studies of small (and large) innovative businesses that are shaking things up and making things happen. And not enough of these stories are about non-profits. If your non-profit isn't acting with as much energy and guts as it takes to get funded in Silicon Valley or featured on Digg, then you're failing in your duty to make change....

Writing on the CauseWired blog, Tom Watson, author of the book of the same name, says that just because the meme that "nonprofits are afraid of change" has been around for a while doesn't mean it's accurate. On the contrary, says Watson, many nonprofits "hate change less than vast swaths of the corporate world." Sure, Watson adds, control and bureaucracy can be big problems with nonprofits. But

does anyone now living believe that the most philanthropic nation in the history of the world should devolve its nonprofit and service sector into a crowd-sourced cyberlibertarian throw of the dice at utopia....

It's a great line, and Watson's rebuttal to Godin has sparked a great conversation (more than thirty comments and half a dozen follow-up posts by other bloggers), which you can follow here.

On the Have Fun Do Good blog, Britt Bravo reminds nonprofits about the ways they can use blogs to engage their audiences:

1. Share your expertise
2. Share breaking news within your field
3. Share the story behind your brand
4. Share your community's opinions
5. Share notes and photos from events
6. Share notes and photos from the field
7. Share organizational news as it happens
8. Use it as your website

Economy

Gen Y blogger Rosetta Thurman addresses a subject near and dear to her heart: the plight of young nonprofit professionals in an economy that no longer generates a sufficient number of jobs. Thurman cites the following stats from a recent AFL-CIO report:

• More than half of young workers earn less than $30,000;
• More than one in three young workers say they are currently living at home with their parents;
• 31 percent of young workers do not have health insurance coverage;
• One-third of young workers cannot pay the bills and seven in ten do not have enough saved to cover two months of living expenses.

"There are so many opportunities for the younger generation of nonprofit workers to contribute to the success of organizations imperiled by the recession, but we’re clearly missing them," adds Thurman. "This is why if you are a young nonprofit professional, you must be prepared to be your own best advocate. No one is going to do it for you, especially in these difficult economic times.

Nonprofits aren't the only institutions struggling to keep their doors open. Public library systems all over the country have been curtailing their hours and services, and some are in danger of closing, writes Allison Jones on her Entry Level Living blog. And that's a tragedy, says Jones, not just because we're losing free access to books; "we also risk losing safe public spaces for community meetings...and most importantly, personal growth."

Fundraising

Technology has not only changed the way organizations communicate online but also the nature of "do-gooding" and how Americans take action in support of charitable causes, writes Cynthia Gibson. "Membership may be moving from check-writing to signing up for email lists," she adds, "but that

may reflect a new generation of young people who’ve grown up with technology and are using it to go around traditional institutions and make change in ways they believe are more cost-efficient and get results more quickly. Rather than writing checks to big institutions or taking to the streets in protest, young people who care about an issue can whip up a powerful protest movement [online]....

A new paper by the Monitor Institute, Working Wikily 2.0: Social Change with a Network Mindset, suggests nonprofits will have to begin working with a network mindset -- embracing principles like openness, transparency, decentralized decision-making, and distributed action -- and that doing so can help funders and activists increase their impact....

Health

Bob Ottenhoff, president and CEO of GuideStar, takes a closer look at how nonprofit medical cooperatives might work.

International Affairs/Development

At the GiveWell blog, Holden Karnofsky argues that "repayment rate" should not be the only metric used to evaluate the impact of microfinance institutions.

Journalism/Media

Wrriting on his blog, Geoff Dougherty, editor at the Chi-Town Daily News, explains why he and his colleagues are abandoning the site and their nonprofit businesses model to launch a new, for-profit local news venture. Jim Barnett, a copy editor at the Washington Post who blogs at the Nieman Journalism Lab site, thinks Dougherty et al are throwing in the towel too soon. Writes Barnett:

The hard truth...is that it takes more than four years to build a donor base and diversify sources of revenue to sustain a nonprofit. The fact that Dougherty got to $300,000 in just four years is a major accomplishment. Sure, it's easy to look at an outfit like ProPublica and wish that you too could find a benefactor willing to put up $10 million a year to pay for your newsroom. But that kind of one-stop shopping isn’t a business model; it's a lightning strike -- something that the people who run ProPublica know better than anybody....

