Social Services, Funding, Tools and EDs/CEOs

            The chapter on social services surprised me with statistics and information surrounding the sources of funding for nonprofits all over the country.  The first shocker was the fact that there are so many organizations that are small in the employee numbers as well as their revenue.  O’Neill writes that, “only 19 percent had revenue of $1 million or more. Thirty nine percent of the firms had fewer than 5 employees, ” when I read this kind of material, it inspires a lot of questions (75).  Primarily, how do the people within these organizations survive? Are they all underpaid? Do they work mainly from volunteers? And, why don’t more of these small organizations, who are working toward the same purpose, band together to become more effective?  It is hard to believe that each individual organization is better off being separate, when there are many that work toward the same goal and struggle equally in different areas or share the same struggles. 

Some things that were news to me, but not necessarily as surprising, include the history of societal impacts and trends. The fact that nonprofits possess more freedom to experiment (which may result in failure), less constraints from the government, the ability to work with whatever population they see fit, and to shed light on social issues that are often neglected, is what I find compelling about the sector (47).  So, when O’ Neill explains the social impacts that nonprofits can have simply by advocating and working to support issues that are often swept under the rug, like domestic violence, I am moved (81). What isn’t moving is the lack of funding that these organizations suffer from.   One trend that the nation saw when Reagan was in office was the cutting of federal government spending on social services and a shift of responsibility onto state and local governments. This was followed by a movement in the 90s to measure the effectiveness of nonprofits in regard to their overall gains and losses.  The combination of these two changes impacted the sector by assigning blocks of money to states, allowing them to choose which programs to focus on, and lowering the quality of services that they provide (83-87). Although the end of the chapter leaves the reader feeling secure that the government as well as private funding is taking care of the nonprofit sector accordingly, the online readings leave us with a drastically different sense of the situation. 

The articles from Louisiana, New York and the one about the Tools for Affordable housing all seemed very in line with the theme that a majority of nonprofits lack necessary funding to fulfill what they are capable of.  While the LA, and NY articles seemed to present the needs the Tools article offered solutions that are being used in Washington DC right now. I really appreciated this juxtaposition, but still feel overwhelmed by the suffering that people must withstand in order to get the appropriate help they need.  One article mentioned the fact that if minimum wage could be raised, there would be fewer impoverished families who are homeless or need assistance with bills, etc.  What a concept! So obvious and so simple.  I know this is an oversimplification, but seriously, why hasn’t the federal minimum wage increased with inflation.  It is insane that we live in a country where our minimum wage isn’t even enough to pay rent with. 


Here is an article about minimum wage law in Missouri.  (They want it to raise with inflation)


Minimum wage law under debate: "The law regarding minimum wage in Missouri is being debated by lawmakers."

Lastly, the two articles that presented the executive director of St. Vinnie’s and the CEO of MAAC project left me with some conflicting feelings.  I was delighted to read the St. Vinnie’s one because Terry McDonald seems so brilliant and industrious when it comes to his nonprofit.  But, conversely, Antonio Pizano came off as a total politician with all the right answers.  Maybe this reaction is irrational and off point completely, but they just appeared t be totally opposite ends of the spectrum. 

                        

Laws on Nonprofits & Religion

   This week's readings were a little difficult to string together for me, so I will be giving an individual response to each.

Dan Pallotta’s blog post about the effectiveness measurement of nonprofits interested me because I’d never really thought to measure the effectiveness of these organizations.   (I suppose this is because so much of the information we take in is a novelty to me.)  This idea of knowing the effectiveness of organizations in order to make better decisions about which to donate to seemed great to me.  I like Pallotta’s way of measuring the effectiveness, too.  By the end of the article I began to wonder what else the effectiveness rating or score could be used for.  If an organization was rated low enough would they be shut down, or would the low rating in effect cause the organization to fail.  It reminds me of this new trend that is happening in the restaurant business—grades.  Apparently (and I just read this a couple days ago, so forgive me for not citing the source) restaurants all over CA, and along the West coast in general, are starting to be assigned a letter grade just like in school that is then displayed in their window or door.   I think (or assume) it is decided by highly reputable food critics what the grade of the restaurant is, but I have no idea what information comprises the grade.  So, if a charity is given an effectiveness score, then I think we as the public a have right to know what that score is made up of.  Which, if I read it right, is what Pallotta believes too.  Could the effectiveness rating affect whether or not an org. gets grants and publicity, etc? I think so, but how public would it be? Would they be required to make it public information that is easily accessible, like how the restaurants post their grade on the front window or door?  Just some questions I was left with.

The estate tax reading was a bit of a mystery to me.  I understand that the top rung of our socioeconomic hierarchy is probably salivating at the tax decrease of an estate that will most likely be left to a family member, but what does it mean to the nonprofit sector? With a lower amount of that money going to the government, I would hope that these people most affected by the tax cut are more motivated to invest some of that dough into charities, but that’s not what I think really goes down.  Maybe it is? Coming from the opposite end of the spectrum it is hard for me to believe these people are charitable in the least because I am often blinded by what I think they ought to be doing for charities, etc.

