One of my students sent me a job posting the other day for me to review it in preparation for an interview with a potential employer. The position was a very typical post-MBA product management job in a tech company – nothing unusual that far. But them upon reading the posting I stumbled across the following paragraph:
“PHYSICAL DEMANDS: While performing the duties of the job, the employee is regularly required to use hands and arms and talk or hear. The employee requires dexterity in using telephone, computer keyboard, mouse and calculator while seated at a desk. The employee is frequently required to stand, walk and sit. The employee may frequently move to interact with fellow employees and/or clients. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, depth perception and ability to adjust focus.”
I am not making this up… The employee is required to use hands and arms and hear and talk – well, duh… The employee requires dexterity in using telephone – wow, why not virtuosity? And oh yes, the employee is required to stand, walk, and sit – good thing that he/she is not expected to crawl or swim…
When I shared my disbelief with my student, she sort of smiled and said, oh yeah, this is very standard now… So, to those of you who work in Corporate America or Corporate Somewhere Else and are not surprised by this either, I am telling you, wake up, people!! We are talking about an extreme case of Legalese here…
In this world of absurd political correctness, we should pause for a minute and think about what extremity of ridicule we’ve let things reach without reacting…
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Global Citizen Year – Shaping the next generation of young Americans
I wrote about Brian, a former student who started The Right Side of History Campaign, in an earlier post. Another ex-student of mine who is just brilliant, Abby Falik (Abby was one of the speakers at the Harvard Social Enterprise Conference this weekend), created a compelling organization right out of business school, Global Citizen Year. The idea behind Global Citizen Year is to engage a bunch of young Americans in a 9-month program, after they graduate from high school and before they start college, in order for them to get immersed in developing countries where they work for 6 months with local NGOs.
Abby came to business school with the seeds of that project in mind as she had been struck by the lack of international exposure of Americans in general while realizing also that the younger generation was probably different, namely much keener to get connected to the rest of the world. Being one of the so-called Millennials, she also knew that those folks constituted the most socially-conscious generation in history for which doing well does not come without doing good.
There is a long tradition of service (i.e. volunteering) in the US, dating back to the 30’s and the Civilian Conservation Corps created by President Roosevelt and the Peace Corps in the 60’s. Then AmericaCorps was founded in the 90’s during Bill Clinton’s first term and today thousands of young people spend a year doing service as part of organizations like YouthBuild or City Year.
Global Citizen Year draws upon this tradition and adds an international flavor, also targeting slightly younger folks and integrating some component of learning.
Abby who is an extraordinary young woman (by her smarts, grace, and determination) has been successful at getting her organization off the ground quickly and has managed to gather a “heavy-hitting” Advisory Council in particular, with the likes of Wendy Kopp, Teach for America’s founder, HBS professor and “leadership guru” Rosabeth Moss Kanter, or Matthew Flannery, Kiva.org’s founder and CEO.
Abby’s vision is for her organization to count 20,000 alumni, have reached out to 10,000 “host communities”, and have 5,000 projects implemented thanks in part to the GCY Fellows by 2020. This is an ambitious target for a program that costs over $25k per Fellow but GCY is already active in Senegal and Guatemala and is looking to expand to other countries in 2010.
More importantly, Abby knows that her nonprofit cannot do it all by itself and have a truly significant impact – there are about 75m of 18- to 34-year olds in the US alone after all... She has to create a movement so to speak, 1) to institutionalize a gap year between high school and college (that is what she wants) or to make it standard for young people to include a year of service in their education in the US, and 2) hopefully inspire similar initiatives around the world that would have young folks from northern and southern countries go spend several months abroad working on projects having social impact.
I am proud of you, Abby.
Abby came to business school with the seeds of that project in mind as she had been struck by the lack of international exposure of Americans in general while realizing also that the younger generation was probably different, namely much keener to get connected to the rest of the world. Being one of the so-called Millennials, she also knew that those folks constituted the most socially-conscious generation in history for which doing well does not come without doing good.
There is a long tradition of service (i.e. volunteering) in the US, dating back to the 30’s and the Civilian Conservation Corps created by President Roosevelt and the Peace Corps in the 60’s. Then AmericaCorps was founded in the 90’s during Bill Clinton’s first term and today thousands of young people spend a year doing service as part of organizations like YouthBuild or City Year.
Global Citizen Year draws upon this tradition and adds an international flavor, also targeting slightly younger folks and integrating some component of learning.
Abby who is an extraordinary young woman (by her smarts, grace, and determination) has been successful at getting her organization off the ground quickly and has managed to gather a “heavy-hitting” Advisory Council in particular, with the likes of Wendy Kopp, Teach for America’s founder, HBS professor and “leadership guru” Rosabeth Moss Kanter, or Matthew Flannery, Kiva.org’s founder and CEO.
Abby’s vision is for her organization to count 20,000 alumni, have reached out to 10,000 “host communities”, and have 5,000 projects implemented thanks in part to the GCY Fellows by 2020. This is an ambitious target for a program that costs over $25k per Fellow but GCY is already active in Senegal and Guatemala and is looking to expand to other countries in 2010.
More importantly, Abby knows that her nonprofit cannot do it all by itself and have a truly significant impact – there are about 75m of 18- to 34-year olds in the US alone after all... She has to create a movement so to speak, 1) to institutionalize a gap year between high school and college (that is what she wants) or to make it standard for young people to include a year of service in their education in the US, and 2) hopefully inspire similar initiatives around the world that would have young folks from northern and southern countries go spend several months abroad working on projects having social impact.
