PhilanTopic

New Racial Equity Statement From Woods Fund of Chicago

I haven't come across many statements like the one below, but in light of the debate over diversity (or lack thereof) in the sector, I thought it was worth noting. According to a note on the Woods Fund Web site, the fund "has chosen to employ a racial equity lens and adopt this core principle to help our foundation think more intentionally about addressing inequities both internally, within the communities in which we operate, and beyond."

Here's the statement:

The Woods Fund of Chicago believes that structural racism is a root cause of many challenges facing less-advantaged communities and people and serves as a significant barrier to enabling work and eradicating poverty. The Woods Fund encourages and supports organizations, initiatives, and policy efforts that lead to eliminating structural racism. Success in this area will be evident when there is equal distribution of privileges and burdens among all races and ethnic groups, and when a person's race or ethnicity does not determine his or her life outcomes. Woods Fund will support organizations that pay disciplined attention to race and ethnicity while they analyze problems, look for solutions, and define and document success. Ideally, these organizations will incorporate an analysis of structural racism into all aspects of their operations. Woods Fund is committed to raising awareness in the philanthropic community to support this work.

You know what they say: It only takes a pebble to start a landslide.

-- Mitch Nauffts

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

Quote of the Day (September 12, 2009)

"[W]hile the more egregious examples of incivility and intolerance, magnified by the mass media and mass markets, may give us a momentary sense of despair, the same developments in technology and mass communications offer ample opportunity -- if we seize them with energetic creativity and imagination -- to balance the incivility with a more dialogical and useful discourse. The accumulating changes of two centuries of urbanization, exploration, economic expansion, social and political development, technological invention, and explosive growth in knowledge and professional expertise are bearing fruit. From within the dominant paradigm of mass-market democratic capitalism, now almost global in acceptance, these forces are creating a world of enormous risk -- but also enormous potential...."

-- Stephen P. Steinberg, Public Discourse in America: Conversation and Community in the Twenty-First Century (ed. Judith Rodin, Stephen P. Steinberg)

ANNOUNCEMENT: Greater New Orleans Foundation Launches Community IMPACT Program

We've had a great response to the Newsmaker interview we did with Albert Ruesga, president and CEO of the Greater New Orleans Foundation. So before interest in post-recovery Katrina efforts begins to fade, we'd like to take a moment to publicize a new program just announced by the foundation.

The Community IMPACT Program will award $1 million in grants in six areas -- arts and culture, children and youth, civic engagement and nonprofit support, education, health, and human and social services -- to nonprofit organizations serving the thirteen-parish Greater New Orleans metro region. According a press release issued by the foundation, the ultimate goal of the program is "to create a resilient, sustainable, vibrant, and equitable region in which individuals and families flourish and in which the special character of the New Orleans region and its people is preserved, celebrated, and given the means to develop."

More from the release:

Who can apply?
Nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations that serve the Greater New Orleans region. Organizations that are not tax-exempt but have a fiscal agent relationship with a 501(c)(3) organization are also eligible.

How to apply?

1. Submit a two- to three-page Letter of Intent by September 22, 2009. To review what the Letter of Intent should include, click here. Hard copies of the information can also be picked up at the Greater New Orleans Foundation offices, 1055 St. Charles Avenue, Suite 100. GNOF will review all Letters of Intent and will notify organizations invited to complete a full application by October 12, 2009.
2. Those invited to submit a full application will be asked to submit their proposals by November 2, 2009. Awards will be announced by December 11, 2009.

Obviously, this is good news for the region and for nonprofits working to serve those who live there. But as Tony Pipa, a frequent contributor to PhilanTopic, reminded me in a comment he made in an earlier thread, there's a lot left to do. Writes Tony:

[W]hile I think there have been particular instances of philanthropy performing admirably, I think there is also much room for improvement in that response overall, and I hope that the sector takes an unvarnished look at its response and learns from the lessons. In regards to federal involvement, it's not so much whether there will continue to be support, but how that support is deployed and whether it gets to the people, businesses, and communities that really need it.

In answer to your question, many foundations (even some of the ones you mention) are wrapping up their commitments in the Gulf Coast, figuring that they've "done their part" for the recovery. If they take a second look at the Gulf Coast, though, I think they'd recognize that with the amount of creative community-problem solving going on, there are many lessons for them to learn by investing there that they could apply in other places. It requires looking at New Orleans and the Coast with new eyes, not as a region still trying to recover from crisis but as one looking to the future with energy and innovation....

We all know that foundations and individual donors were hit hard by the financial crisis. And while portfolios have recovered some of their losses and the economy may be bottoming, the future is uncertain. As Tony suggests, however, it is way too early to declare "Mission accomplished" in the Gulf. "Full recovery," still years away, should be our starting point, not a final goal. The "region was poor before the storms," Ruesga told me when I spoke to him. "The city suffered from so-called white flight in the '70s and '80s, and the region as a whole, being largely rural, suffered from years of public underinvestment."

I don't know about you, but I believe the affluent and well-to-do have done just fine over the last thirty years. It's time we turned our attention and really invested -- in thoughtful, creative, and sustainable ways -- in the poor and most vulnerable among us.

--Mitch Nauffts

New Orleans: Moving from Muddle to Model

(Tony Pipa is a regular contributor to PhilanTopic. In his last post, he reviewed Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa.)

The fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent failure of the levees in New Orleans will occur in just a few short days. Certainly the recovery of this iconic American city is far from complete and has been fraught with challenges. Halting and inadequate leadership at all levels of government has been too much on display, beginning with the flooding itself, a direct result of corners cut by the Army Corps of Engineers (with an assist from local management boards) when building and managing the levee system.* 

And yet where government has struggled, citizens have demonstrated resilience, creativity, and good old-fashioned guts. I truly believe that New Orleans has the highest level of civic engagement of any city in the United States right now. Residents keep up with what is happening in their neighborhoods, they voice their concerns, they try to come up with solutions. New Orleans is a city of neighborhoods, and almost every neighborhood has a vibrant, active grassroots group guiding its renewal. Organizations like Neighborhoods Partnership Network link them together and ensure shared support and vision.

Take Central City. A troubled neighborhood pre-Katrina, two of its public housing complexes are slated to be redeveloped with mixed-use housing, schools, and recreational facilities; an architecturally significant school, Mahalia Jackson Elementary, is being repurposed into a community resource center with cutting-edge early childhood development programs and integrated social services; and the business corridor along O.C. Haley Boulevard is being revitalized with streetscape improvements, loans leveraged from the city, and the possible use of land trusts to drive more locally-owned commercial development.

As someone who was on the ground almost immediately after the storm and frustrated, especially in the first year, by what I perceived to be an uncertain and overly conventional response from the foundation world, I have to admit that the recovery has also provided several instances of philanthropy at its best:

Philanthropy has taken risks. The Rockefeller Foundation and Greater New Orleans Foundation walked right into the middle of a hornet's nest when they provided the backing, both financial and political, for the United New Orleans Plan, a process that successfully involved many residents and put an end to the endless planning processes that kept springing up as the city tried to get off the mat. While the jury is still out on the effectiveness of school reform, the philanthropic sector has played an important role in the effort to use charter schools to turn around and redefine what was arguably the country's worst public school system.

Philanthropy has focused on building capacity. The Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health has been advised by a committee of local grassroots leaders and has focused on supporting emerging activists and initiatives. In addition to strengthening the local nonprofit sector, foundations have even experimented with building the capacity of the public sector. The Ford Foundation, working in partnership with the Foundation for the Mid South and leveraging help from the Rockefeller Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, developed a loaned executive program to expand the pool of skilled professionals in city government.

Philanthropy has collaborated. Central City's renaissance has been catalyzed in part by a group of almost twenty foundations and corporations that have been intentional in integrating their approaches and communicating regularly about their work.

Philanthropy has been an advocate. The policy advocacy capacity of the Louisiana nonprofit sector was weak prior to the storm, and foundations both local and national have made significant investments to strengthen it and give it real voice at the federal, state, and local levels. In particular, the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, formed in the aftermath of the storm, has made public policy advocacy a real focus and incubated the Equity and Inclusion Campaign, a multi-state, multi-issue coalition of grassroots leaders advocating at the federal level.**

"Social innovation" has become an overused buzz phrase, but it's genuinely happening in myriad ways along the Gulf Coast. By the same token, the recovery has demonstrated the limitation of private action for the public good. After the largest charitable response in the nation's history, the work of thousands of volunteers from outside the area, and the tireless efforts of tens of thousands of residents, the challenges remain daunting. An estimated 65,000 properties in the city are blighted, the healthcare safety net is frayed (mental health services are a particular concern), and affordable housing is in short supply.

As the city shifts from a recovery mindset to a future-oriented vision, not quite halfway through what most residents consider to be a ten-year process, an improved governmental response will be critical to its success. Given the strong philanthropic and nonprofit presence, I think the opportunity exists for the Obama administration to make practical the new sort of relationship it has proposed between government and the social/philanthropic sector. New Orleans is starting to emerge as a model, with lessons for all of us, for all the right reasons. Too much hangs in the balance to walk away now.

-- Tony Pipa

* It is past infuriating how most media focus on "the storm" when describing what happened in New Orleans. New Orleans, in contrast to the towns along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, withstood Katrina's fury. Most people forget the sigh of relief the city breathed once the hurricane passed -- and before it became apparent that water was pouring through the cracks. What befell New Orleans was a man-made disaster, not a natural one.

** Disclaimer: I am a founder of the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation and continue to consult with it and other foundations and NGOs working in the region.

Katrina: A Forgotten Crisis?

Well, yes, according to a recent study of print media coverage of post-Katrina poverty since 2005. The study by D.C.-based Freedman Consulting found that:

• Coverage of the relationship between Gulf Coast poverty and the effects of Katrina on residents of the region in U.S. newspapers and wires has declined steadily, reaching its lowest point in recent months;
• Coverage of Katrina in general, while also declining, has been relatively high; coverage of the relationship between poverty and Katrina has made up a very small portion of Katrina coverage;
• Coverage has declined not only in regional newspapers outside the Gulf Coast region, but also in twenty-five of the most read national and regional newspapers;
• Coverage in Gulf Coast newspapers has declined far less rapidly than it has in outside newspapers;
• Coverage of major celebrities and Gulf Coast sports teams has exceeded and in most cases dwarfed coverage of the relationship between povery and Katrina.

True, the Katrina story has had to compete with a number of other big stories, including the surge in Iraq and subsequent deterioration of what had been an improved security situation in that country; an historic presidential election; and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Not to mention the comings and goings of all the Britneys, Lindseys, and housewives of god knows where.

