Nataliekessler's Blog

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Why not vote for this crappy park that is right down the street from my house?

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Well, except for playing catch-up…

This class has offered an insight into the Nonprofit sector through text, lectures, and guest presentations. Last Wednesday, we continued the discussion on foundations and began a discussion on venture philanthropy. The trends following venture philanthropy are interesting and reflect my research paper. For instance, crowdsourcing can be used by venture philanthropists as a way to survey a group of people in order to find the nonprofit/cause holding the interest of the most highly responsive activists. Therefore, due to the involvement of the community and their recommendations, venture philanthropists’  investments in the particular nonprofit opportunity will thrive.

Foundations were a tough concept to understand. The four different types seemed so similar to one another I question why labels are given to begin with. I understand that community foundations are created to benefit a particular community, but contributions are received from many donors. Aren’t contributions received from many donors in operating foundations as well? Can community foundations have their own programs similar to operating foundations? I want to know if there are any factors that blur definitions. Can one type of foundation incorporate traits of a different type of foundation?

Blogging has certainly been an interesting endeavor. I am not a fan of sitting in front of a computer for a long amount of time. However, blogging for this class has been a series of essays. The majority of my blog posts have been written on a piece of paper before submitted, sort of ruining the point of saving paper. Nevertheless, I do love scribbling on paper rather than quickly typing my thoughts on a computer. Sometimes writing on a computer causes a stream on consciousness…like this, for instance. But really, blogging has showed me how the internet has the capacity to help students share thoughts and express how they are learning and using information. Even if all of this is available to the general public!

My expectations for this class were a reflection of the little knowledge I knew about nonprofits. I knew that I wanted nonprofits to be a focus of my college education. I knew that nonprofit careers have the reputation of, well, generating low income. This doesn’t matter to me. I am forever grateful for my college education and the fact that my particular interest is reflected in this university. Thanks to you, Bob and Sarah, students will continue to learn how to transform their passions into careers.

Sigh…the environment. The environment is the focus of my studies as a PPPM major, and I have happily worked with several nonprofit environmental agencies. The one I am most familiar with is the San Diego Zoo. I volunteered at the zoo throughout high school and have landed a summer job as a camp counselor in the education department. I have also participated in events with the San Diego Surfrider Foundation.

Christine Macdonald, writing for adbusters.com, discusses BP (British Petroleum,) trying to clean up their image in the article A Good Cause Gone Bad. Corporate donations have been helping several nonprofit organizations stay afloat, and contributions have paid for various conservation efforts. An article published last week in the Los Angeles Times explained that one year ago, BP contributed $1 million dollars to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. This is the same company that caused a horrendous oil spill in the Gulf. Ironically, the “BP Sea Otter Habitat” is scheduled to open next week. Will the Aquarium keep the name? Or will the image of conservation efforts be tainted with the name?

The donation given by BP was necessary for the exhibit, but the morals are difficult to quantify. I personally believe the Aquarium should take the donation and continue with their conservation mission. After all, every little bit helps.

I think I will research “crowd-sourcing” and how it is impacting non-profits. Unclear as to what crowd-sourcing actually is, I discovered that crowd-sourcing is the act of taking a job that is usually delegated to one person and delegating it to an entire group of people. One example that was mentioned in class was the Pepsi Refresh Project. Basically, people, businesses, or nonprofit organizations submit ideas that have a “positive impact. Then, bored web-surfers who are possibly annoyed by watching the Pepsi Refresh Project commercial every five minutes can go to Pepsi’s website and vote for their ten favorite ideas. The founders of these ideas are rewarded with money. Is this a positive impact in the nonprofit world? Will Pepsi actually know these ideas are working?

Still unsure about crowd-sourcing, I found a fantastic blog by a Harvard Graduate student named Jeff Howe. His blog is a continuation of an article he wrote for Wired magazine, outlining the rise of “the new pool of cheap labor: everyday people using their spare cycles to create content, solve problems, even do corporate research and development” (Jeff Howe). These examples helped me define crowd-sourcing and gave excellent examples. I want to research if crowd-sourcing is helping or hurting nonprofit organizations.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html?pg=1&topic=crowds&topic_set=

croudsourcing.typepad.com

Sarah spoke these words during the lecture on the new education policy. She was describing the conflicts surrounding the responsibility of education. Is it responsible for the federal government or the states? Because education is not mentioned in the Constitution, it is the states’ responsibility, thus each state has “wiggle room for innovation.” What a great description! I will remember to use it frequently for whatever comes my way. And I believe it gives necessary advice to policy makers as policies must adapt to meet society’s needs and changes. Policies must have room to change and adapt.