I don't doubt that Dougherty and his team knocked on every door they thought possible before giving up on CTDN. But the great strength of the nonprofit model, I believe, is that it puts the needs of the newsroom ahead of all others. More importantly, it treats socially responsible journalism not as a product, but as a cause greater than any individual institution that serves it....

(H/t: Give and Take)

Philanthropy

Writing on the Second Line blog, Albert Ruesga, president/CEO of the Greater New Orleans Foundation, asks: What's the line between public and private responsibility when it comes to providing healthcare, education, and other services for the poor? And: Is it the proper role of foundations to plug the gaps created by retreating public funds?

Weighin in with another thought-provoking post, Lucy Bernholz argues that "data are the new platform for change" and "will continue to fundamentally alter how philanthropic capital flows."

Public Affairs

Alan Khazei, founder of Be the Change -- an organization that played a major role in securing passage of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act earlier this year -- has announced that he will run for the U.S. Senate seat occupied for forty-three years by Senator Kennedy. Does he have a chance? asks Nathaniel Whittemore, who concludes that "It's hard to say...."

Social Media

As part of the Case Foundation's Gear Up for Giving program, Katya Andresen lists six common mistakes nonprofit organizations make when getting involved in social marketing:

1. We fear losing control
2. We think social networking is a way to get our message out
3. We see dollar signs
4. We fail to set small, achievable goals
5. We forget to set some ground rules
6. We give up when we make mistakes.

Is Twitter a micro-blogging site? Allison Fine thinks it functions more like a social network, "where interesting ideas and exchanges are happening that we can participate in, or watch, just as we would at a neighborhood diner."

Last but not least, YouTube, the video-hosting site, has taken its nonprofit program to the next level and now allows nonprofits to annotate their videos with "Donate" or "Sign this Petition" links. Guest blogging on Beth Kanetr's blog, Michael Hoffman, CEO of See3 Communications provides additional background on the new feature, including this video.

What did we forget? Drop us a note at rnm@foundationcenter.org. Have a great week!

-- Regina Mahone

From the Answer Desk: Contingency and Scenario Planning -- What's the Difference and How Do Nonprofits Get Started?

(This entry has been cross-posted on the Foundation Center's Philanthropy Front and Center-Cleveland blog.)

A: Both are structured ways for organizations to think about the future. In the context of planning, the terms "contingency" and "scenario" are sometimes used interchangeably. In simple terms, a contingency plan can be described as your organization’s "Plan B" or "worst case scenario" and is often tied to something specific, like a natural disaster. They are also sometimes called business continuity plans or disaster recovery plans. Scenario planning, on the other hand, is a “strategic planning method expressly developed to test the viability of alternative strategies," according to Mal Warwick in his book, Fundraising When Money is Tight. Warwick suggests six steps for creating an effective scenario plan, starting with exploring answers to the question, "What keeps you awake at night?," to draw out fundamental issues, and concluding with testing your strategic choices using "what-if" reasoning. Warwick describes scenario planning in detail and goes on to suggests Peter Schwartz’s classic 1991 book, The Art of the Long View, for further reading. (Listen to our February 2009 podcast with Mal Warwick here.)

In the July 2, 2009 Chronicle of Philanthropy article "Worst Case Scenarios," author Ben Gose advocates that forming a contingency plan can help a nonprofit navigate the recession more successfully. Offering tips ranging from setting priorities and identifying "trip wires" (actions to take when revenues drop, for example), Gose cautions that organizations must come to terms with the fact that "painful decisions will still have to be made." However, Mr. Gose goes on to note that during contingency planning "a charity may find that a program it considered cutting is in fact worth saving, and that finding can make a compelling story for donors."