But the Katrina-Gulf Coast poverty story is huge, and, as the Freedman study makes clear, the fact that it's fading from media coverage is cause for concern.

We're not a major national media outlet (yet), but as we were looking ahead earlier this month to the fourth anniversary of Katrina, we decided to reach out to one of the smartest people we know, Albert Ruesga, president and CEO of the Greater New Orleans Foundation, for a local perspective on Katrina, the persistent poverty in the region, and what foundations and the rest of us can do about it.

Here's an excerpt from our conversation:

Philanthropy News Digest: How are residents of the city and region feeling about the recovery effort? Are people optimistic? Tired? Do they feel abandoned or forgotten?

Albert Ruesga: There's an abiding anger over the city, state, and federal responses, but the folks I work with in the nonprofit sector, in business, and in government are very upbeat and hopeful. The region has come a long way these past four years. Long-time New Orleanians love their city deeply and their love has sustained the region for many generations. Newcomers like myself share their passion and want to contribute to the region's recovery. We've been warmly welcomed.

There's an organization called 504ward dedicated to helping younger newcomers establish themselves in the city. "Five-oh-four" by the way, is the area code for the City of New Orleans. The organization was founded by one of our local heroes, Leslie Jacobs, who also played a key role in saving and reforming the Orleans Parish schools in the aftermath of the storms.

PND: What have been the chief obstacles to a speedier recovery -- in New Orleans and region-wide?

AR: Our region was poor before the storms. The city suffered from so-called white flight in the '70s and '80s, and the region as a whole, being largely rural, suffered from years of public underinvestment. The failure of the levees during Katrina put 80 percent of the city under water and devastated tens of thousands of homes and other structures. We lost two thousand souls to the storm. You don't snap back from that in just a few years.

We have no lack of volunteers willing to come from across the country to help us rebuild. We're deeply grateful for their generosity. I don't want to sound crass, but what we need most is money. Our nonprofit leaders are the smartest and most committed you'll find anywhere. After the failure of the levees, they didn't wait for government -- local, state, or federal -- to save them and their neighborhoods. They took action. But they can't survive on air. They need resources to invest in their programs and in themselves. Our local philanthropic institutions are stretched to the limits. We support many functions that are properly the domain of government. Our public institutions also need support as much as they need to be challenged to speed our recovery.

PND: Based on stories you've heard since you've been at GNOF, which organizations and agencies were especially effective in responding to the disaster and its aftermath? Which ones could have performed better? And which ones are still delivering the goods?

AR: Stories of heroism abound. In the aftermath of Katrina, many neighborhood associations sprung up whose acts of courage and generosity are legend. I think of organizations like the Broadmoor Improvement Association and the Lower 9th Ward Neighborhood Empowerment Association, Mary Queen of Viet Nam, and many others. They're still doing our region a world of good. There were many individual heroes and heroines acting without the support of private or public institutions as well.

Don't get me started on FEMA or the Army Corps of Engineers.

PND: Has the Obama administration been responsive to the plight of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast?

AR: We've had quite a few visits from members of the administration, and what we've seen during those visits is not only incredible sensitivity to the plight of the region, but also a very deep background in the kind of work the civil sector does. That's been refreshing. At the same time, one of the traps we have to be careful of not falling into is expecting that it's up to the Obama administration, it's up to a black president, to care for black people. It's not. It's the responsibility of every president and every legislator at every level....

PND: Katrina exposed some painful truths about New Orleans that had been hiding in plain sight -- entrenched poverty, an abysmal public school system, high levels of unemployment and crime, public sector corruption, a glaring divide between the region's haves and have-nots. That that was the reality for tens of thousands of the city's residents came as a shock to many Americans. Were you shocked by the racial and class disparities revealed by the storm and its aftermath?

AR: Not in the least. These disparities are endemic to every major city in the United States. It's consistently a tale of two cities in places like New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles -- wherever you go that has a significant minority population. I've had some of the most honest and fruitful conversations about race here in New Orleans, not in the cities of the East Coast. What was appalling to me, rather than shocking, was the lack of reflection and analysis in media coverage of the storm and its aftermath.

Its soul and its beauty aside, New Orleans is in many ways Every City....

To read the complete interview, click here.

-- Mitch Nauffts

'Envisioning Our Future': Let the Conversation Begin

As Michael Seltzer noted in a post yesterday, Independent Sector is kicking off its "Envisioning Our Future" initiative this week with a three-day "StrategyLab" event in Colorado Springs. The invitation-only event brings together some seventy-five nonprofit and philanthropic leaders -- presumably to discuss how they can turn IS's vision of "a national conversation about the challenges and possibilities that will shape the ability of nonprofits and foundations to improve lives for years to come" into reality.

Gen Y blogger Rosetta Thurman wrote a nice post about the initiative last week in which she expressed her concern (shared by others) that the effort, as conceived, will turn into a series of conversation involving "the same old leaders" talking about the same old topics. In a press release announcing this week's event, IS tackles that concern head on, noting (among other things) that the initiative will employ "an iterative process for problem solving using a number of highly participatory activities that encourage interaction among those with different perspectives"; and that it will work to "encourage participation from people associated with organizations of all sizes, mission areas, and locations, as well as from thought leaders throughout society."

Sounds reasonable to me, and I'm looking forward to seeing the initiative unfold over the next few months.

