An Historic Day

Changing Administration

Today marks the much-anticipated inauguration of our next President.  And to a country in the middle of two wars and a deepening recession, it is a moment of hope.  There is much speculation about what this new President will do for our country.  Particularly in the nonprofit sector, which always bears the brunt of any economic downturn, there is much anticipation about what tomorrow will bring for the sector.  As we watch the ceremony and festivities today, here are some thoughts about what the new administration might mean for the social sector.

Obama made many plans and promises about national service and social innovation during his campaign.  I wrote about that here.  Basically his ideas were:

1. Growth of current national service programs like AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps
2. $4,000 tax credits to college students in exchange for 100 hours of community service
3. Expanded programs for engaging retirees in community service
4. 50 hours of required community service from middle and high school students each year
5. Expansion of YouthBuild
6. Allocation of 25% of college work study funds to community service projects

And, indeed, many of these ideas are contained in the economic stimulus package currently in front of Congress.  The Chronicle of Philanthropy gives a great summary of the implications of that plan on the nonprofit sector.  But in essence, the plan includes:

• $200 million to expand AmeriCorps by 16,000 members
• $50 million to the National Endowment for the Arts for grants to arts groups
• $50 million to Youth Build USA, a social entrepreneurial organization putting low-income young people to work building affordable housing.  You can see a video clip about this organization here.
• $87 billion to temporarily increase the federal portion of Medicaid
• $2.1 billion to Head Start to serve 110,000 additional children and create 50,000 jobs
• $1 billion for Community Services Block Grants, and $1 billion for Community Development Block Grants which help states provide social services and housing to low-income residents
• $1 billion for Child Care and Development Block Grants
• $1 billion to the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program
• $1 billion to help community health centers renovate their facilities, and $500-million to help them provide care to uninsured and underinsured patients
• $120 million to the Community Service Employment for Older Americans program, which would allow charities and other groups to add 24,000 participants
• $100 million to the Compassion Capital Fund, which provides grants to religious and other charities to provide social services

However, these changes don’t go as far as many in the sector would like.  A coalition of several social entreprenurial groups, including America Forward, America’s Promise Alliance, Be the Change, and Citizen Schools, are urging Obama to create a “nonprofit stimulus package.”  The package would include a Social Investment Fund Network, a government and private venture philanthropy fund that invests growth capital in social entrepreneurs.

But before Obama has even been inaugurated, he has made a grand gesture towards the sector. Yesterday Colin Powell, founder of America’s Promise Alliance, lead Obama’s Renew America Together Initiative where unprecedented numbers of Americans spent MLK Day doing volunteer service.  Obama has pledged to make service a key part of his plan for getting America back on track.

This is an historic, exciting time.

Tags: America Forward, America's Promise Alliance, AmeriCorps, Be the Change, Citizen Schools, Colin Powell, Head Start, Obama, Renew America Together, social entrepreneur, YouthBuild

New Ideas in a New Year

2009 is finally here and with the new year comes some interesting new ideas.  The struggles of 2008 have the potential to stimulate innovative solutions.  With a new administration entering office on January 20th there could be significant changes in how the nonprofit sector receives resources (funding, staff, government support, etc).  You can read my post on some of the changes the Obama administration might make here.

But it seems the nonprofit sector is not waiting around for those potential changes.  There just isn’t time.  So, in the midst of the uncertainty facing the sector, some interesting innovation is happening.

In December a Washington, DC coalition of eight regional organizations convened Nonprofit 911 bringing together 500+ nonprofit, business, and government leaders to develop a plan of action that “redefines how the nonprofit sector operates in this new fiscal reality.”  It’s not clear yet (since they’ve been around only a few weeks) exactly what this coalition will do and what the results will be, but it is interesting to see such an unprecedented reaction to the crisis.

Another interesting development is an idea proposed by Independent Sector, a coalition of 600+ foundations and nonprofits.  They are proposing to Congress a federal government revolving loan fund that would reimburse nonprofits for essential services they have performed for local and regional governments.  These governments are now cash-strapped and unable to pay for those services.  Perhaps the beginnings of a conversation about a nonprofit bailout, to follow the financial and auto industry bailouts?  If that’s the case I’d like to see something much more ambitious and sustainable for the long-term.  I’m not sure this is the answer.

However, the interesting part is the discussions that these new ideas are generating.  This New Year should be a very interesting one.