Additional resources:

Financial Scenario Planning for an Uncertain Future
Slides from a presentation made by Emil Angelica at the June 2009 annual conference of Dance USA.

Nonprofits Assistance Fund Scenario Planning Worksheet
A "step by step guide to nonprofit contingency planning."

ScenarioThinking.org
Open community on scenario thinking and scenario planning where you can publish scenarios, reflect on the planning processes and share online resources about scenario planning in a democratic and inclusive manner.

Do you have a question? Ask Us!

-- Rob Bruno

2009 Clinton Global Intiative Annual Meeting

As I have for the past couple of years, I'll be blogging the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City next week. Billed as "the only venue where business, government, and civil-sector leaders work together to plan and launch specific projects to address global economic, environmental, and social challenges," this year's CGI meeting will overlap with the 64th session of the UN General Assembly and the G-20 summit (Sept.24-25) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and, per usual, will feature a Who's Who of public-, private-, and third-sector leaders.

Here's the schedule:

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Opening Plenary: A Call To Action
Time: 4:00 – 5:45 P.M.

The opening plenary will frame the agenda for the three days to follow. World leaders will identify critical areas for action and collaboration across a multitude of sectors, ranging from education, energy and climate change to global health and the reduction of poverty. Recognizing the stresses that stakeholders are feeling due to the economic downturn, CGI's four program areas will stress achievable ways to empower communities; harness innovation for development; strengthen infrastructure; develop human capital; finance a sustainable future; and invest in girls and women.

• William Jefferson Clinton, 42nd President, United States of America; Founding Chair, Clinton Global Initiative
• Her Excellency Michelle Bachelet, President of the Republic of Chile
• The Honorable Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia
• Mike Duke, President and CEO, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
• Muhtar Kent, President and CEO, Coca-Cola Company

Special Session: The G20 and its Impact on Global Challenges
Time: 6:00 – 7:00 P.M.

With a focus on major modern challenges -- growing populations, natural resource scarcity, global warming, dynamic global and financial markets, strains on social systems, and incomplete economic opportunity for billions of people -- this session will enable G20 Heads of State who represent the largest economies in the world to preview their positions in advance of the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Special Session: Approaches to Innovation
Time: 9:00 - 10:30 A.M.

At a time when the world finds itself on an unsustainable course, facing an increasing number of complex challenges for which traditional approaches are no longer sufficient, innovation -- the transformation of ideas into new strategies, products and practices -- stands as a key to addressing many of the issues confronting us today, from energy and education to healthcare and the environment. During this session, innovation experts will discuss the importance of innovation as a vehicle for building a sustainable future. Where does innovation begin? What should be the role of government in promoting and facilitating innovation? Which countries are leading the charge, and how do you best position yourself and your organization to take advantage? This panel will provide a broad introduction to innovation, various approaches to cultivate it, and implications for those who pursue it and those who don't.

• John Kao, Chairman and Founder, Institute for Large Scale Innovation

Plenary: Investing in Girls and Women
Time: 10:45 - 12:15 P.M.

Even though women make up 50 percent of the world's population, girls and women continuously lack the same access as men to education, health care, jobs, and the political arena. Smart businesses appreciate that increased support for girls and women is integral to fostering successful markets for the future. Innovative programs are already producing remarkable results, and far-seeing countries and organizations are finding that reaching out to girls and women deepens confidence, creates opportunity, and raises profits. This panel will examine a few notable success stories.

• Lloyd C. Blankfein, Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
• Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director, World Bank
• Zainab Salbi, Founder and CEO, Women for Women International
• Diane Sawyer, Co-Anchor, Good Morning America, ABC Broadcasting
• Rex Tillerson, Chief Executive Officer, ExxonMobil Corporation
• Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Women’s Issues, U.S. State Department

Plenary Session: Harnessing Innovation for Development
Time: 1:00 - 2:15 P.M.