Not everyone is as patient as I am, however. In an "open letter" posted on his blog earlier today, Bill Huddleston, of the Huddleston Consulting Group, offers a list of seven nonprofit issues deserving of participants' "consideration, discussion, and action." Here's the Cliff Notes version:

1. Nonprofits have done a spectacularly lousy job of explaining themselves to the American public.

"Modern societies need three components to function: government, businesses, and nonprofits," writes Huddleston. "Nonprofits are the glue that holds society together, and while in the USA we have a market economy, our society is bigger than the economy. Nonprofits are inherently different than businesses. Governments are inherently different than businesses.... It is astounding how many nonprofit leaders (and political leaders) don't do a better job of communicating to the American public about the value of all three components of society, all of which are critical...."

2. The question "Are there too many nonprofits?" is the wrong question.

"A better question," writes Huddleston, "is: 'Have we solved all the problems that need solving?' Until the answer to that question is yes, then the answer to 'Are there too many profits' is "No, we don't have enough of the right nonprofits!' "

3. Scalabity is a false idol.

"Recognize the fact that we live in a complex world and some nonprofits need to be big in order to accomplish their mission," writes Huddleston. "Other nonprofits do not need to be big in order to be successful and in fact would fail if they were a different size."

4. Stop whining!

"There are way too many nonprofit leaders and professionals saying 'We don’t have a seat at the government table'," writes Huddleston. "More than 150 years ago," he adds, "Frederick Douglas got it right when he said: 'The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.' "

5. Don't forget the power of ordinary individuals achieving extraordinary results.'

"The nonprofit sector suffers from the same 'star CEO mentality' that has captured the business world...."

6. Baby Boomers aren't going to go away.

"The baby boom generation cohort has redefined our society at every age, from elementary school to Woodstock to today," writes Huddleston. "They may change jobs, change careers, go to some mixture of independent consulting and 'regular job' but they are not going to retire at 65 to go sit on a rocking chair and do nothing. Get used to having a very diverse workforce, including age diverse."

7. 'The Philanthropist' TV show should be supported.

"This is an incredible opportunity and benefit to the entire nonprofit sector," writes Huddleston. "THERE IS A PRIME TIME TV SHOW DEALING WITH NONPROFIT ISSUES! This is great! Don’t miss the forest for the trees, and I don't care whether or not you think 'it's not an accurate portrayal of the difficulties that nonprofit professionals face.' It is entertainment and it will generate interest and conversation about nonprofits! Believe me; you don't want to be hosting the panel three years from now on 'What could nonprofits have done better to have kept "The Philanthropist" from being canceled'.”

(Click here to read the complete post.)

So, that's one view of what those of us who work in or report on the nonprofit sector should be talking about at this critical juncture. What's yours? And has Independent Sector created a framework that is flexible and inclusive enough to support the conversations we'd all like to hear and be a part of?

Leave your comments below....

-- Mitch Nauffts

Targeting Grant Dollars by Population Group: The Debate Continues

(Larry McGill is the Foundation Center’s senior vice president for research. In a previous post, he wrote about the state of research on diversity in philanthropy.)

Ah, dueling research studies! Each making use of data from the same source -- the Foundation Center -- and each drawing different, yet not incompatible, conclusions. How can that be?

Published earlier this year, the NCRP report Criteria for Philanthropy at its Best analyzed available grants data coded by the Foundation Center as having benefited "marginalized populations" (as defined by NCRP using existing Foundation Center population group categories). The report noted carefully that it only counted grants explicitly targeted to serve such populations.

More recently, the Philanthropic Collaborative's Broad Benefits: Health-Related Giving by Private and Community Foundations analyzed both available grants data coded by the Foundation Center as well as a random sample of two hundred additional grants without population group coding. This allowed Phill Swagel, the report's author, to estimate the total benefit to marginalized populations of foundation giving in the field of health, whether or not these populations were explicitly targeted by grantmakers.

Both analyses make important points. If foundations aren't explicit about the intended beneficiaries of their grantmaking, then we can't know for sure that specific population groups have in fact been strategically targeted. NCRP argues that such strategic targeting is important.

On the other hand, even if foundations don't strategically target specific population groups, such groups may still benefit from their grantmaking. This is what TPC demonstrated in its report.

The third possibility, of course, is that foundations may not be telling us as much as they could about the population groups that benefit from their grantmaking. And that is surely true, as well.

And, by the way, let's remember that not all grantmaking should or even can be targeted to benefit specific population groups. NCRP's report recommends that grantmakers try to allocate at least 50 percent of their grantmaking to benefit marginalized populations, not all of it. That's an implicit acknowledgement that grantmaking cannot be reduced to simplistic equations such as “Grantmaking to Specific Population Groups = Good; “Grantmaking Not to Specific Population Groups = Bad.”

Fortunately, neither NCRP nor the Philanthropic Collaborative reduce the issue to such absurdities. My hat is off to both NCRP's Aaron Dorfman and Phill Swagel for the ways they have so effectively marshaled available data in the service of their respective causes. This is exactly the kind of conversation the Center's data on beneficiary populations should be generating.

-- Larry McGill

Why Grantmaking on Media Policy Still Matters

(Becky Lentz, an assistant professor of media and public policy at McGill University in Montreal, was program officer for electronic media policy at the Ford Foundation from 2001-2007. An initial version of this article was commissioned by Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media.)