I am proud of you, Abby.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
The Social Innovation Fund: What to Watch in 2010
The Obama Administration has set up the Social Innovation Fund with a view to replicating solutions to social problems that have proven effective. 2010 will be a pilot year for the Fund as the first $50m will be disbursed, actually $200m in total as the remaining $175m should come from matching private funds (not an easy task by the way in those tough economic times).
President Obama and his team have tapped into one of the characteristics of the social sector in this country when they designed the SIF: the very entrepreneurial nature of the sector has caused a lot of innovative initiatives to get off the ground. In Boston for instance there is a cluster of nonprofits that have specialized in after-school programs and have earned excellent programmatic and management reputation, such as Citizens Schools, Jumpstart, BELL, or Summer Advantage. Obviously, one has to wonder whether those guys talk enough to each other and partner on joint initiatives – but the proliferation of organizations surely multiplies the chances that new solutions to serious problems will be found.
Those programs or projects can thrive at a local level as it is usually not that hard to find enough funding to pay for activities at a limited scale. However, securing money to pay for a national expansion is a totally another ballgame and the process of expansion itself is complicated and full of pitfalls. That is why the Social Innovation Fund sounds like such a great idea.
This is how the SIF will work: $50m are going to be shared among 5 to 7 intermediary organizations that each will receive between $5m and 10m. This is actually a 5-year commitment, thus those intermediaries will receive the $5-7m amount for 5 years.
By choosing to work through intermediaries, the Fund does what would seem most efficient – no need to treat directly with the multitude of nonprofits on the ground that will receive its support. Also, the model of managing a portfolio of promising organizations and supporting them in their growth phase over several years is quite proven - it is actually called Venture Philanthropy (VP). The likes of New Profit or Venture Philanthropy Partners (VPP) were the pioneers of that “movement” about 10 years ago (not a lot of other VP shops have actually emerged and succeeded since then). Certainly, they know what they are doing.
Now, I do believe however that the SIF grant-making model presents a couple of potential problems. By subcontracting the selection of the ultimate beneficiary organizations to intermediaries (even though it will issue selection criteria) SIF runs the risks that the whole process will lack consistency from one intermediary to the next. Furthermore, if the Fund ends up working with New Profit or VPP, how can we be sure that they are not going to push their “protégés”? They have all the incentives in the world to do so. If they stick to the same organizations they already picked to join their portfolios as beneficiaries of the SIF money, intermediaries won’t obviously have to find the funding that those nonprofits would have needed in the next 5 years. Also, why not promote their “protégés” as VPP or New Profit will already have conducted thorough due diligence and established the social value and effectiveness of those entities’ models? Thus, the likelihood of the New Profits and VPPs of the world seeking out other nonprofits is pretty low.
What is more, even though I did not attend any kind of secret meetings or am in the know on this, I’ve heard enough in the last few months that New Profit, VPP, or Root Cause (another intermediary but one that does not do VP) have engaged in a serious lobbying effort towards the Obama Administration (where they know a bunch of folks) in order to make sure that 1) the money goes through intermediaries like them, and 2) they are the ones actually getting it.
I am not suggesting that they have lacked or would lack integrity but it is fair to say that there is some form of tug of war or rat race around and after this SIF money. I should add though that the press release relaying the news about the 2010 funding pointed out that new intermediary organizations are encouraged to apply for the funding available. We will see if that happens or not and if it does, who is behind these new intermediaries.
The last potential difficulty with the SIF set-up has to do with the challenges of replication itself. To take a community organization that is active at the local level and make it a national force is extremely complex. Scaling – without even going from local to national – is hard and history shows that there have been more failures than successes and that the process is very long. Thus, let’s be realistic and not wait for early miracles!!
In sum, replicating ideas and models that have been most effective at solving social issues is great and much needed. Obama likes to take the Harlem’s Children Zone (HCZ) as an example of an organization (founded and led by the charismatic Geoffrey Canada) that has changed the lives of so many kids (by investing in their early childhood development) and whose model should be replicated in every corner of this country. But my sense is that not all beneficiary nonprofits will be such an obvious pick...
Overall, I remain optimistic and positive about SIF because at the end of the day let’s not forget that dozens of organizations ($200m distributed with an average grant of at least $100k) will be able to ramp up their activities. But there are a few things that we’ll have to watch closely:
· To what extent can matching funds be raised to the level of $175m as planned?
· Will other intermediaries than the usual suspects like New Profit or VPP be selected?
· Among the beneficiaries that VPP or New Profit pick – if they are indeed chosen by SIF – how many will there be that are not in their portfolio currently or were not in the process of becoming one of their portfolio organizations?
· Will the beneficiaries’ management capacity be high enough - whatever support they receive from the intermediaries - to overcome obstacles of scaling up and replication?
President Obama and his team have tapped into one of the characteristics of the social sector in this country when they designed the SIF: the very entrepreneurial nature of the sector has caused a lot of innovative initiatives to get off the ground. In Boston for instance there is a cluster of nonprofits that have specialized in after-school programs and have earned excellent programmatic and management reputation, such as Citizens Schools, Jumpstart, BELL, or Summer Advantage. Obviously, one has to wonder whether those guys talk enough to each other and partner on joint initiatives – but the proliferation of organizations surely multiplies the chances that new solutions to serious problems will be found.
