Feature Articles

Community Nonprofits: Katrina's Unsung Heroes Still on the Job

Anne Pasmanick — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:41:00 -0700

Three years after Hurricane Katrina, we hear about changes and challenges in New Orleans, but know little of the aftermath of Katrina in Mississippi - even though the storm touched virtually the entire state.

Mississippi community nonprofits have seized this improbable moment to rebuild a more engaged and equitable state. Anne Pasmanick spoke to nonprofit leaders along the coast to bring Blue Avocado readers the largely hidden story of their efforts to use the region's recovery as a stepping stone to lasting social change.

"This disaster has woken us up in Mississippi," says Derrick Johnson, state president of the NAACP. "This is our one chance to sit down with all the decision makers and say what our needs and dreams are."

Profound challenges will dog the region for years to come. But in the aftermath of both the natural and the man-made devastation, the Mississippi Gulf Coast may be witnessing the beginning of the end of generations of marginalization. With the adoption of fruitful approaches to community work and with the influx of young newcomers, some residents see a better Mississippi in the offing.

Hurricane Katrina’s 30-foot waves landed on the coast on August 29, 2005. The damage was staggering: levees and power lines collapsed, bridges fell and 65,000 homes in outlying rural areas and coastal towns such as Bay St. Louis, Biloxi, Gulfport, Pass Christian, Waveland and many others were completely destroyed. The storm damaged another 134,000 homes. It stranded thousands of people without food, water, or shelter.

When disaster struck, help came from the ground up.

Collette Washington, a single mother on disability, credits community groups with helping her to end an unimaginable string of personal disasters set in motion by Katrina.

A Devastating Chain of Events

"In January 2005 I purchased and moved into my first home in Pass Christian ," she told Blue Avocado. "In August Katrina came and I lost it all. I even had wind and storm insurance, but my house was destroyed and the company wouldn’t pay for the wind damage. I was one of the lucky ones because my three sons and I found an apartment but of course there was no electricity and no water. The rent was $550 until the landlord realized that people were desperate and he raised the rent to $950."

Things went downhill from there. She lived in substandard housing provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), suffered continuing health setbacks, and lost the government loan she got for a new house to a crooked contractor.

"Things started to change when the Mississippi Center for Justice (MCJ) invited me to a meeting," she says. "Everyone there had been evicted, or had no place to go or was ripped off like me."

With the help of MCJ, a nonprofit law firm that focuses on racial and economic justice issues, Collette was able to have the unlicensed contractor arrested; his trial is pending. Reilly Morse, a third generation Gulfport lawyer, signed on with MCJ and opened a coastal office to pursue the legal rights of poor displaced coastal residents after his own office was destroyed. Along with fellow MCJ lawyers and law student volunteers from across the nation, he traveled the coast meeting with residents displaced first by storm damage and threatened again by rising rents. (Reilly Morse and James Cromwell are photographed here.)

MCJ is one of a constellation of nonprofit groups that have stepped in to address housing, legal and other problems faced by Gulf Coast residents.

"Churches and community groups are the unsung heroes of this disaster," notes Bill Bynum, president of Enterprise Corporation of the Delta (ECD), a nonprofit financial empowerment organization for low-income Mississippians that is the largest economic developer in the state.

Community groups stepped in immediately. Bill points to James Crowell, director of the Biloxi NAACP, and NAACP leader Derrick; they organized a 22-site delivery system of food, water and clothes in East Biloxi when FEMA failed to show up.

Bill's own organization moved quickly to offer long-term financial counseling to homeowners. ECD is also producing modular housing, an innovative and needed affordable housing resource, and has established the Mississippi Economic Policy Center, a resource for data and analysis about the availability and use of public funding.

'We Know the Landscape'

"ECD has been a community development financial institution (CDFI) since 1994 in the most distressed areas of the South," he says. "We know the landscape and the people and have the experience and capacity to do this work."

When James talks about life after Hurricane Katrina he talks in equal measure about frustration and hope. He remembers the economic boom in the seven years before Katrina, the outcome of a growing casino and hotel industry following years of scarcity in the grueling fishing trade.

"Black, Vietnamese, all of our people work so hard," he recalls. Now there is only one casino open and one hotel which houses FEMA workers. The poorest state in the nation, Mississippi's philanthropic and nonprofit infrastructure had been fragile before Katrina landed. In contrast to neighboring Louisiana’s more robust charitable giving environment, Mississippi has fewer community foundations and smaller grant amounts to rely on. Its state association for nonprofits has only a fraction of the staff and membership of its Louisiana counterpart. And although the state is imbued with a rich civil rights history, it lacks a destination city such as New Orleans, whose high profile garners significant media, charitable and celebrity attention.