Noteworthy U.S. journalist and media reform advocate Bill Moyers has said that "speech is the oxygen of democracy." Assuming he's right, then by analogy our communications infrastructure serves as its vital respiratory system. Yet, too few realize the importance of the media policies that govern how speech flows into and out of our democratic body politic in relation to how our democracy functions.

Media policy advocates for the public interest have won many significant victories in the past several years:

• defeating the FCC's media consolidation ruling of 2003;
• opening up new radio-frequency spectrum for wireless devices in 2008; and
• winning $7.2 billion in early 2009 for broadband build-out to underserved communities.

But what do these victories mean to John and Jane Q. Public and the well-being of our democracy?

Like environmental protection laws and regulations, media policy involves safeguarding our broadcasting and telecommunications environment. It guarantees non-discriminatory and affordable access to the means to speak and be heard. In today's increasingly globalized media and communications environment, keeping democracy's respiratory system for speech accessible requires diligent attention to how media policy issues are addressed -- by corporations, the Office of the President, Congress, the FCC and other regulatory agencies, as well as the courts. This is necessary because, increasingly, electronic communication networks form the backbone of many other essential public and private services such as education, health care, trade, economic development, national security, and finance. Yet, despite its significance, the dynamic field of public interest-oriented individuals and organizations involved in media policy work in the United States continues to receive less public and funder attention than its counterparts in these equally important issue sectors.

Media policy is no less important than, say, environmental policy. Unlike environmentalism, however, media policy issues are difficult to describe in ways that instantly engage hearts, minds, and imaginations. Consider asking a friend or family member what environmentalists do and you're likely to get a straightforward answer regardless of whether that person agrees with environmental activists' tactics or priorities: environmentalists work to protect scarce, essential, and therefore valuable public resources; the quality of our air, water, and land depend on it. Pose the same question about media policy advocates, and the question will probably inspire a puzzled response -- if you get one at all.

Unlike environmental and food or drug industry regulation, it is more difficult to "see" the impact of good or bad media policy. We "get," visually and viscerally, how poor regulation results in polluted water or air, contaminated food, and dangerous medicines. However, the impacts of a deregulated media environment can be harder to see, much like it has been difficult to see until recently the effects of lax regulation in the financial services industry.

Due in part to the challenges of communicating about media policy, much of the communication about its issues -- including media diversity, digital TV, electronic privacy, concentrated media ownership, copyright law, Internet governance, and broadband access -- has too often lacked a compelling, cohesive, and engaging narrative that sparks political passions. As a high-level representative from a prominent private foundation once suggested, media policy is a "second bounce" issue: something subordinate to more frontline concerns. Established policy areas such as education, health care, the environment, economic development, and human rights occupy a policy foreground, whereas media policy concerns operate in the background -- except when their effects come to light in controversies around news, public affairs, or entertainment content.

Take for example the January 2002 chemical spill in Minot, North Dakota, that ignited national outrage about radio industry consolidation. According to Eric Klinenberg, author of Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America’s Media, "a train derailed...leaking thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals into the air. One person died and hundreds were treated for immediate health problems. The city's six non-religious commercial radio stations -- all owned by Clear Channel -- never aired warnings for local residents." (Quoted from Democracy Now’s January 2007 piece "EXCLUSIVE...911 Calls in North Dakota Town Reveal Dangers of Media Consolidation.")

Unfortunately, this type of controversy rouses the public's interest in media regulation only momentarily, in the same way that an episodic salmonella outbreak might stir consumers to take note for a week or so. Add to this the fact that consumer protection in the U.S. focuses primarily on products, not services like broadcasting. Consumer concerns about obscenity or indecency in the media, perceived bias in news coverage, contested children's programming, or the filtering of online content by Internet service providers cannot be addressed by simply recalling a product from vendors' store shelves.

Even so, I would suggest that all these issues are merely symptoms of underlying structural concerns regarding the respiratory system for the oxygen of democracy: speech. Addressing them requires legislating, regulating, or adjudicating the structure of our media and communications system, as opposed to controlling the content flowing through it. This is because media policy in the U.S. is situated within the legal framework of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

To be sure, there is a lively ongoing debate in this country about the role of government in our society, including the benefits and drawbacks of regulation itself. Despite this, I suspect few would dispute that there is a valuable regulatory role for government. The food and drug industries are telling examples.

With the regulation of speech itself prohibited, the focus moves to the structure of the industries that produce, distribute, exhibit, and facilitate the exchange of information using electronic communication resources -- the public airwaves, in the case of radio and television broadcasting, along with cable and telephone networks.

Thus, funders interested in helping to sustain a democratic infrastructure for speech, information, and knowledge exchange should consider supporting that which contributes to keeping industry, elected officials, and media regulators on their toes: a healthy sector of organizations that can advocate for the public's interests on a variety of media policy issues.

By "healthy sector," I mean the following:

• A robust number of enduring, diverse, and collaborating organizations with the collective capacity to move hearts, minds, and imaginations about media policy issues;
• Sustainable forms of financial support for these organizations' activities;
• The ability of these organizations to attract and retain high-quality organizational leaders, skilled staff, board members, and volunteers;
• A diverse number of committed, prominent, and respected spokespersons for the sector; and
• Public recognition of their achievements, which includes press coverage and even scholarly attention.

As already discussed, media policy work includes attention to a variety of interrelated concerns that include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Decision-making about communications via radio and television broadcasting, cable and satellite TV, telephones, and the Internet;
• Laws affecting electronic access to content -- copyright, patents, and trademarks -- known as "intellectual property"; and
• Access to government information laws, and privacy rights.