I really enjoyed the lecture about Bill Gates’ education policy. In fact, I had never heard of these new policies before. But, I understand it comes with many conflicts and controversies. Some of these conflicts I can relate to. For instance, test scores determine teachers’ salaries. I do not agree with this proposition.

The other day, my little sister called me from our home in San Diego. She is a sophomore in high school – and gets excellent grades in tough classes. I asked her what was new with school. I was expecting her to give the usual response. She had been reading Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and learning about cell mitosis (not in the same class, of course.) Instead, she answered my question with an “ugh” noise, followed by “ ‘STAR’ testing…it is soooo stupid and totally ruining my week. Now teachers are giving us incentives to do well. They tell us that if we get good scores, they will add another lunch period or cut the school day by fifteen minutes. But they won’t actually do this because the school doesn’t have enough money!”

Hmmm.  I don’t know a lot about the current education policies. Doesn’t Bill Gates support this policy regarding teachers’ salaries? This policy seems flawed but it is probably under construction, as is the Obama Education Reform and Bill Gates’ proposal for education reform. Nevertheless, there is always room for improvement for fundamental policies such as education. It is up to society to implement them.

I haven’t been following the debates surrounding the Health Care Reform. In fact, I know very little about it and how it will affect the pre-existing health care costs. These were the thoughts I had reading about the health care services in the nonprofit sector. From the small research I have done on the health care reform bill, I understand that it would make government responses to the nonprofit sector more comprehensive. For instance, the bill would like to “eliminate extra charges for preventative care such as mammograms, flu shots, and diabetes tests to improve health and save money.” How would nonprofit health care organizations benefit or weaken from this new bill? Health care has changed greatly in the past fifty years. O’Neill states that organizations such as Medicare and Medicaid have led to the government having direct correlation within the nonprofit health care sector. In fact, health care is an industry of “mixed economy” as there is “great diversity of ownership forms.” Yet, it would be interesting if O’Neill wrote an upgraded section of this book with information on Obama’s Health Care Reform and how this should help the nonprofit sector in this nation.

My mom is a nurse at Rady Children’s Hospital. Rady is a man who donated billions of dollars to the pre-existing hospital. With that fundraising, the hospital was able to build a much-needed renovation of the wing my mother works in (the ortho-rehab wing.) But another result of this renovation was a large decrease in the number of hospital beds provided for sick children in need. I suppose this is an example of long term planning that has short term issues. Plus, the renovation took years and is not yet completed. I think planners must integrate different approaches for needs to be met. The fact that children had to be sent to other hospitals because of lack of space is unacceptable and must be addressed.

This is a quote from one of my most favorite books of all time; The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Religion is the basis of our country but it is always changing. As the United States has grown in both land area and population, religion has grown as well. O’Neill states that there are about 375,000 religious organizations in the United States. I was very surprised by this number. “Organizations” is the key word in this statistic, as this number includes local religious congregations and places of worship as well as missionary societies, retreat centers, and media operations.

Religion will always be an aspect of society that contributes to interconnected feelings within community members. Everyone can state their own religion, the religion of their parents, the church they are associated to, etc. What bothered me growing up was everyone’s dwindling faith. The “I hate religion” culture was becoming stronger and I could not understand why. Religious organizations have contributed major philanthropic efforts. These include missionary work and international relief efforts that are crucial to society. The Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul are two organizations I am familiar with as I am an avid thrift-store shopper. But I also understand that they provide jobs and operate programs for the homeless and elderly.