Stepping Forward in Coalition

But FEMA's botched response on the Gulf Coast inspired area nonprofits to launch the Steps Coalition in 2006. Coalition members take a broad view of community development. They see the intersection of affordable housing, economic justice, environmental justice, preservation of historical communities and human rights as critical to the equitable rebuilding of Mississippi. Members including the NAACP, ECD, MCJ, Boat People SOS, Powerhouse of Deliverance, Gulf Coast Latin American Association, Oxfam, Mercy Housing, North Gulfport Community Land Trust and Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance are shaping and implementing a vision for moving forward.

Policy expert Roland Anglin is positive about the resurgence of activism in Mississippi. "We are creating opportunities for new players and that is changing life for people on the ground. The process may look messy but we are learning from it. There is a big audacious vision here of the political inclusion of marginalized communities. The work of the Steps Coalition is moving Mississippi in that direction," he says. Anglin heads the New Jersey Public Policy Research Institute and serves as a consultant to the Funders Forum for Sustainable Gulf Coast Transformation, a network that includes the Ford, Rockefeller and Annie E. Casey foundations.

"We advocate for renters, who receive no [Katrina-related] assistance and whose rents are now too high to pay," says the NAACP’s James, a coalition member. "And we advocate for people with wind damage who can’t get paid even when they had insurance. The next goal is to build a grassroots movement that can speak with authority about how to rebuild in a fair and equitable way. FEMA is removing its trailers and cottages in March. Our hospitals have left the area. What Katrina didn’t dismantle, corporations and government are letting go. We have to be prepared."

MCJ’s Reilly explains, "Our collaboration with other nonprofits is making a difference. Five years ago there was no real nonprofit infrastructure here. Nonprofits did good work but we rarely worked together. Now we've learned how to bring different approaches to the table and make a positive impact in the community. We can deliver services and shape public policy."

Analyzing and Developing Policy

He and Derrick use the Mississippi Policy Center’s "unimpeachable data "to support recommendations to state and federal policy makers, including a reexamination of the state's rental housing problems. For instance, 42,000 single family rental units were severely damaged by the storm but the state’s plan replaces only 6,000 units. The coalition's ability to document the problem has positioned rental housing on the state’s recovery agenda.

Steps has moved aggressively to hold public officials accountable for their promises and decision making. After Congress granted Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's request to waive a central requirement of community development block grants (CDBGs), Reilly and Derrick testified in protest. CDBGs fund affordable
housing, antipoverty and infrastructure development programs.

Although states and localities have discretion about spending these grants, they must normally use half of the funds for low-income communities. The governor proposed diverting $600 million - 23 percent of the allocated $5.4 billion in emergency CDBG funds - from affordable housing development to the expansion of the port of Gulfport. Steps members argued that this would undermine recovery efforts and lead to environmental degradation in an adjoining African American neighborhood. The testimony before the Housing and Community Opportunity Subcommittee of the Financial Services Committee generated hard-hitting support from 12 key members of Congress, including committee chair Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California), chair of the subcommittee.

The End of Acquiescence

The Steps Coalition leaders and organizations are rebuilding for the long haul. [Click here for their recent Report Card on Mississippi rebuilding.] They know that they have seen the end of acquiescence on the Gulf Coast. Reilly praises the law students who came from all around the country to help displaced families.

"When all is said and done," adds Roland Anglin, "many talented people came and stayed. They are going to school, working in the mayor's office, and working for nonprofits. For many young people, this is their civil rights movement. Many people here felt invisible. They have been touched by the generosity from so many people who came to help."

The community groups' effort "means so much to me," Collette says. "The Back Bay Mission Church comes every day with volunteers and help. I am so grateful to them all." Now, she adds, "Mississippi is coming back."

By working together to secure resources and policy changes, Gulf Coast organizations are rebuilding lives and communities. And they are developing a nonprofit infrastructure that had barely existed before the hurricane, sparking a movement that is revitalizing more than broken neighborhoods.

Anne Pasmanick, a community development consultant in Washington, DC, has worked in the field for more than 20 years. She also volunteers at N Street Village, which provides services for homeless women.

Gas Rates, Volunteers, and Justice: Reader OpEd

Susan J. Ellis — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Many people don't realize that on their personal tax returns volunteers can
deduct mileage expenses incurred as part of volunteering. For example, if a
volunteer drives 30 miles to volunteer at an art school
or drive a patient to chemotherapy, the volunteer can
deduct $4.20 on her next tax return. Even fewer people
realize that in contrast, if this same person drives 30
miles for her business, she can deduct $17.55!

Clearly we need to help volunteers claim the deductions
they can. And in this Blue Avocado Reader OpEd,
activist Susan Ellis talks both about how we can change
the law, and steps we can take now to
supportvolunteerism in an era of high gas prices:

You may know that the IRS just raised the rate for the business-related mileage
deduction to 58.5 cents. But did you know that the charitable driving deduction
remains at only 14 cents a mile? So volunteers, who often use their cars to provide
life-or-death services to people in need, are deriving less tax benefits as their driving expenses rise.

