Reading Response 10: NOCSUS Chapter 10, Incite! Chapter 13, Incite! Chapter 15

In our last class, we spent a portion of our discussion focused on the question of the future of nonprofits. This conversation arose from the current relationship between philanthrocapitalists and nonprofits and the potential ways Donald Trump’s administration will influence the future of nonprofits. A possible outcome presented was one wherein those who nonprofits support (e.g. immigrants, LGBTQ+ community, people in poverty) would experience further oppression under Trump’s administration and simultaneously a loss of the resources from nonprofits receiving less governmental help that would potentially push these groups into an even direr situation.

In NOCSUS chapter 10, a look at the future of nonprofits is discussed, although not with the same lens of our class discussion. According to the authors “the nonprofit sector is not static, but constantly evolving and ever-changing” (316). This chapter appears to be describing a reciprocal relationship between changes or “trends” in society and nonprofit organizations, as both will influence each other. Six different changes are discussed as pertinent to the future of nonprofits, which are “demographic shifts, fiscal stress and uncertainty in government spending, increased demands for transparency and accountability, market competition and pressures for performance, blending and blurring of sector boundaries, rise of technology and social media” (316).

The growth of the “majority-minority” divide, aging of the population, and increasing poverty in suburban areas are pointed out as key demographic shifts in the coming years. To respond to these changes, the authors suggest “greater diversity within the nonprofit workforce and among nonprofit leaders and boards” (319), working with those who are retired but “not ready to leave the workforce” (322), providing “more services to the elderly and aging communities” (322), recognizing a potential increase for demand on goods and services needed by those living in poverty, and recognizing the challenges of access to nonprofit services in suburban areas (325).

The discussion moves from service-oriented changes and goals to a focus on the potential challenges government will create for nonprofits in the future. The authors describe how the issue of “uncertainty of government spending” is not just a future problem but a current one as “government decision-making with regard to spending and other budget matters has grown increasingly unpredictable due to economic decline and efforts to limit the role of government” (325). In order to deal with a future of “reduced donations and increased local tax payments” and the effect of the government’s challenge of “meeting the competing needs of various political parties” and “balancing the federal budget,” the authors describe how nonprofits are currently turning towards fundraising, earned income, and several other sources of funding to deal with this uncertainty (327). For the future importance of transparency and accountability, the authors appear to be suggesting vigilance on the part of nonprofits to “manage oversight” and monitor “their own activities” as the public has a high level of confidence in nonprofits (328).

In “Market Competition and Pressures for Performance,” the authors describe a new issue of an increase in the “net loss of the number of nonprofit organizations in some area” that has arisen from market saturation and competition for resources (334). The suggestion offered by the authors in dealing with this issue is for anyone planning on starting a nonprofit organization to conduct a “thorough market analysis” to see if their organization would be viable (336). The two sections on the “blending and blurring of section boundaries” and “rise of technology and media” focus on how nonprofits are changing internally to achieve their goals. According to the authors, “any nonprofit scholars and practitioners would argue that nonprofits are becoming increasingly business-like, treating clients like customers, adopting more profit-driven activities, hiring more employees and leaders with business backgrounds, and in some cases changing their status from nonprofit to for-profit, limited-liability corporations” (337). This movement to becoming more “business-like” is shaped by the view of those being served by nonprofits moreso as “customers” and the introduction of more earned income. Several goals are being achieved through social media as “organizations who employ these new technologies to fulfill a variety of goals including fundraising, cause marketing, volunteer and staff recruitment, policy advocacy, and political change efforts” (339).

While this NOCSUS chapter doesn’t convey a negative or pessimistic view of the future of nonprofits, the chapter does end on an interesting note of how “despite these challenges, we can find reassurance in the fact that the nonprofit sector has shown great resilience throughout its short history, embracing new opportunities and adapting to environmental pressures and changes like no other sector” (344). While the authors emphasize the “resilience” of nonprofits, I think this chapter also points to nonprofits as malleable or adaptive. The authors appear optimistic that nonprofits will be able to adapt to the upcoming changes and thrive in the changing world. For me, the idea of nonprofits as malleable, adaptive, and resilient connected to the texts “Radical Social Change: Searching for a New Foundation” and “Non-profits and the autonomous grassroots.”