Those programs or projects can thrive at a local level as it is usually not that hard to find enough funding to pay for activities at a limited scale. However, securing money to pay for a national expansion is a totally another ballgame and the process of expansion itself is complicated and full of pitfalls. That is why the Social Innovation Fund sounds like such a great idea.
This is how the SIF will work: $50m are going to be shared among 5 to 7 intermediary organizations that each will receive between $5m and 10m. This is actually a 5-year commitment, thus those intermediaries will receive the $5-7m amount for 5 years.
By choosing to work through intermediaries, the Fund does what would seem most efficient – no need to treat directly with the multitude of nonprofits on the ground that will receive its support. Also, the model of managing a portfolio of promising organizations and supporting them in their growth phase over several years is quite proven - it is actually called Venture Philanthropy (VP). The likes of New Profit or Venture Philanthropy Partners (VPP) were the pioneers of that “movement” about 10 years ago (not a lot of other VP shops have actually emerged and succeeded since then). Certainly, they know what they are doing.
Now, I do believe however that the SIF grant-making model presents a couple of potential problems. By subcontracting the selection of the ultimate beneficiary organizations to intermediaries (even though it will issue selection criteria) SIF runs the risks that the whole process will lack consistency from one intermediary to the next. Furthermore, if the Fund ends up working with New Profit or VPP, how can we be sure that they are not going to push their “protégés”? They have all the incentives in the world to do so. If they stick to the same organizations they already picked to join their portfolios as beneficiaries of the SIF money, intermediaries won’t obviously have to find the funding that those nonprofits would have needed in the next 5 years. Also, why not promote their “protégés” as VPP or New Profit will already have conducted thorough due diligence and established the social value and effectiveness of those entities’ models? Thus, the likelihood of the New Profits and VPPs of the world seeking out other nonprofits is pretty low.
What is more, even though I did not attend any kind of secret meetings or am in the know on this, I’ve heard enough in the last few months that New Profit, VPP, or Root Cause (another intermediary but one that does not do VP) have engaged in a serious lobbying effort towards the Obama Administration (where they know a bunch of folks) in order to make sure that 1) the money goes through intermediaries like them, and 2) they are the ones actually getting it.
I am not suggesting that they have lacked or would lack integrity but it is fair to say that there is some form of tug of war or rat race around and after this SIF money. I should add though that the press release relaying the news about the 2010 funding pointed out that new intermediary organizations are encouraged to apply for the funding available. We will see if that happens or not and if it does, who is behind these new intermediaries.
The last potential difficulty with the SIF set-up has to do with the challenges of replication itself. To take a community organization that is active at the local level and make it a national force is extremely complex. Scaling – without even going from local to national – is hard and history shows that there have been more failures than successes and that the process is very long. Thus, let’s be realistic and not wait for early miracles!!
In sum, replicating ideas and models that have been most effective at solving social issues is great and much needed. Obama likes to take the Harlem’s Children Zone (HCZ) as an example of an organization (founded and led by the charismatic Geoffrey Canada) that has changed the lives of so many kids (by investing in their early childhood development) and whose model should be replicated in every corner of this country. But my sense is that not all beneficiary nonprofits will be such an obvious pick...
Overall, I remain optimistic and positive about SIF because at the end of the day let’s not forget that dozens of organizations ($200m distributed with an average grant of at least $100k) will be able to ramp up their activities. But there are a few things that we’ll have to watch closely:
· To what extent can matching funds be raised to the level of $175m as planned?
· Will other intermediaries than the usual suspects like New Profit or VPP be selected?
· Among the beneficiaries that VPP or New Profit pick – if they are indeed chosen by SIF – how many will there be that are not in their portfolio currently or were not in the process of becoming one of their portfolio organizations?
· Will the beneficiaries’ management capacity be high enough - whatever support they receive from the intermediaries - to overcome obstacles of scaling up and replication?
Friday, February 12, 2010
The Right Side of History
I wanted to tell you about one of my former students, Brian Elliot, who founded The Right Side of History Campaign a couple of months ago. What prompted Brian to create that organization was the passing of Proposition 8 in California last year that banned gay marriage.
The LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) community still suffers from a number of discriminations in this country and the question of marriage is just the tip of the iceberg.
Brian has chosen to target the straight community to help spread the word about those discriminations and bring about change eventually. He drew an analogy with the civil rights movement in the US in the 60’s when the force that made the difference and caused the Johnson administration to pass sweeping civil rights legislation was not so much the activists or the African-American community (despite the obvious leadership of Martin Luther King or Robert Kennedy) but rather the non-militant white community who got absolutely disgusted and ashamed of seeing on the evening news footage of local police treating black protesters like animals in Selma and other places in the South.
Brian thought that the same rationale could be applied to the non-militant straight community regarding LGBT issues. If the outrage about unfair treatment of LGBT folks on many levels came from straight people, the probability of successful change would be much higher.
Straight Talks for Equality is an initiative launched by the Right Side of History Campaign. As its name indicates, it is about straight folks having conversations about what equality means to them and why some portions of the population, including LGBT people, are still discriminated against today.
Brian has relied on social networks such as Facebook to spread the word towards young people who constitute the Right Side of History’s target age category. He launched a group on Facebook called Give Brian Equality and in just four weeks over 19,000 supporters have become fans.