This issue is particularly important since, as the cost of gasoline soars, Americans are trying to drive less. The high cost of driving is already discouraging some people from volunteering, which should set off warning signals about things we sometimes take for granted. Remember that. . .

Volunteers drive and deliver:

meals and other necessities to house-bound individuals
patients to doctor appointments and dialysis treatments
seniors on outings and field trips
children to visit their parents in prison

What's more, volunteers must drive to:

the sites of disasters and emergencies as firefighters and first responders
the places where they volunteer as museum docents, hot-line answerers, tutors, and so much more
board meetings, the county fair where their organizations have exhibit booths, CPR training, and often hundreds of miles to conferences as well as service projects

This issue is particularly important since, as the cost of gasoline soars, Americans are trying to drive less.

An Ongoing Struggle

The tax deduction for driving as part of volunteer service has been at 14 cents for
the last 10 years, having last been raised from 12 cents by the Taxpayer Relief Act
of 1997. Some of us can remember the struggles in the 1970s and 80s to get past
7 cents a mile, and the determined efforts of now Senator Barbara Mikulski (D,
Maryland) to champion better tax support for volunteer drivers.

Silence is not necessarily a sign that people don't mind the cost. Most volunteers will wait a long time before mentioning that driving expenses are hurting them. Even worse, they may drop out of volunteering rather than ask for reimbursement. Rather than exploit the charitable nature of volunteers, shouldn't we be working to support -- rather than penalize -- volunteering?

Here are first some short-term ideas, and then more on supporting changes in the nonprofit mileage rate.

Small Solutions for Right Now

Helping volunteers decrease their driving costs may give us an opportunity to address some things most volunteers have long wished to change anyway:

Consider organizing carpools among volunteers, especially among employer-based volunteerism or to special events
Raise funds specifically to reimburse volunteers for gas costs
Have fewer-but-longer face-to face meetings, and supplement them with conference calls and listserv exchanges
Actively focus on recruiting on people who can walk or bike to our sites
Find ways to engage parents in volunteering while waiting for their children to be finished with sports, painting classes, or therapy

Changing the Law

In July 2008, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) raised the business mileage deduction to 58.5 cents per mile (an increase of 16%). IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman commented, "We want the reimbursement rate to be fair to taxpayers." The problem is: gas doesn't cost any less for volunteers, yet the reimbursement rate of 14 cents per mile is 76% less than the business rate!

And . . . it turns out that this figure requires congressional legislation to change! The government gives lip service to "supporting and encouraging" volunteer and community service. Here is an opportunity for a simple, direct way of doing so.

Protest has come from various sources and Congress is responding. The Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofits has been one of the leaders of the effort to raise the charitable deduction rate and urges support of H.R. 2020, which would make the rate equivalent to any number set by the IRS for business-related driving. More information can be found at http://www.pano.org/publicpolicy/publicpolicy-irs_CRR.php. Collectively, we can remedy this injustice!

Sample Letter

Dear Representative/Senator _________________________:

It's wonderful that the IRS has just increased the mileage deduction to 58.5 cents a mile in recognition of the high cost of gas. But do you realize that the charitable mileage deduction has remained at only 14 cents a mile for the last ten years?!

It requires Congressional legislation to raise this rate. Please act now and recognize the enormous contribution of volunteers who use their cars to:
* Deliver meals to those who are homebound and otherwise might not eat
* Drive seniors to necessary doctor appointments
* Make sure people without the means to drive or without mass transit can get medical treatments, visit family members in custodial care, and other vital services.

Please support a bill such as H.R. 2020 that makes the charitable deduction equal to the business deduction, and prevents new legislation from having to be introduced ever few years.

Volunteers deserve this support and assistance. Please change the law now.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Susan J. Ellis is president of Energize, Inc., a training
and publishing firm specializing in volunteerism. The
Energize website www.energizeinc.com has 1400 free
pages of information and resources for leaders of
volunteer efforts. You can sign up there for their free
monthly email Update, and check out their online
volunteer management training program. Here you see
Susan with her 2006 Civic Hybrid at an event where she has driven to volunteer.

More Than the Olympics: Sports, Nonprofits & Community

Janice Clark — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:45:23 -0700

This month, sports eyes turn to the Olympics to see some of the world's greatest athletes compete for medals and country. As you settle into your couch to take in the pageantry and competition in Beijing, don't forget the impact that nonprofit groups have had in creating America's awe-inspiring performers - and in building communities.

You may not see a nonprofit logo on an Olympian's cap or the back of a superstar's jersey, but nonprofiteers are behind every great sport in the U.S. No athlete has reached the pinnacle of his or her sport outside the complex eco-system of volunteer, amateur and community nonprofit sports.

And amateur sports embody "the best of nonprofit spirit: people getting together about something people care about," astutely notes sports anthropologist Orin Starn of Duke University.