The “Radical Social Change” text can be described as showing the inability of nonprofits to adapt. The author recounts her work with Sista II Sista and the effect becoming a 501(c)(3) had on the group. She relates the struggles of her organization once it was government funded to the struggles of mass movements today. In response to the question of “where are the mass movements of today within this country?” the author claims “they got funded” (186). Once movements and organizations aiming for social justice are “incorporated into the non-profit model,” they are “limited” (186). The main component of this limitation for the author appears to be the movements turn from focusing on “struggle and growth at every level” to “pimping our communities’ poverty in proposals, selling ‘results’ in reports and accounting for our finances in financial reviews” (191; 187). To address this issue, the author looks to movements in countries outside of the United States, which have “the least access to foundation funding,” but yet have been able “to do the most in terms of developing mass-based movements for radical social change” (185).

“Non-profits and The Autonomous Grassroots” appears to be taking a somewhat different take on nonprofits than “Radical Social Change.” Eric Tang appears to see value in both grassroots organizations and the viability of nonprofits. Tang’s text focuses on the movement from several radical groups to becoming or being incorporated into a nonprofit in the 1980s, which is described by the author as “self-identified revolutionary forces within this New Left turn[ing] their attention to party-building efforts aimed at consolidating the many movements in order to strike a unified revolutionary blow against the establishment” and “many activists on the Left began to insist that in order to have impact, the movement needed to take on the sharper image” (218;219).

While the author focuses on the negative outcomes of this shift toward the beginning of the text and especially the thoughts and feelings on part of a new generation of activists towards this shift, Tang emphasizes the value of nonprofits in relation to the failures of grassroots organizations in the past. Tang claims “burn-out” was an issue with prior movements that brought along participation in nonprofit organizations. “Burn-out” refers “not only to those who failed to pace themselves and in the end ran out of gas, but also to those who, during their days in various revolutionary parties and collectives, were burned by internal political processes and buses of institutional authority” (220). In a sense, nonprofit organizations appeared to be offering a “safer” space for certain members of movements to continue to do work related to a movement, while “being able to survive” (220). Tang claims that ultimately the inability of radical movements to “care for the long-term development and health of all its members” and “to promote a movement culture wherein folks from many walks of life could contribute in a variety of ways” is what “led to the sweeping NP phenomena we’re seeing today” (220-221).

I think all three of these texts read consecutively leave readers with the question of what is the better route to help those in need and/or facing oppression? Are grassroots organizations and mass-based movements the best route? Are nonprofits the best method or are a combination of all three forms the best method? With the three texts combined there’s a great discussion of the negatives and positives of each route and I think the clearest conclusion on the most “successful” route for change that I can currently come to is to use the goal to determine the method. Both texts from Incite! have the goal of mass movements that lead to change as their outcome and therefore follow a line of thinking which each author determines will best lead to this end. This NOCSUS chapter appears to have the goal of addressing the immediate needs of others and therefore sees nonprofits, with their resilience and adaptability, as the best approach to deal with the immediate challenges of society.

Reading Response 9: Guest Speaker, Emily Martin

To coincide with our discussion of philanthrocapitalism, Emily Martin, a Transylvania University alumna and former student of the first iteration of this course, was our guest speaker. While our discussion with Martin did not focus on philanthrocapitalism, we did have a fruitful discussion about certain experiences in Martin’s current graduate career that were applicable to this course and beyond this course. One of the big takeaways from this discussion was the value of asking questions when creating texts for and to used by someone other than yourself.

Martin described one of her early experiences in philanthropy of having to write a letter to have a course funded. While she saw the value in the course, she didn’t, at least, initially find any connection between asking for funding for a course and how she envisioned philanthropic work. For her, this dissonance led to a struggle with creating a text, which was not only felt by her, but also her boss as her words didn’t communicate the enthusiasm or passion he had previously noticed from her. In response to this situation, Martin decided to task herself with finding out more information about the course and the benefits of the course for its students and what her boss found most enjoyable about the course. Getting insight into a professional and personal perspective on these courses appeared to have at least given Martin more material to accomplish her task and potentially assuaged her feelings of dissonance.

While asking further questions may sound like a simple task or solution, I think Martin’s insight not only about asking questions, but about how at times, even in a field which you’re interested and passionate about, you’ll encounter assignments or tasks that don’t connect to with you and/or leave you discontent, connects well with our group project. As a group, I think we’ve definitely experienced some of the feelings Martin may have felt with her previously mentioned assignment. From our discussions of the project, it appears as though we all saw the value of creating a video about poverty for the Community Action Council and had some interest in tackling the subject, especially the stigmas surrounding poverty. I think the act of visually representing the differences between youth living in poverty and youth not living in poverty is one of the most obvious feelings of dissonance or disconnect that we’ve often discussed and pointed to with this project. Ultimately, this issue has been dealt with, but I think in several stages of the project this dissonance created a loss of passion and a level of hesitancy, that at least for me, made the project feel slightly dire or as having the potential to become an inaccurate and problematic representation of youth in poverty.

