The end… Funders

Rebecca Martin

Last Response

This is my last post in response to my intro to non-profit class. I would like to say that I really enjoyed this class and appreciate the valuable information I learned. What I found to be most valuable, that I will utilize in the future, is the ability to look up different non profits through particular websites. After finding one, you have the ability to look at their financial situation through tax filings. This will help when deciding on what organization I would want to be involved with or one that could potentially be hiring. Additionally, I found the speakers that were able to come and share their experiences and present involvement with non-profit organizations, to be revealing of its vastness and ability to cover so many aspects of life and work interest. Overall, due to the passion and involvement of some of the students in the class, the professor, and the graduate assistant I feel a drive to get more involved with school and community organizations to make a difference now.

Funders are the last topic of the class. Funders are often involved with foundations that help them spend their money.  I think foundations are a smart practical way to manage funder’s money. If I were a funder I would want the help of a foundation who knows about all kinds of organizations and connections to trustworthy places that I would feel safe and good donating to.

Although, it is never a simple and trustworthy task to pick a foundation, you have the issue of some foundations who are self-serving and those who are strongly left or right wing. This would be a task to have to research and feel comfortable with having someone manage your money. There is so much corruption anymore it would be hard to know what could potentially go wrong.

It was interesting when in class we talked about private funders for example the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. They are a large foundation with a lot of money that they donate to many good causes. But, it has been found (through a here say source) that they have donated the foundation’s money to a chemical plant in another country. This raises the issue of when you make a donation to a corporation like them how do you know your money will always go in the right place or to the people you would prefer. Foundations do need to follow the guidelines of their mission statement, but the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation’s mission statement is so broad that they have a lot of flexibility. This broad mission statement is great for the vast causes an organization with so much money would be able help so many, but could also contribute to something that could potentially hurt the environment and people.

Overall, funding is a very important part in the livelihood of a non-profit organization. Non-profits make up such a large portion of work and care that people rely on, funding is needed to facilitate this. As with anything you have to be careful and suspicious of who your funders are and who you donate to. That will always be a call non profits will have to make and deal with the repercussions that follow. And as our professor says you start a non-profit organization with your heart, and I feel this is apparent with most organizations, though I think all organizations should be reminded of this so they can continue to be most affective in what their purpose really is.

International NON-Profits

When reading about the international part of the non-profit sector it reminds me of facts I’ve been taught about the good and bad affects international non profits have had. I think that it has been extremely beneficial to have had organizations like CARE who have provided modern and basic care packages to people in need all around the world. The modern care package not only includes food and clothing but maternal and child health care, basic education, water sanitation, training and so on. Though, I wonder how CARE organizes these more complex aspects of the package.

On the other side, what I am skeptical about is how industrialized nations, specifically America maneuvers and applies knowledge to the third world. I wonder sometimes how affective and morally correct it is to go into another country and assume that industrialization and technology is the better way of life, and then to try to convert native peoples to our more advanced ways of living.

 In a class I had on global environmental issues we learned the reality of what is happening with some of the international organizations. Specifically, organizations are going to other nations to teach and provide new methods for living. But because there are many strings attached like the funders priorities, it affects the way the organization teaches and provides goods, becoming a messier issue than what they started with. Overall, there seams to be a lot of taking advantage of the poor uneducated people with something of worth, like land in mind. This is just to be said for some international organizations. I hope to one day work with an international non-profit organization like the Peace Core to make a difference in countries that need help, but I want to make sure that the organization handles international relations delicately and in a smart manner before I would become apart of it.

Environmental Non-Profits!! :)

Hey there!! So this week we learned about Environmental Non-profits. I was very excited to read the various postings our professor put online from different sources. In the O’Neal book there was no section on environmental non-profits, which is a shame because I find that to be one of the most if not the most important sectors of the non profit world. Environmental non-profits cover the various aspects of life that are vital to the wellbeing of our own lives.

 The first reading: The Broader Movement: Nonprofit Environmental & Conservation Organizations, 1989-2005

 Some of the facts that stuck out to me in this article were:

 Land trusts, alliances and advocacy organizations can have few financial reserves. The median organization that filed a form 990 reported a revenue of 155,727 but had net assets of only 69,836 and most of those were restricted (obligated to be used for purposes specified by their funders) As a result it probably had resources for three months or less, making it more susceptible to hiccups in its funding stream.

 In my response here the organizations that are dependent on a specific funding stream, limit what they can do with the money which causes a lot of problems. The question becomes are there enough problems to break ties with the funder or deal with the restrictions, especially when you aren’t bringing in a lot of money? I think that one major help with this issue would be larger government help. The government clearly doesn’t prioritize the environment, which is consequently the wellbeing of the people, but seams to prioritize the wealth and power of the country, that being industrialization and technology. We need to rethink our priorities as a country and a world.