Sports nonprofits of all sizes touch millions of Americans by organizing 4-year-old T-ballers and senior swimmers, helping them to get fit, learn core values, connect with others in their communities and more. Amateur and recreational athletes are supported by coaches, referees, chaperones, timekeepers and a host of others acting as volunteers or earning modest salaries from nonprofit organizations.

'Every Kid Deserves a Coach'

Volunteers for local community organizations are often the first mentors that young athletes encounter. These volunteers are usually parents or teachers, frequently athletes in their own right.

"There is a strong idea [in American culture] that youth sports is The Way," says Orin. "It's a mechanism of value transmittal, a way to teach kids about teamwork and competitiveness; there's a notion that every American kid deserves to have a coach."

Volunteer Mike Gonzaga coaches 23 young people in an Encino, California, high school boxing club. Many of his boxers have had had social problems with drugs, alcohol and gangs. Mike tells his team that being a professional athlete is not going to last forever.

"But you are going to be a man the rest of your life," Gonzaga says.

Once you put the uniform on, you are 'The Ref,'" according to Kammi Cottrell, a coach, player, and referee for basketball in Anne Arundel County, Maryland (pictured at right with young player). "You take command of the game so that the kids can learn."

Trained and employed by the nonprofit Maryland Basketball Officials Association, she referees games in the Anne Arundel County school system. The Association, which made 15,000 assignments to officials in 2006, taught her that refereeing is more than knowing the rules of the game; it is about maintaining professionalism and commanding the respect of the athletes, coaches and spectators.

Binding Communities in Good and Bad Times

Beyond the game, Kammi says, "a sports team is a family -- you are not always going to get along all the time with people in this family, but you are going to learn how to manage these relationships if you are going to be the best athlete you can be."

Many nonprofit sports clubs serve a valuable function of helping people to get together or engage in social networking. For instance, for a newcomer, sports is a great way to find people with like interests and to connect with a new community. Recreational athlete Evelyn Dibben, a software engineer, moved to Denver in early 2008. She used various Internet resources such as meetup.com and Craigslist to find volleyball, biking and hiking groups. "Sports is a great way to launch social relationships," Evelyn says. "I feel I am a part of the community where people depend on me and I on them."

Sports Volunteers 'Give and Give and Give'

The contribution of sports nonprofits extends beyond even the binding of local communities. The oft-repeated cliche that sports inculcates leadership skills may actually be true. A study by the Women's Sports Foundation, launched by tennis legend Billie Jean King, found that eighty percent of the female executives at Fortune 500 companies identified themselves as having played sports.

In spite of such far-ranging influence, rarely do community sports organizations and their volunteers get much recognition. But one 71-year-old baseball coach got his thanks in especially memorable way last month. When Major League Baseball (MLB) star Josh Hamilton competed in the MLB Home-Run Derby, he asked Clay Council to be his pitcher. In front of thousands at Yankee Stadium, Council threw more than 50 pitches to Hamilton, who went to high school where Clay coaches as a volunteer.

Through the American Legion and Little League, Clay - former tobacco farmer, minor league ballplayer, soldier and airport worker - has been throwing batting practice to kids in Cary, North Carolina, for decades.

"He's done so much for many kids and probably hasn' t got a lot of thank yous for it. [Having him pitch for the derby] is a big thank you," Hamilton told the Charlotte News & Observer. "There are so many people like Clay that give and give and give and never expect anything in return."

People like Clay - and the nonprofit organizations they belong to - do more than provide the training ground for aspiring Olympians and sports professionals. Although often discounted by "traditional" nonprofits, these groups have few rivals in their capacity to develop our leaders and engage our communities.

Janice Clark has been a nonprofiteer working in the housing and community development field for nearly 15 years. She's on staff in the communications department of a national nonprofit based in Washington, DC, and volunteers to support arts activities in her hometown of Annapolis, Maryland. Janice has been an amateur athlete for 35 years, playing volleyball, softball and whatever other pickup game she can get into.

Boards of All-Volunteer Organizations

Jan Masaoka — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:38:15 -0700

Volunteerism is an enormous economic force, yet it is never mentioned
in business school or in economics departments.
--Walter Hoadley, former Chief Economist for the Bank of America

All-volunteer organizations (AVOs) are a major social and economic force, but are seldom given credit for their work. Through all-volunteer organizations, people conquer alcoholism, clean up beaches, care for the dying, coach basketball teams, advocate for gun control, rescue abused animals, raise their voices in song, publish literary journals, raise scholarship funds, preserve local history, serve as volunteer fire departments, organize protest marches, exchange heirloom seeds, host visitors from foreign countries, change public perception about the disabled, help adoptees and birth parents find each other, and in thousands of ways make our communities work better.

That these and countless other services are provided by volunteers and not by paid staff would come as a surprise to many. All-volunteer organizations are nonprofits where volunteers manage the organization and do most or all of the work. Some all-volunteer organizations do pay individuals: soccer leagues pay referees for Saturday games, historical preservation societies pay gardeners, and PTAs often pay after-school art teachers. The difference is that while all-volunteer organizations sometimes pay people to work , they don't pay people to manage. The job of management is done by the volunteer leaders, usually the board.