Throughout this process, I think asking questions of the CAC has helped us to an extent. With our initial letter to the CAC, in which we were asking for their vision of the video, we were able to further understand that we would be focusing on a certain CAC project and not just “youth in poverty in Lexington,” which likely reduced some fear or concern about the direction of the project. I also think the questions later about pinpointing the exact audience or goal of the video also has strengthened our development of the project. While this may be stretching the idea of asking further questions presented by Martin, I think that our group’s experience with the response of the participants in the Project LIFE program to our questions has personally done something similar to Martin’s experience with asking further questions about the courses she was asking to be funded.

The responses from the three participants of the Project LIFE program has not only given us valuable insights for our final video project, but has also, for me, brought me to a greater understanding of the program’s goals, the way this program has helped certain individuals, and the way representatives of the CAC have helped with this process (the interviewees mentioned consistently how long and supportive Cynae, a representative for the CAC, has been during their time working with CAC). I think having these answers, rather than just the information on the CAC’s page about what Project LIFE is and does has added an even greater sense of value to the project.

As mentioned by Martin, we’ve all experienced projects or assignments where we really can’t engage with the assignment in a positive or fruitful way. I think our struggle with figuring out our feelings towards our CAC project is valuable as it presents a long-term experience with this sense of dissonance, versus a short-term engagement where one might have to write a brief paper for a course where they’re unable to engage. With a long-term experience along these lines, I think Martin’s advice becomes more valuable as one can’t “push through” a semester-long video project in the same way one can “push through” and complete a brief writing assignment they may lack interest in. The long-term experience definitely requires more negotiation with oneself and others. Through Martin’s experience, it’s clear this feeling of dissonance can happen and likely will happen in one’s post-undergraduate life and therefore the value of curiosity presented by Martin and the value of having the ability to feel comfortable voicing concerns about a task with oneself and others and using this discussion as a positive avenue to deal with the discontent, lack of passion, or dissonance is a “beyond the course” takeaway.

Response 8: Bishop and Green’s Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World and Ramdas’ “Philanthrocapitalism: Reflections on Politics and Policy Making”

Matthew Bishop and Michael Green open their preface for Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World with a news report on a meeting of the “super rich.” For Bishop and Green the importance of this meeting of the “super rich” is tied to the context and goal of the meeting. This “secret gathering of billionaires” was occurring post the 2008 financial crisis and the goal of these billionaires “was for the leaders of philanthrocapitalism to share what they had learned about how to be effective givers, and to brainstorm about philanthropy should meet the new challenges posed by the economic meltdown that had begun the previous year” (ix). According to Bishop and Green, “philanthrocapitalism” is a movement “focused on tackling the world’s toughest problems through effective giving” and is also a way to describe the usage of business techniques by philanthrocapitalists for philanthropy (x). “Philanthrocapitalism” is also described by Bishop and Green as related to the “leaders of capitalism” realizing that within the capitalist system “giving back” is as important as earning money (x).

Bishop and Green’s first chapter “The Age of Philanthrocapitalism” focuses more in-depth on philanthrocapitalists and their aims, views on philanthropy, and influence on giving. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are used as the examples or exemplars of philanthrocapitalism. Bishop and Green claim Buffett and Gates as “leading a revival and reinvention of old tradition that has the potential to solve many of the biggest problems facing humanity today” (2). This “old tradition” is philanthropy and the “reinvention” Bishop and Green refer to is the application of business methods to this “old tradition” to “equip” philanthropy “to tackle the new set of problems facing today’s changing world” (2). Part of this method includes “thinking big and going for it,” being “social investors,” finding betters ways to work with nonprofits, and focusing on “the profit motive to achieve social good” (6).