2008 will come to be recognized as the turning point, when a series of crises gripped the planet: the spike in oil prices, the world food shortage, and the global financial meltdown. Add these crises to the list of ongoing mega-problems and it becomes clear that innovation on a massive scale is required to move us toward a more sustainable world. This plenary will explore the innovation strategies needed to effectively address the planetary crisis we now face.

• Matthew Bishop, New York bureau chief and American business editor, The Economist
• Al Gore, Co-Founder and Chairman, Generation Investment Management
• Jack Ma, Chairman and CEO, Alibaba Group,/li>
• Judith Rodin, President, Rockefeller Foundation
• Muhammad Yunus, Founder and Managing Director, Grameen Bank
• Robert Zoellick, President, World Bank Group

Special Session: From CEO to NGO
Time: 5:00 – 6:00 P.M.

During this session, former executives will come together to discuss the importance of philanthropy and how their background in the private sector has allowed them to effectively run nonprofit organizations and foundations. Now that their main focus is on improving the global community not their bottom line, what advice do they have for the private sector? And what do they know from their current work that they wish they had known when they were running multi-million dollar enterprises?

• Eli Broad, Founder, Broad Foundation
• Chrystia Freeland, U.S. Managing Editor, Financial Times
• Ted Turner, Chairman, Turner Enterprises, Inc.
• Bob Wright, Co-Founder, Autism Speaks; Senior Advisor, Lee Equity Partners

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Plenary Session: Strengthening Infrastructure
Time: 9:00 – 10:00 A.M.

Strong and vibrant infrastructure is central to solving pressing global challenges, from improving healthcare delivery and reducing poverty and hunger to fixing slums and responding to global warming. But today we are seriously under-investing in the world's physical and institutional infrastructure. Public works investments and new information technology can provide a foundation for recovery by facilitating job creation, unleashing private-sector investment, and promoting an equitable transition to a lower-carbon and more prosperous global economy. This plenary will explore how strategic public investment in smarter infrastructure can create opportunities for industry, address deep social needs, promote effective public-private collaboration, and jumpstart the world economy.

• Kofi Annan, Former Secretary-General, United Nations; Chairman, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa
• John T. Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco
• Carlos Ghosn, President and CEO, Renault Nissan
• Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and CEO, General Electric
• Ray Suarez, Senior Correspondent, The NewsHour

Plenary Session: Creating Good Jobs and Strong Communities
Time: 1:00 – 2:00 P.M.

Access to education, health care, and work is an essential foundation for a prosperous community. It is more important than ever in the face of the recession, which has cost 50 million jobs and pushed millions back into poverty. Yet some 180 million children work instead of attending school. Many in school fail to achieve their potential because of a lack of teachers. Even in developed countries, young people do not get the education they need to succeed in the high-tech knowledge economy that will determine future competitiveness. But there are inspiring examples of partnerships between companies, governments and civic leaders who are building opportunity in a way that makes sound business sense. This session will identify practical ways for more partners to act.

• Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah, Queen of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
• Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Chairman and CEO, Carlson Companies
• Nicholas D. Kristof, Columnist, The New York Times; Co-Author, Half the Sky
• Andrew Liveris, President, CEO and Chairman, Dow Chemical Company
• Carlos Slim Helú, Chairman and CEO, Grupo Carso
• Hilda Solis, United States Secretary of Labor

Friday, September 25, 2009

Plenary Session: Moving from Crisis to Opportunity – Financing an Equitable Future Time: 9:00 – 10:00 A.M.

The plenary will address how to move beyond the current economic and financial crisis to tap innovative sources of financing that can provide stable, ethical, and scalable funding for organizations addressing the world's most challenging problems.

• Fazel Abed, Founder and Chairman, BRAC
• Maria Bartiromo, Anchor, CNBC
• James Dimon, Chairman and CEO, JP Morgan Chase & Co.
• Peter Sands, Chief Executive Officer, Standard Chartered PLC

Closing Plenary Session
Time: 1:00 – 2:00 P.M.