Brian and his team are working on their web site which does need improvements right now and they have already completed their business plan and raised about $30k.
Go Brian!! A lot of social justice issues are unresolved in the US and elsewhere around the world and it is great news that someone as gifted as Brian Elliot who could do pretty much whatever he wants in the corporate world and make a bundle of money has chosen to take on issues that are not necessarily popular with all Americans or figure prominently on their radar screens.
The LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) community still suffers from a number of discriminations in this country and the question of marriage is just the tip of the iceberg.
Brian has chosen to target the straight community to help spread the word about those discriminations and bring about change eventually. He drew an analogy with the civil rights movement in the US in the 60’s when the force that made the difference and caused the Johnson administration to pass sweeping civil rights legislation was not so much the activists or the African-American community (despite the obvious leadership of Martin Luther King or Robert Kennedy) but rather the non-militant white community who got absolutely disgusted and ashamed of seeing on the evening news footage of local police treating black protesters like animals in Selma and other places in the South.
Brian thought that the same rationale could be applied to the non-militant straight community regarding LGBT issues. If the outrage about unfair treatment of LGBT folks on many levels came from straight people, the probability of successful change would be much higher.
Straight Talks for Equality is an initiative launched by the Right Side of History Campaign. As its name indicates, it is about straight folks having conversations about what equality means to them and why some portions of the population, including LGBT people, are still discriminated against today.
Brian has relied on social networks such as Facebook to spread the word towards young people who constitute the Right Side of History’s target age category. He launched a group on Facebook called Give Brian Equality and in just four weeks over 19,000 supporters have become fans.
Brian and his team are working on their web site which does need improvements right now and they have already completed their business plan and raised about $30k.
Go Brian!! A lot of social justice issues are unresolved in the US and elsewhere around the world and it is great news that someone as gifted as Brian Elliot who could do pretty much whatever he wants in the corporate world and make a bundle of money has chosen to take on issues that are not necessarily popular with all Americans or figure prominently on their radar screens.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Haiti Earthquake: A Missed Opportunity for Large NGOs
The Haiti Earthquake is slowly drifting out of the headlines and as the number of casualties is said to top 200,000, there have been alarming reports that aid does not nearly reach the multitude of people in need.
I don’t know whether coordination is worse this time than it was in 2005 in the various areas hit by the Tsunami. It is probably easy to think that it should not have taken much to come up with some disaster plan ahead of time and then follow it when sadly the catastrophe happened. But I am pretty sure that this is not as simple when it is just chaos around as it was the case shortly after the Earthquake. It is also rare to see a disaster of that magnitude hit a capital city with high density and a large population. One has to remember as well that the Haiti administration ceased to function almost entirely overnight and that most of the senior UN folks died when their building collapsed.
However, a few weeks after the Earthquake hit, it must be extremely frustrating for the population – and for donors on this side – to see that aid is not reaching its destination.
Like in 2005 big humanitarian organizations are competing for people’s financial contributions to the relief efforts. As I pointed out in an earlier post a lot of those large NGOs realized that the emotion caused by the 2004 Tsunami provoked an unprecedented movement of generosity on the part of the general public. The last 2 years have been tough for those nonprofits on the fundraising side, thus it is not unrealistic to think that they are viewing the Haiti Earthquake as an opportunity to be helpful to the Haitian people and in doing so, fulfill their mission certainly but also raise much needed money for non-Haiti-related activities.
I did a search on Google of the term “donate to Haiti” and here is what I got: eleven (11!!) sponsored links, in other words ads, by humanitarian organizations, namely from the top of the screen to the bottom (3 in the top segment of the page and 8 in the right column), Red Cross, UNICEF USA, Habitat, Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, Save the Children, Hope for Haiti, Samaritans Purse, Food for the Poor, Doctors Without Borders, Charity Navigator (a tool to conduct due diligence on nonprofits), and IRC. The search results listed the following links on the first page (not including the news results): Red Cross, how to Avoid Scams (lifehacker.com), Yele (Wyclef Jean’s nonprofit), the general Google page on how to donate for relief efforts that I mentioned in a previous entry, and four newspaper / magazine articles on where and how to donate (in order US News, NY Daily News, Huffington Post, and The Atlantic).
My reaction to this is twofold. As much as I applaud the efforts of the UNICEFs, Red Cross, and MSFs of the world, I think it is confusing to most folks out there to get messages from those organizations and many others asking to help them specifically. In a time of such a huge crisis, considering moreover that the vast majority of the general public knows very little about who does what in the social sector – and even less about who does what well – I don’t see the “greater good value” of sending those messages to the general public.
What the public wants is to contribute to relief efforts in Haiti. People want their money to get where it is needed, they want to see that their money is making a difference and helping those who are suffering right now. My guess is that they could not care less whether the money goes to Mercy Corps, MSF, CARE, or UNICEF as long as it reaches those in need.
That is why the concept of a Fund like the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund is appealing because it is equivalent to having a big bucket where people give to a cause vs. a certain entity and then the money is distributed according to the needs.
It is not surprising that most donations to date have gone to organizations considered as generic names so to speak like the Red Cross or UNICEF. I bet most think that the Red Cross has a particular status whereas in fact the American Red Cross is just another 501c3 like any other nonprofit in the same field. The Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent housed in Switzerland does have international organization status but the national organizations don’t.