The term "board" means the group of people that runs the organization. Some groups elect officers, while in others anyone can join the "core group," or the "steering committee." Because many all-volunteer organizations haven't taken the legal steps to form a nonprofit corporation, there may not be a legal board of directors. Nonetheless, the term "board" is a convenient way of identifying this leadership group.

In a nonprofit with paid staff, an important role of the board is its governance function: to hold staff accountable to the community purpose. The board ensures that the organization complies with tax and legal requirements and uses funds efficiently towards the organization's priorities. In their supporting role, board members often assist staff in the work of the organization, whether that's helping to raise money, assisting with accounting or volunteering in a women?s shelter, a thrift shop, or a community center.

In an all-volunteer organization, there are no paid managers. So it's often hard to distinguish between what the board does and what the organization does. For example, the same person- let's call her Cristina - may wear two "hats" when volunteering for the local garlic festival or the Martin Luther King, Jr. march. When she's wearing her board member hat, Cristina and other board members must obtain local permits and decide how much to spend on publicity. When she's wearing her volunteer staff hat, Cristina and the other volunteers may direct cars to parking areas and design the newspaper ad. It's confusing because it's the same Cristina, and because, whichever hat she's wearing, she's still a volunteer.

A big question facing AVOs is whether to strive to become a staffed organization, where ultimately most of the work is done by paid staff. For some all-volunteer organizations, there is a clear goal to "grow up"to be a large, staffed organization. The Sierra Club, NAACP, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and countless other powerful organizations started as all-volunteer organizations, and many do most of their work through all-volunteer local chapters.) An all-volunteer organization that decides to engage paid staff needs to plan to phase in that staff and phase in changes in roles for board members.

Many AVOs stumble when they first hire someone to manage the organization. After years of acting in both management and governance roles, it's difficult for boards to find a way both to be supportive of management staff and provide adequate oversight or governance. Some AVOs hire an interim executive director or a program coordinator before hiring a director as a way for the organization and the board to make the change in stages. Others decide that they should hire fundraising staff rather than an executive director.

For other organizations, staying all-volunteer is an intrinsic part of its mission and heart. In church groups, volunteer rescue squads, or the PTA, the all-volunteer character of the organization is what makes participation satisfying and rewarding to many. AVOs need not feel that they ?should? aspire to being a staffed organization. Rather than thinking, "We're all just volunteers," AVOs should be proud to say: "Being all-volunteer is right for us: paid staff would end up damaging our organization."

Two responsibilities in particular are uniquely important in AVOS: recruiting new leaders, and turning over responsibilities to them. Sometimes long-time leaders and volunteers view the organization as "their baby" and are sharply critical and undermining of anyone whose approach is different. Letting go is difficult for them. They may find fault with new volunteers, or refuse to allow newcomers to take on real responsibility. Board members who truly believe in the organization's work will want to ensure that they encourage new leaders (even if they seem to be doing it all wrong at first) and let the organization grow into its own future. (This may mean allowing current activities to die out and new activities to take their place.)

Some people with wonderful skills are reluctant to envision themselves in a board role. They may see board members as experts with special training. In fact, the boards of all-volunteer organizations are among the best places in the world to find training and become an expert in managing people and organizations. Current board members need to seek out valued volunteers and encourage them to stretch their skills by joining the board, and support them once they get there.

When the board presidency or other leadership position changes hands, many AVOs find that the organization's papers and obligations get lost in the move. At the very least, one sturdy box should be "the organizational safe." It can contain the official documents and be easily passed along from one president to the next. Some organizations have one box for each position of responsibility; these are ceremonially presented at a meeting or installation dinner to the incoming generation of leaders. (If everyone in the group is actively online, a service such as BOARDnetWORK or YahooGroups can also be useful for document storage.)

The second crucial job for the board is also intangible: the role the board plays in establishing a tone for the organization. Through example, leaders foster a spirit where others contribute gladly, not reluctantly or guiltily. And by paying scrupulous attention to financial matters, and ensuring that government and other paperwork is filed properly, the board demonstrates a commitment to doing things right.

Some of today's all-volunteer organizations will be tomorrow's multi-million dollar, influential and powerful organizations that change laws, change public opinion, and shape society. Others will continue to be the invisible glue that connects people, connections that form the framework for strong communities. In a thousand ways, board members in all-volunteer organizations are the grassroots leaders and "keepers of the spirit" upon which so much of community cohesiveness and social change depend.

We are pleased that this article appears simultaneously this month in the e-Volunteerism newsletter, designed for volunteers and volunteer leaders, from Energize,Inc.