The closing plenary will highlight progress over the past five years, showcase the accomplishments of the 2009 Annual Meeting, and inspire attendees to continue their work via Commitments to Action in the year ahead with a keynote address from Hillary R. Clinton, United States Secretary of State, and closing remarks from President Clinton.

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Should be an interesting three days. And the CGI team always does an excellent job with the live feed. Stay tuned for details.

-- Mitch Nauffts

Philanthropy's Leadership Moment?

It's been a year since Lehman Brothers, the New York City investment bank, declared bankruptcy, turning what had been a somewhat mysterious credit crunch into a full-fledged global financial panic.

Much has happened in the intervening twelve months. The country elected a new president, the first African American chief executive in its 233-year history. Housing prices and the stock market tanked, erasing trillions of dollars of homeowner and investor equity. Private endowments, and the smart people who manage them, suffered right along with Main Street. Employers followed the markets' lead and cut jobs with a vengeance. By summer, the "official" unemploment rate was approaching 10 percent and poised to go higher. Meanwhile, on Nonprofit Street, demand for services was up and donations and grant revenue were down, sometimes dramatically so. And on Wall Street, the deck chairs were rearranged, gaping holes on bank balance sheets were plugged (with taxpayer dollars), and the good ship Business As Usual was sent on its jolly way.

If you detect a note of disbelief in that last sentence, well, forgive me; it's been that kind of year. And what about foundations? Have they risen to the occasion over the last year, as Steve Gunderson, president and CEO of the Council on Foundation, argues in a recent Washington Post op-ed (Philanthropy's Leadership Moment")?

In his piece, Gunderson points out that, in October, as some really serious stuff was hitting the fan, he and CoF board chair Ralph Smith sent an open letter to the field encouraging foundations "to rise and face the new economic realities."

In the letter, Gunderson and Smith asked CoF members and philanthropic leaders to do three things:

1. Reach out to their nonprofit partners and find ways to maintain service amidst the economic crisis;
2. Use philanthropy's convening power to help communities and regions develop appropriate strategies to meet their respective needs; and
3. Pay special attention to those circumstances where philanthropic mergers, consolidations, and outright evaporation of resources resulted in the immediate loss of support for local nonprofit services.

In PND, we've tracked and published dozens of stories about foundations, large and small, that have stepped up to the plate in this difficult time. And our Foundation Center colleagues have gathered additional information on the response to the crisis by the hundred largest foundations.

Now we want to hear from you. How would you rate the foundation response to the crisis? How have foundations done in terms of the three criteria laid out by Gunderson and Smith above? And, keeping in mind the old adage "If you've seen one foundation, you've seen one foundation," what more could or should foundations be doing to mitigate the pernicious effects of this downturn? Use the comments section below...

--Mitch Nauffts

Sign of the Times

(The following letter was sent to Jacksonville City Council vice president Jack Webb on July 22. The letter was signed by eighteen Florida philanthropies, including the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, the Community Foundation in Jacksonville, the Jacksonville Jaguars Foundation, and United Way of Northeast Florida....)

Dear Councilman Webb:

According to published reports, if the mayor's proposed budget is not passed, nonprofit-related programs and entities in Jacksonville will experience cuts amounting to $15 million.

Many in Jacksonville believe that private funders will contribute money to make up for these cuts.

This is a myth.

The reality is this:

Jacksonville's major private funders have lost, on average, 25% of their assets during the recession. To make up for the $15 million in budget cuts, these funders would have to increase their grantmaking 27% over pre-recession levels. That is not realistic.

Moreover, individual giving dropped 6.3% during 2008 (Giving USA) and there are no signs it is rebounding.

In addition, a recent survey conducted by the Conference Board indicates that 45% of businesses surveyed have already reduced their 2009 corporate giving budgets and an additional 16% were considering cuts in their 2009 philanthropy budgets as well.

There simply is no safety net of private funding available to replace government dollars for these nonprofit programs and entities.

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-- Mitch Nauffts