 The second reading: Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement

 This is a book written by Robert Gottlieb. A few main points of his:

 The concept of a “global food system” with its increasing distance between food grown (and processed) and food consumed, and its relationship to a rapidly expanding fast food culture became the object of criticism among a growing number of NGO’s. At the same time an emerging alternative food or “local” food systems approach, in both developing countries and the United States and other industrial countries, was taking root. With strategies like; urban agriculture, community supported agriculture, and food access strategies.

 Overall Gottlieb included the various layers of foods involvement and made claims to why it is a critical environmental and social justice issue. I think that we will see this local foods system approach becoming more and more prevalent if the economy stays the way it is and people continue to educate on alternative ways of living.

 A video that we watched was The Story of Stuff. Annie Lenord describes our current way of living and why it is a system in crisis. She further describes it as a liner system on a finite planet and along the way it bumps up against its limits; that being the industrial world and human activity in general vs. planet earth.

 Overall I think the main problem that she is getting at is where our values lie. I think this video is described in a way that is easy to understand and revealing on the planets current situation. If you would like to watch it I would highly recommend it, it’s not long and it’s a fun video!

Link:  http://www.storyofstuff.com/

 Our final piece to read was a commencement address to the class of 2009 by Paul Hawken. Some main pieces from his speech that I particularly liked are:

 Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionist as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists they were told they would run the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of millions of people do this everyday. It is called the world of non-profit. The scope and scale of this effort is unparallel in history.

 A biologist, Janine Benyus, says “Life creates the conditions that are conducive to life”

 So here we have an economy that tells us it is cheaper to destroy earth than to renew, restore, and sustain it.

 I think this is coming from the perspective of someone that isn’t thinking of the next generations but themselves.  

 I also really like this comparison:

 Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of god. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television.

 What a powerful speech Hawken gives. It inspires me. He covers what I believe are the most important things to be said to a graduating class and to anyone for that matter. These are things that our generation and the generations after us have to keep in mind and act on in order to create a better world. I think one of the main points that can be drawn from this is that humans need to be reminded that we are apart of nature and not dominant over and separate from nature. If we don’t recognize this we will continue to destruct and consume which would consequently lead to our demise.

Final Paper Ideas!!! :)

For the final project our class is to research and write a paper on some aspect of the non profit world. I was first drawn to look up environmental non profits. Then I slowly narrowed it down to Environmental non profits in Oregon and then specifically ones having to do with forestry. I chose forestry because that is an industry that is prevalent in Oregon. I feel strongly for environmental activism and I would like to know more about Oregon’s history with logging and the history of this organization that has come about because of it. The organization is called Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. Some of my paper formatting ideas are listed below:  

*history of the forest service and deforestation in the past and present

*why trees are important

*FSEEE involvement, and mission in protecting forests.

*definition of environmental ethics and the org involvement specifically with ethics  *how they target and organize problem solving around ethical issues.

*FSEEE projects presently and ones that were successful in the past.

 

Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, Inc.

Also Known As:

FSEEE

Physical Address:

Eugene, OR 97440 

Category:
C Environmental Quality Protection, Beautification / C36 Forest Conservation

 

Mission Statement

Forest Service employees founded FSEEE in 1989 to recapture their agency from decades of exploitation and abuse by commercial interests. These abuses reached unprecedented levels in the mid-1980s under the Administrations of those years. Those Administrations rewarded employees who catered to commercial interests and suppressed all contrary views. The legacy left by the 1980s is an agency dominated in its senior ranks by holdovers and desperate in its junior ranks for creative and energetic leadership. FSEEE seeks to remake the Forest Service into the world’s leading public land stewardship agency. To do so we must overcome a recalcitrant bureaucracy dominated by “old guard,” firmly entrenched commercial interests that still dominate the economies of the rural communities that lie in close proximity to most national forests, and a series of perverse financial incentives that reward FS managers for logging, but not for protecting the environment.

http://www.fseee.org/

http://www2.guidestar.org/SearchResults.aspx

If anyone has any ideas for me I would love to hear them!

Arts and Culture

This week in Intro to non profit class we will be talking about Advocacy and Arts and Cultures role in the non profit world. A few points in the reading that stuck out to me were:

 Private foundations have been major funders of advocacy. For example the Ford Foundation has given significant support to advocacy organizations involved in minority rights, women’s rights, environmental work, poverty issues, and population control.