In this dramatic crisis, I would like to see nonprofit leaders do for once what they have been long criticized for not doing enough, i.e. BAND TOGETHER. Why don’t they raise money together and figure out a way the money should be distributed among their organizations depending on what part of the reconstruction or relief activities they are taking on?
An interesting NYT article recounted earlier this week how in other countries like Britain and Canada such pooling of funds has taken place on occasion in times of great catastrophes. But it has not been possible in the US yet – it should be noted though the American Red Cross did pass on 46% of the money it raised after the Asian Tsunami to other organizations, which was positive.
Thus, the idea has been around – actually brought up by those organizations that raised very little money obviously – but large humanitarian agencies in the US have not come through on this topic.
This is a shame and a major missed opportunity. For a sector that is widely known for its “planting the flag” mentality (i.e. I want my organization’s name on this project – as a result, the project’s very objective may take a back seat to the organization’s and its leadership’s ego), the Haiti crisis was an opportunity to do things differently, to “think outside the box” – if this cliché is ever to be used… – and to show the world that this is not about them.
And don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that it is actually about them but by acting this way, it seem awfully as though large NGOs and international organizations want to get our money because they know better and will do a better job with it than others.
Lastly, I believe that MSF’s co-founder and ex-president Rony Brauman was wrong (no newspaper article found) when he said the other day that people should keep donating to his organization, irrespective of the needs in Haiti because the needs are so enormous elsewhere. The needs in other countries are indeed huge. But as I already argued – and sorry for sounding repetitive, supporting MSF or the IRC is not what the public wants – not now.
This is what I think the NGOs should do: in case there is any money left after the relief and reconstruction needs have been met, all the nonprofits that received contributions should contact those who donated, giving them the choice to get the % of their gift that was not utilized for Haiti back or to allocate it to other programs of their choice (the nonprofit should list options) or picked by the entity itself (no earmarking).
I am afraid that by doing business as usual so far the big humanitarian organizations involved in the wake of the Haiti Earthquake have reinforced negative stereotypes about them and lost an opportunity to change the way they work and, in doing so, be way more effective and helpful to the Haitian people.
I don’t know whether coordination is worse this time than it was in 2005 in the various areas hit by the Tsunami. It is probably easy to think that it should not have taken much to come up with some disaster plan ahead of time and then follow it when sadly the catastrophe happened. But I am pretty sure that this is not as simple when it is just chaos around as it was the case shortly after the Earthquake. It is also rare to see a disaster of that magnitude hit a capital city with high density and a large population. One has to remember as well that the Haiti administration ceased to function almost entirely overnight and that most of the senior UN folks died when their building collapsed.
However, a few weeks after the Earthquake hit, it must be extremely frustrating for the population – and for donors on this side – to see that aid is not reaching its destination.
Like in 2005 big humanitarian organizations are competing for people’s financial contributions to the relief efforts. As I pointed out in an earlier post a lot of those large NGOs realized that the emotion caused by the 2004 Tsunami provoked an unprecedented movement of generosity on the part of the general public. The last 2 years have been tough for those nonprofits on the fundraising side, thus it is not unrealistic to think that they are viewing the Haiti Earthquake as an opportunity to be helpful to the Haitian people and in doing so, fulfill their mission certainly but also raise much needed money for non-Haiti-related activities.
I did a search on Google of the term “donate to Haiti” and here is what I got: eleven (11!!) sponsored links, in other words ads, by humanitarian organizations, namely from the top of the screen to the bottom (3 in the top segment of the page and 8 in the right column), Red Cross, UNICEF USA, Habitat, Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, Save the Children, Hope for Haiti, Samaritans Purse, Food for the Poor, Doctors Without Borders, Charity Navigator (a tool to conduct due diligence on nonprofits), and IRC. The search results listed the following links on the first page (not including the news results): Red Cross, how to Avoid Scams (lifehacker.com), Yele (Wyclef Jean’s nonprofit), the general Google page on how to donate for relief efforts that I mentioned in a previous entry, and four newspaper / magazine articles on where and how to donate (in order US News, NY Daily News, Huffington Post, and The Atlantic).
My reaction to this is twofold. As much as I applaud the efforts of the UNICEFs, Red Cross, and MSFs of the world, I think it is confusing to most folks out there to get messages from those organizations and many others asking to help them specifically. In a time of such a huge crisis, considering moreover that the vast majority of the general public knows very little about who does what in the social sector – and even less about who does what well – I don’t see the “greater good value” of sending those messages to the general public.
What the public wants is to contribute to relief efforts in Haiti. People want their money to get where it is needed, they want to see that their money is making a difference and helping those who are suffering right now. My guess is that they could not care less whether the money goes to Mercy Corps, MSF, CARE, or UNICEF as long as it reaches those in need.
That is why the concept of a Fund like the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund is appealing because it is equivalent to having a big bucket where people give to a cause vs. a certain entity and then the money is distributed according to the needs.
It is not surprising that most donations to date have gone to organizations considered as generic names so to speak like the Red Cross or UNICEF. I bet most think that the Red Cross has a particular status whereas in fact the American Red Cross is just another 501c3 like any other nonprofit in the same field. The Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent housed in Switzerland does have international organization status but the national organizations don’t.
In this dramatic crisis, I would like to see nonprofit leaders do for once what they have been long criticized for not doing enough, i.e. BAND TOGETHER. Why don’t they raise money together and figure out a way the money should be distributed among their organizations depending on what part of the reconstruction or relief activities they are taking on?