Some funders have chosen to focus on media content concerns such as media representations of minorities, documentary filmmaking, or protecting children from dangerous online content. Others support efforts that target industry structure and behavior with the aim of reducing media ownership concentration. Still others invest in specific issues such as electronic privacy or focus on improving the professional feeder system for journalists going into industry jobs and their expertise in media policy issues. (One of the largest investors in journalism education is the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. In 2007 it made a $2.5 million grant to Yale Law School to start the Knight Law and Media Policy Program.)

In addition, "sector-oriented" funders have identified dynamics within the policy advocacy sector itself to increase its capacity for collective action over the long term. This has required deliberate attention to strategies such as linking grassroots organizations with national advocacy campaigns, investing in leadership development, communications and fundraising training, and even nonprofit management assistance.

Given the increasingly scarce resources available during these uncertain financial times, funders will be looking for sharper focus for their investments in the coming months and years. There is renewed attention to projects addressing the future of journalism. Should funders also be concentrating their limited resources on building and sustaining a system of "independent" content producers and distributors, with the aim of shoring up what is referred to as "public service media"? (One of the most ambitious efforts in this area is Ford’s $50 million investment to strengthen and promote public media.)

GFEM members should congratulate themselves for the contributions they have already made to this dynamic field of policy work. They are pioneers guiding others toward the crucial intersection of technology, politics, economics, and culture. At stake is the well-being and future of the respiratory system for the oxygen of democracy -- with enormous political and economic implications for U.S. society and our increasingly interconnected world.

-- Becky Lentz

Philanthropy, Morality, and Politics

(Bradford Smith is president of the Foundation Center. In his last post, he wrote about his fears and hopes for philanthropy.)

Consider two propositions: "philanthropy is the moral voice of society" and "philanthropy should hold government accountable." Both propositions arose during a recent meeting on global philanthropy co-sponsored by the European Foundation Centre (EFC), the Council on Foundations (COF), and the Worldwide Initiative for Grantmaker Support (WINGS). Though the goal of the meeting was relatively straightforward -- to initiate a process that could lead to reducing the legal and fiscal barriers to global philanthropy -- this being an encounter of forty-two professionals from twenty countries, it wasn't long before morality and politics forced their way into the discussion.

At dinner afterward, a group of us, all Americans, were reflecting on these two propositions. "Morality" is a word seldom heard in American philanthropic discourse. We can talk for hours about initiatives, lines of work, strategy, effectiveness, assessment, and impact, with nary a mention of morality. Yet virtually all of philanthropy is driven by a moral sense of what is right, fair, or just; indeed the very act of philanthropy is a moral expression of solidarity and a desire to help others. The more we talked, the more it became apparent that it was the notion that philanthropy should somehow be the moral voice of society that was troubling. A foundation that supports access to safe abortion does so out of a profound moral conviction that a woman should have the right to decide while one that opposes abortion on moral grounds will back right-to-life groups. Philanthropy may be a moral voice, but it is not a single moral voice which dictates that there is only one kind of philanthropy and one set of causes that are "right" while all others are "wrong."

The notion that philanthropy should hold government accountable was only slightly less troubling. American philanthropy spends a fair amount time (though arguably not enough) trying to figure out how it can be more accountable so as to avoid overly zealous regulation by Congress. Indeed, the desire today in much of philanthropy is to collaborate with the Obama administration, many of whose officials have foundation experience and are actively courting foundations to join the "all hands on deck" effort to confront the economic crisis. Nevertheless, there are foundations that invest heavily in organizations that track campaign contributions, monitor federal and state budgets, and do community organizing -- all for the purpose of reminding elected officials that their role is to serve the public good and that the public is watching. Again, the real discomfort at the table seemed to be with the idea that this was being posited as the only legitimate role for philanthropy as opposed to one of many.

At the meeting, both propositions were put forth -- not by Americans, but by those whose countries had only recently emerged from long periods of totalitarian rule, armed conflict, or what political scientists call "weak states." Where human life often seems to have little value, avenues to political participation are blocked, and "leaders" sometimes behave more like predators, philanthropy can become an outlet for activists seeking deep and lasting change. In such cases, they are challenged with the Herculean task of righting past wrongs, creating a culture of philanthropy, and building accountable, democratic governments, all at once. Their mission is both moral and political. We can afford to make the finer distinctions because our task, though not easy, is far less daunting, living as we do in a (still) prosperous America with strong democratic institutions and guided by the rule of law.

But something else happened in that (still) prosperous Europe that surprised. Meeting in Italy, a country that had narrowly defeated legislation calling for civil servants to be fired if they failed to report individuals suspected of being undocumented and where a local politician had proposed segregating buses, the EFC passed a resolution. It reads, in part:

it is with great regret that we witness the emergence of a climate in Italy, which is symptomatic of a general trend throughout Europe, which leads to measures relating to undocumented migrants that undermine people’s basic human rights….As members of Foundations, we are committed to a Europe which is inclusive and tolerant; we work for this alongside citizens and civil society organisations, as well as with governmental bodies. We strongly encourage the governments of all member states to work individually, together and with the institutions of the European Union to build a framework for addressing migration in ways that truly respect the dignity of all human beings as defined in the European Convention on Human Rights....