 This statement is one of many examples given about the involvement of foundations and other organizations with the advocacy part of the non profit sector. This is all new information to me. I find it refreshing to see that people are greatly supporting these important advocacy groups.

 In addition, many studies of the civil rights movement, peace organization, environmental activism, women’s groups, and others make it clear that many Americans hundreds of

Thousands or even millions of Americans are involved in advocacy volunteering.

 Most non profit organizations have their main effect on the people they serve directly; like colleges on students. By contrast, advocacy organizations leverage their effect through other institutions. Their purpose is to change the policies and practices of government agencies, corporations, and other large organization, including some of the nonprofit institutions.

 I find this very interesting that advocacy organizations affectively leverage other organizations to change. This seams like just one small layer in the non profit world, but a very important one, because it’s always helpful to have more people who are specifically involved and connected with advocating and keeping up on the government than one person trying to speak out about it.

 They facilitate this change by providing critical feedback on policies and actions of government, business and non profit. Such criticisms typically anger those on the receiving end but in many cases helps the criticized institutions by creating an external early warning system on problematic policies and actions.

 Next was a chapter on Arts and Culture and their part in the non profit world. In just the first chapter it talks about arts and culture and their role in schools, operas, theaters, and all sorts of other cultural activities that I hadn’t really thought about non profits involvement and vital role in keeping those aspects of life afloat. It seams that the arts are the first to loose money in a hurt economy, as we can see in today’s economy. This is sad because it is mainly due to where Americans priorities lie. From what I’ve experienced most people think of the arts as a luxury and expendable. When in my opinion arts and culture is life! Who doesn’t want to enjoy their life, who wants to prioritize money for the military, the super wealthy and powerful to whom those people fulfill their own deranged desires and idea of value most notably money and further control and affect the lives of middle and lower class Americans.

Reading Response 3 Health Care and Education

The non profit health sector includes hospitals, nursing homes, home health care services, family planning clinics, blood banks, mental health centers, programs for different types of addicts.

Health care is the largest part of the non-profit sector. Nonprofit general hospital revenue and employment are overwhelmingly larger than either government or for-profit activity, three times larger than government and seven times larger than for profits. General hospitals account for 93% of revenue and 92% of employment of all hospitals.

For profit firms dominate out patient care: three-fourths of all ambulatory care revenue goes to the exclusively for profit categories of doctors’ offices and medical and diagnostic labs. One important fact is that fees for services include both government and private funds. Government fee sources include Medicare and Medicaid programs. Private fee sources come from employer’s individuals, insurance companies, and health maintenance organizations (HMO’s).

Private funds from health plans and individuals paid for 49% of health care in 2000, where as government funds paid for 45%.

By the end of the 20^th century non profit health institutions were often part of large health systems, more secular, businesslike, funded almost exclusively by the government and private payments and sometimes accused of being unresponsive to patients without insurance or other resources. This is compared to the 50’s where health institutions were scattered supported by private payments and charitable donations.

 Health insurance organizations are a mix of non profit for profit and governmental.

 I think that due to the mix of non profit, for profit and governmental in health care we have a lot of problems. As a result, I wonder how the exchange of tax payer’s money and for profit health insurance companies money and involvement works with health care providers. It seams that in the beginning part of the 20^th century health care was about the health and care of people and not as focused on money. In reading I realize that advances in technology and cost of equipment have raised prices, but couldn’t it still be more accessible?

I talk to my dad briefly asking him questions specifically about the government run public health care facility he worked for in Pennsylvania, he said:

 The Pennsylvania Department of Health was involved with public health and the provision of health services for communicable diseases funded by government. This type of program was created from public interest to prevent the spread of diseases. So there was a strong and practical importance for preventive health and education. But with the change in government under the Republican regime came privatization. Due to new control health care became for profit, where they are no longer interested in spending time and money on advancing preventive measures because they can’t make money prevention. An example of this type of privatization in the State Health Department, after constantly being degraded by people who wanted to privatize the Sexually Transmitted Disease health care services, the STD program paid the local (in Reading, PA) hospital 30 dollars for every patient they saw that came to the hospital to be examined. The state health department also paid for the medicine and tests. This provided free services to anyone who needed them. They did this because if someone didn’t have the money to get a check up, they wouldn’t get tested. The State Health Department provided this with tax payer’s money. With the change to privatization the PA dept. of Health was forced to contract a non-government organization who then subcontracted with the same hospital and clinic to provide free STD services. Instead of the 30 dollars that the hospital use to get per patient from the Health Department, they now get 20 dollars per patient and the contractor was charging 60 dollars per patient from the government. This was Pennsylvania tax dollars at work. So the contractor was making 40 dollars per patient. As a result the hospital could no longer afford to staff and provide services for the clinic, so it is now very difficult to receive those free services from that particular hospital.   