Nonprofit social service is the part of the nonprofit sector that I find most interesting. While for-profit agencies are seeking innovative ways to make money, nonprofit agencies are built from the heart. O’Neill claims they are “the most widely accepted and admired part of the nonprofit sector.” The government even contributes to this sector by way of law enforcement, automotive safety, recreation, labor unions, even country fairs. There is even a concept of “cause-related marketing.” One example given is credit card companies who advertise that “a certain percentage of every transaction will go to benefit a prominent nonprofit.” Perhaps this is just a marketing tool so people will buy from this company, but it brings up the interesting concept of companies gaining revenue by way of tapping into peoples’ emotional sides. These nonprofit social services are very common and give opportunities for community members to be involved.

I am constantly finding new ways to become involved with nonprofit organizations. If one comes from a religious family, they are directly influenced by religious organizations, morals, and their religious community. If one participates in Girl Scouts, goes to the country fair every year, or even chooses credit cards based on philanthropy, they are participating in the nonprofit sector. Although religion may be becoming less of an influence in our daily lives, philanthropic events are still occurring. People just need to know where to find them.

For me, discovering nonprofit agencies was always the easiest part of Christmas time. My grandparents don’t give my brother and sister and I presents. They give us checks allotted to the nonprofit of our choices. My sister and I are always overwhelmed by the amount of nonprofits that are all fantastic. Would we give the money to children? An animal rescue organization? How about something international? This past Christmas I decided upon a conservation site near home that was at risk of losing its museum and its protected endangered species. My sister chose to give her money to a horse shelter, and my brother gave his to a children’s organization. This was tradition.

I will be blogging about my experiences with nonprofit agencies. I have always understood nonprofits to serve as careers and to serve for a cause. However, Bob Choquette’s class will examine the structure of the nonprofit sector and how it has developed over time. What I have always imagined as small, individual organizations fueled by donations is in fact the third sector of American society and boosts trillions of dollars for the economy.  The first assignment of the class was to compare government, business, and non-profit regarding questions such has how they are started, who leads them, why they exist, etc. I discovered that my answers were focused on broad concepts. For instance, when asked about who owns the government, businesses, and nonprofits, I was stumped. Perhaps a leader “owns”/rules the government. Perhaps an owner should own the business. But, wait, someone can own a nonprofit? How? On Monday, Mr. Choquette gave a helpful breakdown of board members and their fundamental role in a successful nonprofit organization. They are not technically owners but instead people who are fighting for a cause. Paid positions are few which fall to directors instead of the board members.

I want to know how difficult it is to sit on a board. Are there regular meetings to attend? Certain obligations to fulfill? Can one board member find a replacement for another? These are questions I was left with after the lecture on March 31.

Michael O’Neill is the author of Nonprofit Nations. Now that I know I will have a career in nonprofit management, I find this book an important read. O’Neill defines the nonprofit sector then devotes chapters to all the different nonprofit fields. What struck me about the reading was the concept of “civil society.” While this has been an important aspect for philosophers and politicians throughout history, it has been revived and conceptualized as a way to “help our neighbors.” O’Neill defines physical capital (material things), human capital (productive changes in persons), and social capital. The last is the most interesting. Social capital is the “quality of the relationships among people and is created when the relations among persons change in ways that facilitate action.” If we have jobs in the social action field, are we generating social capital? Social capital sounds like a new facebook application. Yet, I love the concept, and especially the way O’Neill describes it as “familiarity, trust, mutual understanding, camaraderie, cooperation, shared vision, sympathy, and group values.”

I’ve been a surf instructor, a starbucks employee, and a camp counselor at the San Diego Zoo (a large nonprofit!) Never have I assimilated the social capital goals to my task at hand unless it was a team building activity. If we focus on thoroughly incorporating the aspects of social capital to our jobs, it doesn’t matter what field we are working in. Nonprofits may revolve around group values and cooperation but buying a house does as well. So does cooking dinner. Or competing in sports. We don’t have to apply the goals of the nonprofit sector to the nonprofit alone. We can apply them to everyday life. We can work together in hopes of a better future. My grandparents teach me the value of giving every year with the wonderful gift of my choosing. Now we must give the gift of social capital and the values we cannot take advantage of. My second year of college has been absolutely life changing. With this blogging assignment, I cannot wait to document how it will continue to change and evolve. After all, the only constant is change!