The act of philanthrocapitalists “thinking big” can be seen in their aims to eradicate diseases and/or poverty from “poor countries.” By being “social investors,” philanthrocapitalists aim to support those “who offer innovative solutions to society’s problems” (6). Post-2008 financial crisis, nonprofits likely need the help of philanthrocapitalists more than before and Bishop and Green describe the potential role of philanthrocapitalists in this realm as mediators between “governments, businesses, charitable NGOs, and philanthropists” (12). According to Bishop and Green, philanthrocapitalism’s emphasis on profit is controversial as the question of “isn’t philanthropy supposed to be giving away money, not making more of it?” arises (6). Bishop and Green showcase Wal-Mart and Google’s use of “profit motive to achieve social good” as a positive outcome of philanthrocapitalism’s influence, but also state “the test of these fine words will be whether rich philanthropists and companies can walk the walk as well as they talk the talk” (7). The chapter ends by emphasizing philanthrocapitalists as “hyperagents” as they have the “capacity to do some essential things far better than anyone else” (12). According to Bishop and Green, philanthrocapitalists “do not face elections every few years,” do not “suffer the tyranny of shareholder demands,” and do not “have to devote vast amounts of time and resources to raising money” (12). For Bishop and Green, philanthrocapitalists not having to deal with these previously mentioned barriers can potentially bring something new to philanthropy as philanthrocapitalists are able “to think long-term, to go against conventional wisdom, to take up ideas too risky for government,” and “to deploy substantial resource quickly when the situation demands it” (12).

In their preface Bishop and Green claim “tough questions should be asked about whether the wealth was created legitimately, whether a reasonable amount of taxes have been paid on it and whether the giving is done in a thoughtful way designed to make a genuine difference” (xi). While along with this Bishop and Green emphasize how if philanthrocapitalists “can walk the walk as well as they talk the talk” as a potential issue with philanthrocapitalism, Bishop and Green’s lack of interaction with potential criticisms of philanthrocapitalism (at least in the preface and first chapter) can potentially leave a reader with a lot of questions and/or concerns about the potential negative aspects of philanthrocapitalism (7). For example, Bishop and Green focus on how philanthrocapitalists “have the capacity to do some essential things far better than anyone else” through their ability to avoid certain barriers (12). On the surface this discussion in their text sounds promising, especially for the act of giving, but the fact that billionaires are not beholden to certain systems and have substantial resources in comparison to some nonprofit organizations is a potential problem and factor in the existence of some societal ills these billionaires are trying to alleviate.

Philanthrocapitalism can create a lot of tension as the valuable work and potential valuable work these philanthrocapitalists are doing for society exists alongside how the position these philanthrocapitalists are in and capitalism potentially play a role in creating or furthering certain social issues. With Kavita N. Ramdas’ text “Philanthrocapitalism: Reflections on Politics and Policy Making,” the tensions arising from Bishop and Green’s discussion of philanthrocapitalism are explored. Ramdas’ concern is that “far too few in this elite club are willing to ask themselves hard questions about a model of economic growth that has made their phenomenal acquisition of wealth possible in a nation where over 800 million people still languish in poverty” and “despite many good intentions,” philanthrocapitalism “seems poorly suited to resolve the world’s most deep-rooted problems” (393;394). According to Ramdas, philanthrocapitalism does not address issues at a systemic level, especially as it avoids philanthrocapitalists examining and rectifying their role in systemic issues.

Ramdas’ texts and the issues that arise from Bishop and Green’s text are very reminiscent of our in-class discussion generally about how nonprofits or anyone seeking to help those “in need” do or not address the systemic nature of societal issues. We’ve mostly discussed the importance of understanding issues at a systemic level through our focus on poverty with texts like “Portrait of Poverty,” “Accompaniment as Policy,” and A Framework for Understanding Poverty and our discussions with the Community Action Council. Ramdas’ text also connects well to The Revolution Will Be Not Funded, which also briefly mentioned in Ramdas’ text, and NOSCUS Chapter 8. Both of these texts focus on the role of nonprofit organizations in dealing with systemic issues and being a part of social movements.

In NOSCUS Chapter 8, a view by some people on nonprofit organizations as potentially useful by acting as an “organiz[ing] and mobilizing vehicle for coalescing interests and effectively engaging the political process to demand social change,” but also as “inhibitors” of “true social change” by “watering down the radical elements of more spontaneous mass movements” is presented (258). Through Bishop and Green’s and Ramdas’ text presentation of philanthrocapitalism, philanthrocapitalists can potentially be described in a similar way to the previous description of nonprofits. While philanthrocapitalism organizes and encourages wealthy givers, along with everyday people, towards philanthropy, the existence of philanthrocapitalists and philanthrocapitalism is heavily tied to capitalism and therefore tied to the systemic issues, which philanthrocapitalists are attempting to address. This connection has several benefits as seen through the positive outcomes of philanthrocapitalism in Bishop and Green’s text, but in the long-run has a potential “inhibiting” effect on addressing social issues as philanthrocapitalists are not addressing the underlying issues that perpetuate social issues through their giving and their business model of giving.