An interesting NYT article recounted earlier this week how in other countries like Britain and Canada such pooling of funds has taken place on occasion in times of great catastrophes. But it has not been possible in the US yet – it should be noted though the American Red Cross did pass on 46% of the money it raised after the Asian Tsunami to other organizations, which was positive.
Thus, the idea has been around – actually brought up by those organizations that raised very little money obviously – but large humanitarian agencies in the US have not come through on this topic.
This is a shame and a major missed opportunity. For a sector that is widely known for its “planting the flag” mentality (i.e. I want my organization’s name on this project – as a result, the project’s very objective may take a back seat to the organization’s and its leadership’s ego), the Haiti crisis was an opportunity to do things differently, to “think outside the box” – if this cliché is ever to be used… – and to show the world that this is not about them.
And don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that it is actually about them but by acting this way, it seem awfully as though large NGOs and international organizations want to get our money because they know better and will do a better job with it than others.
Lastly, I believe that MSF’s co-founder and ex-president Rony Brauman was wrong (no newspaper article found) when he said the other day that people should keep donating to his organization, irrespective of the needs in Haiti because the needs are so enormous elsewhere. The needs in other countries are indeed huge. But as I already argued – and sorry for sounding repetitive, supporting MSF or the IRC is not what the public wants – not now.
This is what I think the NGOs should do: in case there is any money left after the relief and reconstruction needs have been met, all the nonprofits that received contributions should contact those who donated, giving them the choice to get the % of their gift that was not utilized for Haiti back or to allocate it to other programs of their choice (the nonprofit should list options) or picked by the entity itself (no earmarking).
I am afraid that by doing business as usual so far the big humanitarian organizations involved in the wake of the Haiti Earthquake have reinforced negative stereotypes about them and lost an opportunity to change the way they work and, in doing so, be way more effective and helpful to the Haitian people.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Scott Brown, Productivity Gains 2010 Edition, and the State of the Union Address
The victory of Scott Brown over Martha Coakley for Ted Kennedy’s senate seat last week sent shockwaves in Massachusetts (MA) and across the country. True local liberals must have wondered how their neighbors could vote for Scott Brown, I suppose the same way they asked how all those rednecks out there voted for Bush – twice!! To add insult to injury the senator-elect is not even a social conservative – what is going to happen to gay marriage and the right for women to choose?
There is some degree of misconception actually that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has always been hard-core liberal and overwhelmingly Democrat. Obama did win the presidential election with a 28-point lead but Massachusetts voted for Reagan both times actually… And Massachusetts was a much more conservative state pre-1970’s than it is today.
Boston is about 85% Democrat but across the state the split is about 60-65% Democrats and 35-40% Republicans. Thus, if about only 10% of the electorate changes its mind and decides to vote Republican instead of Democrat we have a very close race. This is clearly what happened with some Democrats who felt that their votes were taken for granted by Coakley and/or who were unhappy about current unemployment and what they feel is the failure of the Obama administration to do something about it.
And this is not even counting Independents who represent over 2 million people in MA and who heavily favored Brown in pre-election polls (almost 2/3 said they would vote for him according to a Suffolk University poll – similar data was apparently not collected on Election Day). Last year, those same Independents voted 57% for Obama.
Last factor was participation as folks in Republican districts voted more in masses than in Democratic ones. Yes, people, every vote counts…
Another thing that struck me in this election is that voters don’t need to be 100% aligned with candidates to cast their ballots in their favor. Unemployment and healthcare were on most people’s minds and hugely influenced their decisions. And I would bet that a lot of those who voted for Brown did not agree on the more conservative part of his agenda. But they did not care this time.
What people are truly worried about is that they don’t see in the early signs of the economic recovery a decrease in unemployment numbers. There is always a lag between the economic activity and the labor market but this time unemployment figures do not seem to move much if at all.
And I think that a lot of folks who work in Corporate America have been seeing the same thing I’ve been hearing accounts of, i.e. companies have found ways to do the same with fewer people. So, why hire back the folks who got laid off or recruit new people as long as the activity does not pick up significantly? I am afraid that a lot of the jobs lost won’t be coming back, and not only those that were outsourced to developing or emerging countries. The name of the new game is “Productivity Gain – 2010 Edition” - a lot of people out there are not going to protest when they are told they have to take on some of the tasks of someone who just left the company in addition to their regular duties – who would be foolish enough to say “no way, Jose, I don’t like the 2010 Edition and I don’t want to play”?
Obama in his State of the Union Address last night had a clearly different tone than he would have had before the MA election. It is as though his Administration got a shot in the arm and realized they had to come out more strongly to show Americans they are doing something about this crisis. And the situation for the Republicans has also changed radically as they have a totally renewed sense of self-confidence and are dying to take on the Administration and the Democrats...
But frankly, I am not sure there are a ton of things Obama can do to curb unemployment if indeed mentalities have started to change and the “do more with less” approach that bears the fruits of significant future discontent and tensions in the workplace is becoming the new norm in Corporate America.
There is some degree of misconception actually that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has always been hard-core liberal and overwhelmingly Democrat. Obama did win the presidential election with a 28-point lead but Massachusetts voted for Reagan both times actually… And Massachusetts was a much more conservative state pre-1970’s than it is today.
