Please read this opinion piece — Calling All Boomers: Don’t Start More Nonprofits — by Mark Rosenman, recently published in the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
If you’re traveling over the Thanksgiving weekend, take it with you and ponder it.
Mark is responding to a study claiming that 12 million Boomers want to start their own nonprofit or socially oriented business over the next decade. Noting that over one million nonprofit groups already exist in the US, Mark commends the commitment and spirit of these Boomers, but argues:
“Such a multiplicity of organizations would move America further away from developing coherent analyses of public problems. And it would lead the country to define and treat social concerns as fragmented individual or local matters. That would make it profoundly more difficult to mount any significant effort to advance the broad-based change needed in our social, political, and economic institutions.”
Mark is actually making two points.
One is ‘enough already’! There are plenty of effective groups out there already … get behind them.
His second point, however, is to zero in on the systemic, structural failures that are creating many of our social problems in the first place. These failures must be attacked and corrected by policy advocacy and political action. Otherwise, we’re doomed to expend huge resources endlessly applying bandages while the injuries relentlessly compound … the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff syndrome.
Citing Wall Street and other financial abuses, Mark argues:
“…instead of simply trying to relieve the suffering of the ever-growing number of Americans hurt by the failures of our economic, social, and political systems, we need to deal with the continuing causes of our problems—those systems themselves and the people who inappropriately profit from their undemocratic malfunctioning …
It is these dynamics that must be changed if the decline of the middle class and the growth of poverty are to be reversed. And multiples of new nonprofits or socially oriented businesses would not begin to challenge that reality or stave off growing human need.”
Amen!
However, while I agree heartily with both of Mark’s points, it does not follow that existing nonprofits — whether advocacy groups or charities — deserve an automatic ‘free pass’ when confronted by new, ‘upstart’ organizations that aim to tackle the same problems.
One would think that today’s Boomer, with limitless information at hand, might readily find an existing nonprofit that was super-effective at its mission and deserving of support.
If he or she cannot, and instead launches something new, whose fault is that? Maybe the Boomer was superficial in researching or has a super ego. But maybe he/she looked carefully and concluded that existing groups just weren’t cutting the mustard … after decades of effort. Or maybe groups that are effective aren’t doing such a hot job of communicating their progress and accomplishments. If the tree falls and no one hears, was there a sound?
So while you’re tucking it in over the holidays, give some thought to how you’ll respond to the Boomer who knocks on your door, but suspects you’re outmoded, ineffectual, past your ‘use by’ date. Or worse, to the Boomer who hasn’t even heard of you.
Tom
P.S. Mark … great piece. You deserve a raise!
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I think there will be a movement away from starting nonprofits — and towards the social enterprise — known as a L3C.
Social enterprises are easier to start, have less bureaucratic governance to worry about, and allow for what boomers want most: Autonomy.
Doesn’t solve the problem Mike is pointing to: Too many chiefs, not enough donors.
But the institution known as the 5013c is a relic from a different era. Its structure was deliberately created to cause careful and deliberate movement. It did not anticipate nor can it easily adapt to a mobile environment.
I think we will see staff members frustrated by their nonprofit lack of flexibility spin off into L3C social enterprises to compete with the mother ship. And I think that will be a good thing.
I appreciate both of Mark Roseman’s points — that there are good nonprofits already out there. And that the nonprofit sector has been too quick to willing to absorb all the weight of the crumbling of our government social safety nets — especially in the area of human services. We need to continue to fight for better public policies that invest in people, including the most vulnerable. But we also need to challenge “old guard” nonprofits that are not keeping pace with change. And sometimes that pressure can only come from competition from the new upstarts. I know a lot of nonprofit boards that could use a wake up call.
I love the points in the second to last paragraph. While I don’t think more nonprofits are the answer, we have to remember there are probably many reasons why “start a nonprofit” is coming up so often. As a sector, we need to start communicating more clearly, measuring outcomes and prioritizing proven programs.
Non-profits are organizations of any size that are created by people who believe that they can fill a need that they percieve exists, usually in their local community. It could be any need and directed at any group of people. These people do not need to be spending resources measuring outcomes unless they perceive an internal need to modify their focus, to re-prioritize their efforts, or simply to satisfy them that they are doing what they say they are doing – a function of good governance. The last thing that any nonprofit organization needs is oversight by any self-appointed or government-appointed group that requires measuring outcomes and prioritizing “proven programs”. President Obama invited nonprofit managers to Washington and told them that government should strive to recognize the proven programs and then support / push them. That is a sure-fire way of politicizing all of the nonprofit “sector”. From Cheryl Black: “As a sector, we need to start communicating more clearly.” That should be the entire statement. Let individual organizations do their own measuring and prioritizing as appropriate – they don’t need someone forcing them to do that (and likely giving them a grade as to how good they are at this type of documentation). Otherwise, this amounts to volunteers and other generous people being told what to do by someone not connected to their organization and whose priorities and agendas might not be those of the organization. Any Sector-level component should be about advice and guidance, not oversight.
Clearly, I’m woefully behind in my reading but I’ve been banking all the Agitators post and am now finally catching up. I hope you’ll indulge another comment on this one…
The part of this discussion that I find most compelling is the call to “zero in on the systemic, structural failures that are creating many of our social problems in the first place.”
I couldn’t agree more. And many of the nonprofits I work with are trying to do just that — remedy systematic failures.
Here’s the rub…the focus on root causes is more complex, harder to “sell” and therefore harder to raise money for. And I’m not talking about the big players like Habitat for Humanity. The work they do is critical — absolutely critical. But I’m talking about real root cause work…the kind of transformative social change that starts locally.
True systematic failures are being tackled by local grassroots organizations working to change the status quo and build political power from the ground up. They are training new leaders and organizing communities who have been cut off from participating in the systems that control their lives. They are working to shift the whole power dynamic in which we live, work and play; in our neighborhoods, in our states, nationally, and globally.
These organizations desperately need outside help to frame their complex and often intangible long-view work in a way that makes it compelling to potential supporters outside of the small core of insiders they know who think exactly like they do.
In my experience, the cases for support developed internally by these groups are train wrecks. Their appeal letters don’t inspire even me to make a gift. And don’t get me started on their websites.
These all-too-easily-forgotten groups, that we say we need more of, deserve more support. But they are caught in this catch-22 of not being able to afford the outside help that could get them and their development program to a higher level. They don’t have the expertise in-house to do it. And foundations, where they get the overwhelming majority of their income, don’t fund that type of expense.
I’m not implying that these organizations should all be given a free pass. Some of them do deserve to be put out of business. And there’s room for new groups to come in and do what these folks seem unable to do.
But rather than debating whether we need more nonprofits, I want a discussion about why we (myself included) haven’t even heard about some of the organizations that are incubating effective models for creating the change we want to see in the world, and what we can do to remedy that.