What we have now is people talking up preventive health care but insurance company’s unwilling to pay for it. Insurance companies would rather pay for the end result of a surgery then a preventive test, resulting in a very confused non-system. Public health was designed to attempt to reduce and control diseases to save tax payers and insurance company’s money. These services were non for profit, for the benefit of the tax payer and the people who needed the services.

The second chapter in this weeks reading was on Education and Research. In the reading O’Neill compares public schooling to private schooling. I wasn’t surprised by the break down of private K-12 schooling. Public is often at least twice the size of private. The majority of private schools have a religious denomination. Though, the percentage of non sectarian or independent school was 16 percent which is lower than I had expected. 53 percent of 1998-1999 graduates of these private secondary schools go on to four year colleges or universities. In catholic schools the rate was 77 percent in other religious schools 48 percent and in non sectarian schools 76 percent.

Average tuition from 1993-1994 ranged from 1,628 for catholic grade schools to 9,525 for non sectarian high schools. Many religious schools are subsidized financially. There is a significant gap between public and private in educational degrees, for which there is generally more teachers at master’s level degrees in public because of more incentive than private. The age, teaching experience and degree differences may reflect the fact that salaries are on average significantly higher in public than in private schools; 34,153 in public vs. 21,968 in private.

I always associated more prestige to private schools than public. I assumed that because you are paying tuition for your child’s K-12 education it would be of a higher quality. But, these statistics show other wise. So then why would private school teachers get paid less if there institutions cost a significant amount of money? (The statistics in this book were distinguishing public and private not between private for profit and private non profit)   

The book answers this a little bit further on; the private non profit colleges and universities receive 10 percent of their revenue from the government along with additional support indirectly through the government. In contrast very little government aid goes to private elementary and secondary education.

One would need to consider though, that the government may be giving money to a university for research. With a secondary school or private elementary schools they aren’t able to address those needs and it would be in violation of the first amendment to support a private religious secondary school. I think of private schools as an unnecessary elite option, so why should government have to support them as well as public schooling.

Reading Response 2

 

      This week’s readings were on two chapters’ religion and social services. Religion was the starting point for non profits, and is the largest part of the non profit sector. Where 90% of American adults say they believe in god, pray, and that religion is important in their lives. (Oneill) According to the American association fund council, estimated 74 billion was given to religion in 2000. (Oneill) Additionally, American religion has a major institutional presence in education, healthcare, economic development, low-income housing, and many other service areas.

            When looking at statistics over the past century’s recent statistics show a decline in membership, attendance, religious giving, and enrollment in religious schools and colleges. Even after this decline in religious activity America is still one of the most religious nations, in its belief and practice. With the diversity of religious expression in America some religions are created and others fall out. This could be due to various things such as religious movements, wars, and presidents to name a few.

            It has been studied that today’s 20 and 30 year olds are less religious then their ancestors and with that generational replacement a continuation of decline in religious affiliation is expected to occur.

            Social service non profit sector does what all major religions strive for; to help others in a universal moral stance. For these reasons social service can be considered one of the most widely accepted and admired part of the non profit sector.

            The social service agencies are generally smaller with less revenue and employees. Though government is by far the number one source of non profit social service revenue, the obstacle is how to manage church and state interaction without excessive entanglement of government in religious affairs, considering history and present constitutional laws. Some 60% of the revenue comes either directly or indirectly from the government to the social services sector. This Money can come through grants, performance contracts, along with many other ways.

            In the 19^th century non profits pioneered programs for the mentally ill, prisoners, and the physically and mentally disabled. Non profit day care efforts led to both government and for profit activity; for profits accounting for 60% of non-government day care service. (Oneill) I specifically chose this bit of information about non profits societal impact, because I was involved with such moneys given by the government.

            I grew up across the street from a family that has a mentally challenged son. When I became of a responsible age, I started helping them out as a family aid. When I went over to watch him I had to fill out a paper, record down the time, dates, my signature, and my social security number. Then the papers would be sent out every week to the Common Behavioral HealthCare Co-op of Pennsylvania, where the government would pay me. The family was required to use up a certain amount of the money that the government was providing specifically for a family aid. The money I received was fixed at a certain rate per hour. If the family didn’t use up a certain amount of the money provided for that specific use that year they would get cut off at some point from the funds till they could apply for them again. So needless to say it worked out pretty well for the both of us during the year and a half that I was able to work with them. I would like to find out more information about the stipulations behind these requirements; this information was given to me by the father in a conversation. It would be nice to see if this is a flawed part of government planning or not.