Just Tell Me: What’s the Best Way to Raise Money? Choosing the Right Revenue Strategy

Jan Masaoka — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 00:01:00 -0700

It's aggravating to have someone say (at a board meeting, for example), "Look at how they over there raise money! That's better than what we're doing . . . we should do that!" Or for a funder to tell you what they think is the best way to raise money: from major donors, or from government, or from black-tie dinners, or . . . . you get the idea.

Think for a moment about two very successful stores: Target and Williams-Sonoma. Both sell cookware. Target sells inexpensive cookware through large stores in outlying areas and it advertises through newsprint inserts in local newspapers. Williams-Sonoma sells expensive cookware through boutique stores in high-rent districts and it advertises through glossy, full-color catalogs mailed to high-income zip codes. Each has put together a winning formula.

But what if Target were to try selling its colanders and measuring spoons at the same prices that Williams-Sonoma charges? (Would you buy a colander for $60 at Target?) Or if Williams-Sonoma were to try using newsprint flyers instead of its glossy catalogs? Neither decision would work.

So when we ask, “What's the best way to raise money?” we need to start by figuring out who are the best potential supporters of our work and why, what those people are interested in, how to reach them and how much to ask them for.

Fundraising Strategy vs. Revenue Strategy

Fundraising is about income that is contributed rather than earned. Fundraising strategies are ones that bring in money from individual donations, foundation grants, corporate contributions, church giving programs and the funding programs of other institutions.

Tuitions, ticket sales to performance, magazine subscriptions and almost all government contracts are examples of earned revenue. If you don’t do the work, you don’t get the money.

A revenue strategy, therefore, looks broadly at the range of possibilities for financial support and combines both earned income and contributed income. A revenue strategy is a crucial part of any plan for long-term financial sustainability.

The decisions you make about your revenue strategy – that is, who should be supporting your work and how to go about soliciting that support – should be based not only on who is most likely to give you money or pay for your services, but what makes the most sense in terms of who you are, what kind of change you’re trying to make in your community and how your funding sources can help you get there.

Most nonprofits these days combine earned income (such as contracts, fees, sales) with contributed income. Like Target and Williams-Sonoma, each organization puts together a package based on its core supporters, its connections and positioning and its cause.

Different Strategies for Similar Programs

Let's look at how two after-school tutoring programs raise money:

Program A: Started in a racially diverse church, this program works with low-income kids who come for tutoring and after-school care in this mostly Latino, starting-to-gentrify neighborhood. Many of the volunteer tutors and board members are from the church, which draws from many neighborhoods across the city. With several upper-middle-class board members and the active support of the church, Program A raises $80,000 each year through fundraising events and several individual donations of $5,000 each.

Program B: With similar activities as Program A, Program B was started in a similar city quarter by a neighborhood center, itself often struggling for funds. Its volunteer tutors and board members are nearby residents, racially diverse, many in the helping professions themselves and some well connected to city politics. Coupling the center's importance to the neighborhood with its board’s connections, Program B is able to obtain a modest annual grant each year from city government. In addition, it receives donations from the electric utility and a local family foundation. Car washes and a raffle raise more community spirit than they do funds, but are still part of the total budget of $80,000.

Both these community-based programs have developed successful fundraising strategies. Of these methods, which is the best? Individual donations? City grant? Foundations? Fundraising event? Corporate grants? The answer (like the answer to most questions) is: it depends.

It depends on the organization’s external environment (the opportunities) and its internal strengths (the assets). Externally, in some cities there are many foundations while in others there are practically none. Organizational assets include who’s involved in the organization – including constituents, board members, volunteers and staff. Other assets include the relationships the organization has built with other groups and its connections to government agencies, local corporations and community leaders.

The revenue strategy will be guided by the organization’s philosophy about who should form the core of their support. Finally, the cause itself is important: some causes lend themselves more naturally to certain kinds of revenue. Corporations are less likely to support a prisoner-support organization than churches or government might be. Older constituents may be less likely to support international causes than younger constituents. (Note: these are just hypothetical examples!)

Getting from Here to There

Even if you don’t think you have a revenue strategy, you already do have some kind of configuration of ways to obtain money. Start by taking a good look at the ones you are already using. In most cases a good first step is to expand the revenue areas where you are already having success and to link your various vehicles together. For example, Program A's major gifts program, which relies on about 10 board members asking their friends for donations, doesn't take much effort but raises $40,000 each year. In contrast, Program A’s walk-a-thon raises about $5,000 in addition to raising community spirit and enthusiasm. Program A should focus its attention on expanding its major donor program and it should maintain – but not increase – the walk-a-thon level of activity. It can also link these activities by bringing donors to the walk-a-thon and using the walk-a-thon to identify prospects for larger donations.

Just like the Target and Williams-Sonoma example, it may not work to take a page out of someone else’s book. Begin by assessing what your organization has going for it internally and externally and choose a mix that suits what you've got. Then and perhaps most important, focus on doing well in those areas and recruiting the right board members and others to increase those fundraising areas before spreading out into new ones.