Tim Harford’s blog post was awesome! It was relatively old information for me, but nonetheless interesting and thought provoking.  I love this depiction of the person who does not want to donate to a charity but feels pressured by the door-to-door representative so he or she hides behind the couch.  So funny!  I agree that people have varying motivations for their altruism, but I also think that there are more than three categories.  Perhaps it is best to think of these three as the main ones that everything else kind of falls under. His post relates perfectly to the chapter we read from the text about religion.  I think that a lot can be said for social pressures within religious organizations to do prosocial things within our larger communities.  That’s a huge part of why religious groups are have survived so long in our history as a species, these organized groups of people build trust in their common belief systems, and it’s been great for our survival. 

Lastly the charitable deduction article worried me.  If this law were to pass, I believe that nonprofits would be crippled because the larger donations that help to really keep these organizations alive are often incentivized by the deduction the donors receive for giving away such large sums of money.  I did like the idea of the organizations receiving the an additional 15% of the donations though, in effect giving the government a portion and the nonprofit organization of peoples’ choice a portion of the money taxed.

Some additional stuff:

A short (less than a page) article about religion and altruism/cooperation.

Religious people more generous on 2 conditions

Another RSA video if you have the time (~10 min.). This one talks about how the formation of religions and shared belief systems influence our cooperative/altruistic behaviors

My take on the reading

Hello All,

I’ll start off with the “about me” portion of this post. I assume we share the same purpose for this blog, since it was assigned for a course we are all taking.  I will be blogging about my experiences as a psychology major exploring the world of nonprofits, and sharing with you what I learn throughout the term.  The way I see psychology connecting to the nonprofit sector is simple: by social services and public health.  Psychology is part of everyone’s daily life as are nonprofits, so, they pretty much go hand in hand.  In my past I have volunteered at a shelter for women and children (and I remain interested in this population), but I have a fairly broad curiosity for all populations within mental health.  I am taking this course as part of my nonprofit minor and to learn about the ever-growing nonprofit sector.  I hope to learn about existing nonprofits in or related to mental health that may be good fits for me to work within, as well as how nonprofits work within our social system.

           

On to the reading…

I was first shocked by the vastness of the nonprofit sector.  I had no idea how it was defined, or how many different nonprofit organizations exist! I guess I had just never given it much thought before.  The section on volunteering in chapter one was engaging to me because it discusses the differences between formal and informal volunteering, which is primarily deciphered by whether you volunteer with an organization or do—what one of my grade school teachers called—random acts of kindness in your daily life (p. 31).  The study mentioned found that around 75% of respondents informally volunteered for example in their neighborhoods, whereas only 50% actually volunteered with an organized group.  In psychology the study of altruism is a popular topic because there are so many conflicting findings.  One semi-famous experiment was Darley and Batson (1973) study of bystander altruism in which they tested whether people going from one place to another within a given time window would help a stranger in need.  One group was given, I think it was, only 10 minutes to get to where they needed to go, while the other group was given anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour.  They found that people in the least “hurry” were the most likely to help (~60%) and the most hurried were the least likely (~10%).  I always wonder when we are discussing altruism, if people are as accurate at gauging their altruistic behavior as they think.  Surely the people in the group given the least amount of time would have helped someone if they had been given more time, right? So in our hurried and often overbooked lives I wonder if people tend to report their intentions of volunteering informally, or even formally for that matter, just by wishful thinking. 

            Okay, enough with my psychology rant.  The first chapter overall, was a little overwhelming with all the charts and statistical information.  However, this information was mostly new to me.  Especially surprising was the fact that the U.S. nonprofit revenue exceeds the GDP of all but the 6 highest GDP nations in the world (p.33).  Taking into account the lack of clarity in tracking how much money is truly being gifted, or otherwise made, it’s still a shocking figure. Chapter 2 was more enjoyable because the material was less foreign to me.  I found that I agreed a lot with the four reasons put forth by political scientists why nonprofits have become the entity they are today (p. 46 & 47).  These hypotheses seem to be true in my own experience and I think they are solid enough reasons that people can really grasp onto one or two or even all four as reasons they work for (or would like to work for) a nonprofit organization.  Lastly, the section on interdisciplinary theories I thought was the best approach to finding a unified theory because it would feel wrong to leave out the contributions of one of the fields of study and include all the rest (p.50). I thought that each field brought something valid to the table, and that something could be taken away from each to find a combined definition.

Videos that are somewhat relevant:

(I'll post from youtube I think, still figuring this part out, sorry.)

These are both 10-minute videos that I was reminded of while doing the reading. I posted them in case anyone is interested. They are pretty entertaining J

Superfreakonomics, about the economic and psychological mechanisms behind altruism, and how altruistic we really can be!

21^st Century Enlightenment, about what motivates us in the work place and why purpose driven organizations are more fulfilling (and attractive) to us.