Boston is about 85% Democrat but across the state the split is about 60-65% Democrats and 35-40% Republicans. Thus, if about only 10% of the electorate changes its mind and decides to vote Republican instead of Democrat we have a very close race. This is clearly what happened with some Democrats who felt that their votes were taken for granted by Coakley and/or who were unhappy about current unemployment and what they feel is the failure of the Obama administration to do something about it.
And this is not even counting Independents who represent over 2 million people in MA and who heavily favored Brown in pre-election polls (almost 2/3 said they would vote for him according to a Suffolk University poll – similar data was apparently not collected on Election Day). Last year, those same Independents voted 57% for Obama.
Last factor was participation as folks in Republican districts voted more in masses than in Democratic ones. Yes, people, every vote counts…
Another thing that struck me in this election is that voters don’t need to be 100% aligned with candidates to cast their ballots in their favor. Unemployment and healthcare were on most people’s minds and hugely influenced their decisions. And I would bet that a lot of those who voted for Brown did not agree on the more conservative part of his agenda. But they did not care this time.
What people are truly worried about is that they don’t see in the early signs of the economic recovery a decrease in unemployment numbers. There is always a lag between the economic activity and the labor market but this time unemployment figures do not seem to move much if at all.
And I think that a lot of folks who work in Corporate America have been seeing the same thing I’ve been hearing accounts of, i.e. companies have found ways to do the same with fewer people. So, why hire back the folks who got laid off or recruit new people as long as the activity does not pick up significantly? I am afraid that a lot of the jobs lost won’t be coming back, and not only those that were outsourced to developing or emerging countries. The name of the new game is “Productivity Gain – 2010 Edition” - a lot of people out there are not going to protest when they are told they have to take on some of the tasks of someone who just left the company in addition to their regular duties – who would be foolish enough to say “no way, Jose, I don’t like the 2010 Edition and I don’t want to play”?
Obama in his State of the Union Address last night had a clearly different tone than he would have had before the MA election. It is as though his Administration got a shot in the arm and realized they had to come out more strongly to show Americans they are doing something about this crisis. And the situation for the Republicans has also changed radically as they have a totally renewed sense of self-confidence and are dying to take on the Administration and the Democrats...
But frankly, I am not sure there are a ton of things Obama can do to curb unemployment if indeed mentalities have started to change and the “do more with less” approach that bears the fruits of significant future discontent and tensions in the workplace is becoming the new norm in Corporate America.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Some thoughts about the Haiti Earthquake and the 2004 Tsunami
It has been heart-warming to see the outpouring of generosity and support since the disaster hit in Haiti. I even saw a message about earthquake relief yesterday on a highway sign that normally gives live info about traffic congestion…
As the examples of other catastrophes that gathered far less attention (earthquake in Kashmir or Iran a few years ago) show, the extent of the emotional connection that one feels with those who have been struck by a natural disaster is going to determine in a big way the level of people’s generosity. In the US, the proximity to the island and the presence of substantial Haitian communities in many large urban areas (20,000 in Boston for example) can explain the level of mobilization. Also, most Americans – even those who know next to nothing about other countries – are aware that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and thus, seeing the poorest of the poor struck by such a catastrophe is heart-wrenching for everyone.
Man-made disasters often generate far less sympathy for their victims – for instance, a civil war in Haiti would be viewed by most as yet another failure on the part of the different parties in the country to work together and make things right for their people.
That same emotional connection we are seeing now explained the big-time generosity in early 2005 after the Tsunami hit Southeast Asia and caused over 300,000 deaths. The disaster struck a day after Christmas (which made the catastrophe even more “unfair” to most though it was a totally irrational reaction) in places that were known by a lot of Westerners who had vacationed there or at least heard about them. The fact that a number of foreign tourists – mainly from English-speaking countries – were among the victims helped spread the word and the emotion. And finally that part of the world is considered “non-hostile” to the West unlike Iran for instance. Although most of us can make the difference between a country’s politics and its civilian population’s plight, this is about emotional connection that by definition is subjective.
A major difference with the 2004 Tsunami aftermath is the role that social networks are playing this time. It has been amazing to see how the likes of Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook have helped people stay connected with loved ones or share or ask for information about family members they had not heard about. CNN was counting on its viewers in the first 48 hours following the catastrophe for images. All phone lines were down but I heard about folks who were able to communicate by skype – incredible.
The 2004 Tsunami turned out to be a bonanza for NGOs that got involved in the relief efforts. Amounts raised worldwide went through the roof compared to whatever those organizations had achieved in the past, even for relief assistance. Arguably, those entities provided a service in the affected areas and thus, the money raised enabled them to do that work on the ground. However, a percentage of the funds that were collected paid for those NGOs’ administrative infrastructure and sometimes for other projects as well. I am under the impression that most of those organizations, even the bigger ones, did not communicate on the way the money was spent.
Now, having experienced how hard it is even for good organizations to raise money, especially in times of economic crisis (see what happened after the burst of the internet bubble in 01-02 and since the Lehman meltdown in the fall of 08), I don’t have a problem knowing that some of the Haiti Earthquake money will serve to fund those nonprofits’ “backbones” and maybe less publicized but equally important projects as well – however, if that is the case, people should be informed before making their donations and every NGO receiving money for the relief efforts should report on its use.