The EFC hardly qualifies as a fringe group. Its 236 members manage more than €140 billion in assets and range from liberal, Quaker-inspired, UK foundations in the north to wealthy, sometimes conservative Italian banking foundations in the south. Alarmed by growing xenophobia in Europe, they chose to take a stand that was both moral and political, rather than be voiceless spectators to a march toward the past.

Philanthropy everywhere gets its energy and drive from moral values. And there are places and moments where those values impel us to tread the risky and challenging terrain of politics.

-- Brad Smith

Council on Foundations' 60th Annual Conference: What Matters? (Part 2)

As this year's annual CoF meeting comes to an end, we thought it'd be interesting to check the conference blog a final time for new posts (see our summary from yesterday)....

Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) wows the crowd in his Tuesday keynote address....Bruce Trachtenberg, executive director of the Communications Network, is heartened that foundation program officers are realizing the value of proactive communications....Kaberi Banerjee-Murthy, a board member of Resource Generation, reminds us that the consequences of the economic crisis will be with us for years to come....Trista Harris, executive director of the Headwaters Foundation for Justice, argues that the current crisis is also an opportunity....Sarita Venkat, manager of external communications at the council, applauds the idea that the field benefits from serious debate about issues that divide us....Teri Behrens, editor of The Foundation Review, is hopeful that civic participation in the U.S. is back in vogue....And Mark Sedway, who directs the Philanthropy Awareness Initiative and helped manage the conference blog for the council, highlights these day-one posts.

There was lots of great conference-related coverage from other blogs and bloggers as well. Be sure to check out the yeoman work done by the Tactical Philanthropy team; Trista Harris's New Voices of Philanthropy blog; and Tim Ogden and Laura Starita's Philanthropy Action blog.

-- Mitch Nauffts

Council on Foundations' 60th Annual Conference: What Matters?

The Council on Foundations' 60th annual conference is in full swing in Atlanta, and though attendance is down (a casualty of the recession), the enthusiasm and commitment to social change among attendees seems undiminished. The council itself has introduced a couple of new communications vehicles in conjunction with this year's conference, including a snazzy new Web site full of Web 2.0 goodness, a Twitter feed (@COF_), and a very cool conference blog to which attendees have been posting their thoughts about what matters in philanthropy right now.

Here's a sample of what they're saying:

Ali Webb, program director for Food Systems and Rural Development at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, cuts to the chase and says philanthropy needs to address the so-what question: "What do our dollars do for people?"....Bruce Trachtenberg, executive director of the Communications Network, suggests that this uncertain moment in our history is exactly the moment philanthropy has been waiting for....Albert Ruesga, newly minted president of the Greater New Orleans Foundation, argues that while the boundaries between different sectors of society may be blurring, there are important social goods nobody wants to pay for....Emmett Carson, president of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, urges philanthropy to get involved in the looming political battle over the creation of a legal path for undocumented immigrants....Kaberi Banerjee-Murthy, a board member of Asian American Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy and Resource Generation, applauds Morehouse College president Robert Franklin's call to tap the potential of the next generation of "transformed noncoformists"....Teri Behrens, editor of the The Foundation Review, argues that, in its own halting way, philanthropy is making progress on the diversity and inclusion front....Mary Galeti, vice chair of the Tecovas Foundation, thinks the field should do more to introduce new wealth creators to the art and practice of philanthropy....Roger Doughty, executive director of the Horizons Foundation, thinks philanthropy needs to move and act with greater urgency....And Nicole Robinson, director of Community Involvementfor Kraft Foods, says foundations should be careful not to forget the rest of the world even as they turn their attention to the victims of the economic crisis at home....

Good stuff. We're looking forward to reading (and sharing) more thoughts and perspectives from the conference as they're posted. And if you don't feel like checking back here for updates, you can always subscribe to the "What Matters?" RSS feed.

-- Mitch Nauffts

Quote of the Day (April 8, 2009)

"...The United States is both a conservative power, defending the international status quo against those who would change it through violence, and a revolutionary power seeking to replace age-old power structures with market economics and democratic ideals. The political revolution that the United States supports involves radical change in countries as important as China, but even the political revolution pales before the economic revolution that the United States wishes to spread through the world. The United States seeks to make the world an ever more dynamic place -- a place where an accelerating pace of technological change leads the world ever faster through the power of ever more flexible and dynamic markets into an ever accelerating 'progress' toward an end we do not see...."

-- Walter Russell Mead, God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World

TED on Sunday: James Howard Kunstler on the Death of Suburbia

April is Earth Month, and to celebrate we've lined up four Sunday morning "TEDs" related to the concept of sustainability. First up: author (The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape, The Long Emergency) and social critic James Howard Kunstler. In this funny and profane talk, Kunstler blasts the soulless suburban sprawl that has consumed huge swaths of the American landscape and warns that the end of cheap oil -- and the Happy Motoring culture it spawned -- will result in "epochal change." Forget hydrogen or alternatives as a replacement. In the twenty-first century, says Kunstler, life will be about living, eating, and working locally. (Filmed: February 2004. Running Time: 19:45)

--Mitch Nauffts

Democracy Update: El Salvador (and the Winner Is...)

(Kathryn Pyle, a regular contributor to PhilanTopic, recently reviewed Paul Collier's new book, War, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places, for PND.)

Mauricio Funes, a former journalist best known for a daily TV interview program and the candidate of the FMLN, the party of the former guerrillas, was elected president of El Salvador on Sunday. "El Frente," as the party is known, won 51 percent of the votes in an election that brought out almost two-thirds (65 percent) of the registered voters and marked an end to the twenty-year rule of the conservative ARENA party.

