Week 9 Post 8

Mercy Corps mission statements is “helping people turn the crises they confront into opportunities they deserve.  Driven by local needs, our programs provide communities in the world’s toughest places with the tools and support they need to transform their own lives.”  They have teams in 36 countries and have helped over 19 million people.  They have a lot of community-based programs that deal with agriculture, health, hunger and children.  Overall they look like a great organization that is doing a lot for the populations they work with. 

Why does foreign aid fail?

This was a really interesting video clip and I have to admit, something I have not spent much time thinking about.  Easterly spoke about the 2.3 trillion dollars that has been spent on foreign aid over the last 50 years and how ineffective it has been.  Much of the money is lost along the way in administrative costs, high salaries for officials and even stolen by the government of the country receiving the aid.  He said that there was no real accountability and once the money was delivered to the country, we call it good.  I find this information alarming. 

I thought Aid vs. Trade was a great video with an engaging speaker.  I whole-heartedly agree with Okonjo-Iweala’s statements about the US and the UK would not be what they are today without Africa.  Africa was stripped of all its resources, including its people, and these resources were shoveled over to these nations. Taking this into consideration I feel aid is defiantly owed to these people.  Africa was used as an ATM. It was one of the most resources rich continents on earth and now it is poverty and disease stricken. I think America bears a lot of the responsibility for this.    

The Millennium Goals were huge massive goals that I do not believe can be attained by 2015. Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger is not just something we can fix over night.  Neither is HIV and Aids.  I find these goals to be a little insensitive and minimizing the severity of all these different situations.  Even their little symbols are dumb.  These are all huge ills that we have been making small stride to resolve for decades. It’s going to take more than four years to meet these “benchmarks”.

Chapter 9           

            This chapter talked about how most nonprofits in America are based on helping Americans, but some intentional nonprofits look at improving relations between America and other nations and helping people beyond our borders.  While I think we have great need here at home, we cannot deny that there are always others who are worse off. I think that international nonprofits have the right idea and there is nothing wrong with helping our fellow earthlings.  

Week 8 Post 7

  The Power of Nonprofits was an interesting article about the responsibilities of the people to govern themselves.  It made me think about a comment one of my sociology professors made to my class this year.  He said that he’s waiting for our generation to “do something”.  He thinks we are too docile and even though we are being taken to the cleaners while attending college, we remain relatively quiet and just keep footing the bill.  I think that our generation does lack the need to protest in the traditional sense.  I don’t know if it’s lack of time or access to greater technology but we have yet to really push back. 

Maybe we should be more like the students in London?  They are protesting about possibly having to pay $14,000 to attend school. Sounds like small potatoes compared to what we pay. Take a gander. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le-2nCBAZBk&feature=fvst

The Publicizing Questionable Charities article was short and got to the point. I agree that charities that use their money irresponsibly should be held accountable and it is great that there is so much support within the nonprofit community to stop this. 

The Senate Bill 40 article presented a slightly different and more in-depth view of what the bill really means. It still sounds like a good idea to me but I thought it was interesting that most of the charities money is going to the fundraising telefunding company they hire. Why is that? Are these nonprofits just uneducated about how much the company is going to take? Because it seems if they were going to use the money irresponsibly, they would have to collect it first. If it is all being taken in by the telefunding company then isn’t the bill more geared towards that field? Confused. 

The Arts Groups article was kind of a flop for me.  I think that the art based nonprofits are radically different from the social service based ones.  It is hard to really compare the two.  Those who support galleries and orchestras are often times in a different socioeconomic situation then those who focus their attention more on social needs and problems.  I am defiantly not opposed to funding the arts; I just think it’s a different sphere then funding what I tend to think of as more “traditional” nonprofits. 

Poetry Gives Teens a Voice article is a good example of the balance of the arts and nonprofit work. I really liked what the Youth Speaks program is doing and I think that it’s a great way to bring the importance of art down to an organic level I would feel really good about giving to. 

The book chapters (7 & 8) discussed advocacy and arts and culture nonprofits.  I thought that these two chapters compliments the online readings well.  I liked the statement that Americans vote with their feet by attending events they choose to support.  People turn out for things that they are passionate about and advocate for things that affect them directly.  Locating and targeting those people is, I think, the key to a nonprofits success.  

Week 7 Post 6

Subprime Opportunity:

This article made me think about those ads you see on daytime TV for “money now”. Where you sign a couple of documents and boom there is your $400 dollar car payment. Those places scam desperate people into eventually paying double, even triple the money they borrowed in the first place.  This is very similar to what these for-profit colleges are doing to their students. Going after low income and minority students, luring them in with the promise of convince and a quick path to the middle class is heartless.  They are being set up for failure and huge debt loads.  For a country that values education, we do a great job of making it unavailable for a huge portion of our population. 