The best way to raise money? The one that has the potential to increase (or at least stay level) and the one that you already have the skills and connections to tap.

We’re pleased that a longer version of this article is appearing this month in Grassroots Fundraising Journal.

World Press Freedom Day: A Free Press and a Free Nonprofit Sector

Lynora Williams & Jan Masaoka — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:01:00 -0700

Maggie, Lisa, Bart, Marge and Homer: the five members of the Simpson family. One in every five Americans knows who they are. But what are the five freedoms of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? Only one in 34 of us know! Do you?

You probably remembered freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In addition to freedom of religion, two lesser known freedoms define a free nonprofit sector: the freedom to assemble, and the freedom to petition.

We nonprofiteers spend a lot of time railing against the "the media." It can be frustrating trying to get coverage of our work, only to see the nightly news filled with parsing of the word "bitter" or a parade of celebrity rehab updates. But "the media" in the U.S. is so much more - from creative community radio and independent web-based publications to ethnic dailies and tv stations.

A California Journalist Loses His Life

This breadth of journalistic outlets is just one reason why we should pay attention on World Press Freedom Day. Global human rights advocates mark the day on May 3 by honoring those who've lost their lives or been jailed for bringing truth to the public. This is the first World Press Freedom Day since last year's assassination of Oakland, California, journalist Chauncey Bailey who was investigating a small sect linked to as many as eight murders. And it was only last year that blogger Josh Wolf was released from a San Francisco jail after 226 days for refusing to turn over a videotape from an anti-corporate demonstration.

Corporate Control of Media

An additional concern for us nonprofiteers is the corporatization of media - particularly broadcast outlets and daily newspapers. Unlike in many other countries, the primary media outlets here are for-profit, rather than nonprofit, enterprises. Outside of stations with all-news formats, news has all but disappeared from most local commercial radio stations. And growing corporatization has long fueled ongoing concerns about protection of First Amendment freedoms.

Nonetheless, it's worth reflecting on the impact of press freedom on our work as nonprofit people. With their deeply symbiotic relationship, a free press and a free nonprofit sector are the twin engines of democracy. Nonprofit organizations (or nongovernmental organizations - NGOs, as they're known internationally), take action on what the press exposes in orderto make social change. And without nonprofits, the press would be forced to rely largely on government and business press releases.

Historical Partnership

U.S. history is replete with the twinning of these two freedoms: the journalist Ida B. Wells fiercely organizing against lynching, the Pittsburgh Courier's WWII campaign with the NAACP for "V for Victory at Home, V for Victory Abroad;" the antiwar GI press giving other GIs as well as activists the information they needed.

This World Press Freedom Day, let's remember the deaths of 157 murdered Iraqi journalists; the independent Chinese journalists suffering in the run-up to the Olympics, and the Zimbabweans trying desperately to inform their compatriots by mounting short-wave broadcasts from Los Angeles and London. CPJ will issue an index ranking the countries in which journalists are killed with impunity. Our next-door neighbor, Mexico, ranks right up there.

A Flawed System; a Freedom Worth Protecting

Here at home, there's lots not to like about the U.S. press. But this May 3, at least for one day, we can set our grumbling aside. Let's salute an essential partner to nonprofits in social change. Let's take a moment to acknowledge the fragility of press freedom, which we so often take for granted, and remember that it needs active protection all year, every year.

"This is our country," hip-hop dean LL Cool J reminds us. In a video on the First Amendment, Can't Touch This, at the Newseum in Washington, DC, he says, "Our country has a lot of diversity. It hasa lot of different people with a lot of different ideas. All of those ideas deserve to be heard. All of them."

Promises, Promises: Rural Advocates vs. Big Philanthropy

Rick Cohen — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:01:49 -0700

In November 2002, a Yakima County, Washington, organizer filed a class action suit against the Northwest Area Foundation (NWAF) for breach of contract. He argued that the community had done everything it was supposed to do to qualify for the grants tentatively proposed by the foundation, and that NWAF’s ultimate decision not to make the grants violated an implied contract.

Some six years later, community advocates in Yakima County, Washington, and the St. Paul-based Northwest Area Foundation are still picking up the pieces after the disastrous encounter that led to this unique lawsuit. How did all this come about?

The sprawling eastern Washington farming county, where more than one-fifth – nearly twice the state average – of the residents lived below the poverty level in 2005, was among the foundation’s “community venture” sites. NWAF had allocated a portion of its resources to community-wide antipoverty grants of $10 million to be disbursed over a decade to select communities. The foundation required the sites to undergo a lengthy planning process to qualify for the grant. Brand new organizations were to spring from the planning.

Beginning in 2001, hundreds of Yakima activists and community leaders participated in meetings, seminars, visioning efforts and more meetings. This nearly 2-year, $750,000 process sparked and led by NWAF was long and exhausting.