Tags: Independent Sector, Nonprofit 911, Obama

Ideas for Change

In the midst of chaos comes opportunity.  While the current government is trying to figure out the financial meltdown, the President-elect is assembling his cabinet, the ice caps are melting and two wars wage on, the chaos can seem a bit overwhelming.  But at the same time innovation in the social space is taking off.  People are coming up with and implementing new ideas to tackle some of the world’s most intractable problems.  And in an unprecedented way it seems that everyone is talking about possible solutions to the many problems we face.  Here are just a few examples.

In his column this past weekend, David Brooks talked with Michael Porter, economic expert from the Harvard Business School, about positive things an Obama administration could do to turn the economy around.  At the end, Brooks offered his own idea for addressing the economic turmoil:  a network of social entrepreneurship investment banks:

These regionally operated semi-public funds would invest in the best local community organizations, so they could bring their ideas to scale. These funds, first proposed by the group America Forward, would supplement the safety net and employ college grads entering a miserable job market. They’d have a powerful psychological effect on a country that desperately wants to feel mobilized and united. This is a mental recession as well as an economic one. Solving it means getting more and more people involved in a fundamental rebirth.

Getting more and more people involved in finding solutions is exactly what Change.org, a social network of people and nonprofits, has launched with their “Ideas for Change in America” effort.  They have taken Obama at his word, in asking Americans to be involved in their own democracy again, by asking people to submit their ideas for solutions.  The top ten winners, voted on by the Change.org community, will be submitted to Obama on inauguration day.  There are some pretty interesting ideas.  They include: creating a citizen news organization, developing a national youth policy council, restoring rail service, and launching a public service academy.

The best antidote to the chaos that surrounds is the hope that ideas like these bring.

Tags: Change.org, innovation fund, Obama, Social Entrepreneurship

What Does the Election Mean for the Social Sector?

There is a lot to think about and chew on post-election as we wait for indications about the direction the new administration will take and what all of it means for the social sector.

To help us bide our time, some writers have given us very interesting things to consider.  First, David Brooks, conservative columnist for The New York Times, has written today in his column, “Change I Can Believe In,” about what he hopes the new administration will do.  Amid Brooks’ calls for bi-partisan politics, reformed healthcare, economic stimulus, curbed spending, is his hope that the Obama administration will take an entrepreneurial approach to social problems:

Walking into the Obama White House of my dreams will be like walking into the Gates Foundation. The people there will be ostentatiously pragmatic and data-driven. They’ll hunt good ideas like venture capitalists. They’ll have no faith in all-powerful bureaucrats issuing edicts from the center. Instead, they’ll use that language of decentralized networks, bottom-up reform and scalable innovation.

It’s a great dream.  Wouldn’t it be amazing to have an administration that thought and acted like a social venture capitalist, seeking out and helping to fund and scale solutions to the many problems that face our country?  A radical idea, but very exciting.

Then you have Paul Schmitz in the Nonprofit Quarterly, “In A Successful Campaign: Lessons for Nonprofits,” drawing lessons for the nonprofit sector from the campaign.  He argues that the nonprofit sector could learn a lot from a campaign that came from behind and completely changed the status quo of how campaigns are fought and won.  He delineates 5 best practices that nonprofits could employ:

1. Find and promote a powerful brand.  Obama’s was Change and Hope.
2. Create a clear, measurable strategy.  The campaign’s focus was always on getting to 2,025 delegates in the primary and 270 electoral votes in the general election.  No matter what happened, they stayed focused on their strategy to do this.
3. Use disciplined management.  The organization that Obama built rivaled that of some of the most successful corporations.  There was a clear chain of command, clear focus and disciplined strategy to get to the end goal.
4. Use both in-person and online organizing.  They coupled block walking,  canvassing, phone calls, and direct mail with very effective online fundraising and social networking efforts.  This dual approach was unprecedented and extremely effective at building support.
5. They tapped into the energy and drive of youth at all levels of the campaign.

I know that there will be much more dissection of the campaign and how they were able to overcome what at times seemed like insurmountable odds.  We should pay attention to the analysis of the campaign because I agree there are lessons for the social sector.  Nonprofits face insurmountable odds every single day. By analyzing and employing those elements that worked, there is the potential for greater reach and deeper impact.

Tags: election, management, nonprofit, Obama