Fed Up at the University of Phoenix:

This article was pretty similar to the previous reading but more focused on the University of Phoenix in particular.  One phrase in the reading really bothered me. When they were talking about Phoenix’s questionable recruiting techniques they said that recruiters were being told to put “asses in classes, including unqualified students.” To me, here lies the problem, why are there so many “unqualified” students and what makes them unqualified? In my mind these potential students are underserved not unqualified. Maybe they grew up in poverty and were not given the same opportunities as others. Perhaps the lived in a bad part of town and attended schools with few resources or their parents didn’t make enough money.  There are lots of reasons someone might not be able to afford college besides not being qualified.  I think it’s our own fault more people don’t fall on the qualified side of the issue.

The For- Profit Bubble Burst article was great because it discusses the push back coming from unsatisfied and jobless students.  Personally, I believe that these institutions should be closed down because they are clearly not doing their students or their few graduates any good. I remember seeing some commercials for Kaplan University a couple years ago before I really understood what they did and thinking they were really good. I found an example on Youtube. I’d say they still have a pretty good advertizing team.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giZ3HBFbeAg&feature=related

For Profit Schools:

I think the most valuable part of this article was the pro and con list that was presented.  The biggest con that stood out to me was misguided focus.  The primary goal of an educational institution should be to educate.  There is just no way around it. Public colleges and universities are already outrageously expensive and they are allegedly not profit driven. How can you run a business, where the bottom line is money, and still be looking out for your student’s best interests? I don’t think you can. And yes while the business may have incentives to cut costs, they are defiantly not going to cut costs for their patrons.  They cut costs by hiring part time instructors, cutting down class time and jacking up tuition.

Education Research Chapter:

I found this chapter to be chalked full of numbers and difficult to read. I found myself skimming over all the statistics until I got to the trends and issues section. The trend is, college is pricey and often prohibitive. The nonprofit education and research sectors have maintained not only market share but also positions of leadership and are focusing on teaching, not money. Maybe Americans need  institutions like these and less for profit universities to rip them off.  

wk 6 Post 5

Since the reading for this week was on the lighter side I decide to share my general feeling towards environmental nonprofits.  In my opinion, organizations that work to better the environment are some of the most crucial nonprofits out there.  The work they do affect every human being on the planet in a direct manner.  I find environmental issues to be more pressing and urgent when I am exposed to them because frankly, I feel as if out generation is the one that’s going to get screwed.  All of the irresponsible choices made by humans before us, environmental and fiscal, are going to be dumped on our laps in the very near future and we need a plan. 

I found the McKenzie Watershed Council Annual Report to be surprisingly pleasant to read.  It was easy to understand, brief but still had enough detail to be informative.  I enjoyed the short paragraph project updates and the clear goal listing.  I also thought it was smart of them to put the financial break down chart at the end of the report. It seems like a good idea to leave people with an idea of your revenue as an organization.  Now the donor, or who ever is reading the report, sees your needs as an organization and the goals you are trying to meet with that money.

The Paul Hawken Commencement Address was my favorite reading for this week.

I feel inspired. I really liked this speech and though he made some great points.  I wish my graduation speaker had this much umph. He spoke indirectly to non-profits when referencing all those good people with an optimistic view of the world and are working to better the situation. The many issues the world is now grappling with do seem huge and overwhelming and it is easy to have a pessimistic view of things. It is harder to search for solutions. To try and fail and try again. Hawkens speech really resonated with me so I looked him up and found that he is a pretty well known environmentalist and has done lots of lectures and interviews (that are fairly long).  I did find a little six-minute speech he gave that is equally inspiring and has some humorous moments.  Take a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1fiubmOqH4

I found the Al Gore reading to be a bit dull. I didn’t really get much out of it except that more money should be allocated to these causes, as they are important issues.  I think that this article as good information but it was present rather poorly.  Perhaps the reason that the $6 billion donated to environmental causes represents only 2% of giving is due to the fact that it is harder to make earth as appealing as children, or homeless or sick people.  People like to give to people. Finding a way to present these issues in a different more people oriented way may result in more money.

I found a video for a campaign called 1% for the planet. I dig it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEtbpEFAttE

A Guide to Environmental Non-Profits was cool just because it had never occurred to me that a nonprofit might try to almost trick you into thinking the organization was something it wasn’t. In my mind a nonprofit always works towards something “good”. But “good” is arbitrary and to me might mean something completely different than to you.  But there does seem to be something dishonest about an organization called Institute for Cetacean Research being a group for Japanese whaling interests. But I guess spin is something that exists in all spheres where money is a factor.