Like other candidate communities, the Yakima Countians had come to the table knowing they faced steep obstacles – especially racial and ethnic divisions. The county is home to the Yakama Nation, one of the largest Indian nations in the Northwest; some 45 percent of the residents are Latino, many of them farmworkers. They tried to come together because the area had almost no indigenous philanthropic resources. The possibility of a $10 million infusion lured them to the table.

In the end, the foundation declined to fund implementation of the plan, much to Yakima Valley’s shock.

The experience was so traumatic that it spawned a lawsuit, soul-searching by the foundation and much bitterness all the way around. Some in the community are still recovering. Teri K. Johnson-David, economic development director of the Yakama Nation, declined to talk about the experience, writing in an e-mail, “This is in the past and should stay there (buried).”

Many community participants believed that the foundation misled them. NWAF, recalls Carole Folsom-Hill, executive director of La Casa Hogar Yakima Interfaith Coalition, said that it “wanted this to be an integrated process, they wanted to build a structure” that would involve the whole community. Community groups agreed to participate, she said, because “the carrot was very enticing. We’re kind of powerless; we’ll do what they say. We don’t have any money, [so] we tried.”

The nonprofit organizations, she recalls, “were the voice of the community. We knew the community well and thought we could influence [the foundation’s] decision."

People from all perspectives have various explanations for why (or even whether) the process broke down and why the foundation failed to award the grant. These include problems with NWAF staff turnover, unclear expectations at the start, racial and class tensions among the Indian, Latino and white communities, and the particularities of the Yakama Nation’s engagement process.

According to an NWAF leader, there was no contract, implied or otherwise, that guaranteed that by going through the planning process, the Yakima Valley would automatically receive the grant. The foundation’s view is that the community didn’t come together sufficiently to warrant the 10-year investment. Among the factors NWAF cited was the unwillingness of the Yakama Nation to sign off on the idea of a new organization that, as in the other venture sites, would have implementation authority.

“It was not nice,” lamented Folsom-Hill. “It looked like it wasn’t top-down, but in the end it was a top-down process.”

Perhaps attorney Matthew Metz put his finger on the nub of it when he said that NWAF was “trying to substitute for the political process, but government is there for the long haul and [the foundation] proved they weren’t.” He might have added that many of the community advocates are deeply committed to the long haul as well.

Despite their disappointments, it seems that very few in Yakima County supported or were even involved in the lawsuit brought by former United Farm Workers organizer Julio Romero. A foundation lawyer, according to former NWAF staffer Ellery July, considered it a “shakedown.”

Romero’s legal action, Romero v NWAF, never bore fruit; the courts gave the breach of contract theory some credence, but in the end awarded the plaintiffs inconsequential compensation for the out-of-pocket travel expenses residents incurred to attend planning meetings. Romero did not respond to Blue Avocado’s attempts to reach him but Metz, who represented him, says “the foundation was playing with people’s lives.” Nonetheless, he hopes that NWAF continues to move forward with its antipoverty effort.

“It was a good program,” Metz said. “They should give it a chance, but there were difficulties with their administration and personnel.”

Meanwhile, NWAF ultimately awarded payoff grants of $250,000 each to a farmworkers clinic and a local college. Unconfirmed reports indicate that a third grant went to the Yakama Nation.

Still, the outcome was so crushing that some might have turned away from community organizing – or antipoverty grantmaking – for good. Instead, participants are drawing on the experience to shape new projects.

In announcing the appointment of a new president late last month, the foundation said in a press release that its board had moved to adopt “significant changes” based on “lessons learned” from the community ventures program, including the Yakima Valley experience. (Another NWAF endeavor – a community ventures program targeting urban Indian communities in Seattle, Portland, Billings and Rapid City – had faced similar problems, prompting an NWAF special committee to reconsider the situation and ultimately disperse more than $6 million in grants.)

Future foundation strategy “will be to make grants to proven or promising organizations doing effective poverty reduction work in their communities or in the region.” In other words, NWAF will no longer try to construct new organizations where established groups already exist, an approach confirmed by NWAF Board Chairman David Kemmis.

“There are always subtle local dynamics and nuances of relationships that it’s almost impossible to know unless you have lived with them for years or decades,” Kemmis told Blue Avocado.

In Yakima Valley, faith – tempered by bitter experience – is bringing community advocates to the table once again so that the community can take advantage of a large new project initiated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation has decided to launch an early childhood education program in the Valley as part of its Thrive by Five program. With a plan made in the Gates Seattle headquarters, not Yakima Valley, community leaders sometimes whisper and wonder whether this initiative will be just one more ill-fated foundation experience like the one they had with NWAF. Even so, in the hope that Gates will bring desperately-needed resources to Yakima Valley, the community is again gearing up its hopes and working through a process with a big foundation, hoping that this time they won’t end up feeling misled and abandoned.

Rick Cohen is the national correspondent of Nonprofit Quarterly magazine. Before joining NPQ, he was the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.