I wonder about the way relief efforts can be coordinated. Obviously, in an area nearly 100% destroyed, the order of business is just to scramble and do as much as possible. Every bit counts, every dollar counts, every pair of arms counts. But given the state of Haiti’s infrastructure before the disaster and knowing the extent of destruction, it is no surprise however that aid relief has a hard time getting to the people right now. In 2004, a week after the Tsunami, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) stopped accepting donations arguing that aid could not arrive where it was supposed to go and thus additional money was not going to help. Let’s hope that those involved in the relief efforts won’t have to get to that extreme. NPR just had a story about possible relief gridlock.
I feel like CNN and other news networks are having a bowl right now – not literally because I know they care about the suffering and the pain of the Haitian people but this Earthquake is such good business for them. I was in Puerto Rico when the disaster hit and I watched CNN (and Fox News) in my hotel room quite a bit. As I already wrote, I am not a fan of media-bashing and I recognize the value of the CNNs of the world, namely informing us and bringing us live news coverage – but you can tell that catastrophes are the bread and butter of those folks. Natural disasters make for such compelling images and so much emotion also that viewers will stay stuck to their screens for days on end. And CNN has the resources to send a bunch of its people down who know virtually nothing about the country (based on the comments I heard) - but hey, there are journalists and even the good Doctor Gupta who are reporting on the ground, so I guess we are all covered...
I don’t want to finish on a cynical note, so here is some information again about how you can get involved in the relief efforts: Network for Good’s web site / blog and Google’s Crisis Response page.
As the examples of other catastrophes that gathered far less attention (earthquake in Kashmir or Iran a few years ago) show, the extent of the emotional connection that one feels with those who have been struck by a natural disaster is going to determine in a big way the level of people’s generosity. In the US, the proximity to the island and the presence of substantial Haitian communities in many large urban areas (20,000 in Boston for example) can explain the level of mobilization. Also, most Americans – even those who know next to nothing about other countries – are aware that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and thus, seeing the poorest of the poor struck by such a catastrophe is heart-wrenching for everyone.
Man-made disasters often generate far less sympathy for their victims – for instance, a civil war in Haiti would be viewed by most as yet another failure on the part of the different parties in the country to work together and make things right for their people.
That same emotional connection we are seeing now explained the big-time generosity in early 2005 after the Tsunami hit Southeast Asia and caused over 300,000 deaths. The disaster struck a day after Christmas (which made the catastrophe even more “unfair” to most though it was a totally irrational reaction) in places that were known by a lot of Westerners who had vacationed there or at least heard about them. The fact that a number of foreign tourists – mainly from English-speaking countries – were among the victims helped spread the word and the emotion. And finally that part of the world is considered “non-hostile” to the West unlike Iran for instance. Although most of us can make the difference between a country’s politics and its civilian population’s plight, this is about emotional connection that by definition is subjective.
A major difference with the 2004 Tsunami aftermath is the role that social networks are playing this time. It has been amazing to see how the likes of Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook have helped people stay connected with loved ones or share or ask for information about family members they had not heard about. CNN was counting on its viewers in the first 48 hours following the catastrophe for images. All phone lines were down but I heard about folks who were able to communicate by skype – incredible.
The 2004 Tsunami turned out to be a bonanza for NGOs that got involved in the relief efforts. Amounts raised worldwide went through the roof compared to whatever those organizations had achieved in the past, even for relief assistance. Arguably, those entities provided a service in the affected areas and thus, the money raised enabled them to do that work on the ground. However, a percentage of the funds that were collected paid for those NGOs’ administrative infrastructure and sometimes for other projects as well. I am under the impression that most of those organizations, even the bigger ones, did not communicate on the way the money was spent.
Now, having experienced how hard it is even for good organizations to raise money, especially in times of economic crisis (see what happened after the burst of the internet bubble in 01-02 and since the Lehman meltdown in the fall of 08), I don’t have a problem knowing that some of the Haiti Earthquake money will serve to fund those nonprofits’ “backbones” and maybe less publicized but equally important projects as well – however, if that is the case, people should be informed before making their donations and every NGO receiving money for the relief efforts should report on its use.
I wonder about the way relief efforts can be coordinated. Obviously, in an area nearly 100% destroyed, the order of business is just to scramble and do as much as possible. Every bit counts, every dollar counts, every pair of arms counts. But given the state of Haiti’s infrastructure before the disaster and knowing the extent of destruction, it is no surprise however that aid relief has a hard time getting to the people right now. In 2004, a week after the Tsunami, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) stopped accepting donations arguing that aid could not arrive where it was supposed to go and thus additional money was not going to help. Let’s hope that those involved in the relief efforts won’t have to get to that extreme. NPR just had a story about possible relief gridlock.
I feel like CNN and other news networks are having a bowl right now – not literally because I know they care about the suffering and the pain of the Haitian people but this Earthquake is such good business for them. I was in Puerto Rico when the disaster hit and I watched CNN (and Fox News) in my hotel room quite a bit. As I already wrote, I am not a fan of media-bashing and I recognize the value of the CNNs of the world, namely informing us and bringing us live news coverage – but you can tell that catastrophes are the bread and butter of those folks. Natural disasters make for such compelling images and so much emotion also that viewers will stay stuck to their screens for days on end. And CNN has the resources to send a bunch of its people down who know virtually nothing about the country (based on the comments I heard) - but hey, there are journalists and even the good Doctor Gupta who are reporting on the ground, so I guess we are all covered...
I don’t want to finish on a cynical note, so here is some information again about how you can get involved in the relief efforts: Network for Good’s web site / blog and Google’s Crisis Response page.
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