"We have signed a new accord of peace and reconciliation," said Funes, alluding to the widespread view that the 1992 peace accords ended the armed conflict but did not produce the economic and social reforms promised. Speaking at a press conference after the election was called, Funes proposed a government based on dialogue and collaboration and invited the different social and political forces to "construct this national unity together." ARENA agreed to collaborate in the transition and be a critical but constructive partner.

Funes also paid homage to Archbishop Oscar Romero, assassinated in 1980: "We will give special preference to the poor," he said, using the language of liberation theology. Poverty is a major issue in El Salvador, where more than half the population is poor and 30 percent of the rural poor live in extreme poverty. Remittances sustain fully one-quarter of all Salvadorans. When asked in a TV interview for specifics, Funes reiterated his campaign pledge to revive the agriculture sector as a way to quickly generate jobs and cited the potential for government programs to "level the playing field" -- for example, by extending credit to micro-businesses.

In San Salvador, thousands of FMLN supporters waving red flags and banners piled into the backs of pickups, filled cars, or walked from the monument of El Salvador del Mundo to Masferrer Plaza, where Funes and other party leaders spoke late Sunday evening. Oscar Andrade, a consultant for the American Jewish World Service grants program in the region, compared the event to the celebration following the signing of the accords.

"This is the next stage for consolidating the democracy," said Rick Jones, who represents Catholic Relief Services' Global Solidarity and Justice program. "The other party to the peace accords now holds power for the first time in twenty years. The country needed this change." Jones cited Funes' focus on the poor, as well as his promise to address the problem of violence through prevention rather than detention, as an opportunity for CRS to collaborate with the government. "These are values we share," Jones said.

As I mentioned in a post last week, 35,000 Salvadorans who live in the United States were issued a special identification document that enabled them to vote in person here. My delegation of election observers, organized by Salvadoreños en el Mundo (SEEM), planned to spend the day in the Flor Blanca stadium where Salvadorans living abroad were assigned to vote. We arrived at dawn to confirm that the voting apparatus was properly set up. An hour after the polls opened, however, there were dozens of observers but only a handful of voters, so we decided to deploy to other locations in the metropolitan area where returning Salvadorans were scheduled to vote. (Although they live in the U.S., many Salvadorans had obtained DUIs prior to the current program being enacted and were able to vote in their communities of origin.)

We visited Mexicanas, Apopo, Ciudad Delgado, Illopango, Soyapango (where vehicles and pedestrians choked the narrow streets en route to the polling places) and Jayaque -- a mountain village near the city where we applauded a young man in a wheelchair, helped by a friend, who was determined to conquer the cobblestone street leading uphill to the polls. Although the voting booths had a special window at wheelchair height, sidewalks and buildings are rarely wheelchair-accessible in El Salvador. The young man we applauded was one of only three people we saw in wheelchairs -- in a country with a high percentage of disabled due to decades of violent civil conflict.

Returning to Flor Blanca for the closing tally, we found that only 165 Salvadorans from the United States had turned up to vote. "As we predicted, the numbers show that this experiment -- allowing Salvadorans living abroad to vote, but only if they appear in ES in person -- has been a failure," said Salvador Sanabria, the director of Los Angeles-based El Rescate and an organizer for SEEM. "This has confirmed our determination to continue our efforts to secure an absentee ballot for the one and a half million potential Salvadoran voters living abroad. The next president will have to establish a program to guarantee that vote."

A report issued yesterday by SEEM also recommends that the new government engage with the Obama administration around immigration reform, including the opportunity for families of Salvadorans who have Temporary Protection Status in the U.S. to be able travel between the countries for visits.

Ralph Sprenkles, who represents El Salvador for the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO) in the Netherlands, believes that had "voting been possible in the U.S., the turnout would have been higher. Most Salvadorans can't afford to travel here just to vote." Sprenkles added that "Many Salvadorans who live abroad, in my experience, are very interested in political issues here; perhaps more so than those who live in ES. They have a nostalgic attachment to the country and want it to improve, and experiencing the political practices in other democratic countries gives them a new idea of how to accomplish that and what it means to be a citizen."

Along with local civil society groups, many of which mobilized around the election to disseminate information and voting instructions, SEEM will continue to work on the issue.

I took advantage of our free time at Flor Blanca, waiting until the booths opened at 7:00 am, to talk with Fred Niehaus and Mario Hernandez, members of our delegation who work for Western Union's Public Affairs program, which is responsible for the company's giving in the hemisphere. I'll be posting that interview later this week.

The potential for election fraud and violent rejection of the outcome by the militantes in the losing party was a concern for everyone here. In the end, only a few incidents of potential fraud were identified (and resolved), and there was no violence either during or after the election that any of us were aware of. People attribute this to the "maturity" of the democratic process in El Salvador, and undoubtedly that is true -- thanks in large part to the role of civil society groups in all aspects of development, human rights monitoring, and policy advocacy since the war ended seventeen years ago. In addition, the polling places were well organized and the twelve party officials (all volunteers) at each booth were vigilant in adhering to the rules. As well, the presence of close to 5,000 electoral observers in 461 polling places was a huge plus.

At the end of the day, it was a great experience to be part of it, and I'm grateful I was able to make the trip.

-- Kathryn Pyle