In the 21st Century America will complete a national infrastructure of trails for safe walking and biking across and among communities – just as we built highways and railroads in past centuries. As cyclists and residents of a truly walkable city, Providence, RI, we are proud to sponsor the second New England Bike-Walk Summit on Friday, October 7 at the Biltmore Hotel in Providence, RI. The Summit brings human-powered transit advocates, transportation experts and officials, community planners, engineers and environmentalists together for an exciting day of sharing and discovery about New England’s emerging intercity and interstate network of trails. We’ll be there and hope to see you, too. Stay for the weekend and enjoy a performance of our city’s renowned Waterfire and the Providence Cyclocross Festival, too. Thanks to our friends at the East Coast Greenway for organizing this conference.
Could we dramatically reduce or even eliminate a vast range of seemingly unrelated social problems, from child abuse and school failure to adult crime and mental illness, simply by reducing the breadth of the income gap between rich and poor in our state or nation?
That’s the question asked, and answered with a “yes,” in The Spirit Level, Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, public health researchers from the United Kingdom. With a wealth of graphed data and analysis, they show that the incidence of nearly any widespread social problem: obesity, drug abuse, teen pregnancy or adult incarceration, correlates with social inequality. You can look at some of their data at their website the Equality Trust.
Over and over they show that less-affluent but more equal nations and U.S. states outperform unequal peers with higher incomes on almost any measure of well-being. They draw on behavioral psychology to explain and support their conclusion that social inequality, not absolute poverty, is the powerful common cause for all of these seemingly separate problems.
That’s why, the authors go on to tell us, that most current responses to social dysfunction are inadequate at best and irrelevant at worst. Read More >>
All the buzz about social entrepreneurship has lead to the belief that some individual or technological wizardry will somehow end poverty and other social injustices.
Bullet holes from machine guns fired at strking workers
On this Labor Day, I’d like to honor our parents, grandparents and great grandparents – the ordinary people who organized for the right to have some control over their working conditions, to be paid a livable wage and to carry a union card.
I just left a Labor Day commemoration that once again reminded me that thousands of ordinary people do courageous things each day to make the world a better place — putting their jobs, and even their lives, on the line. Whether they work to advance civil rights, labor rights, human rights, women’s rights, the rights of minorities, they understand that it takes many actions by many people in solidarity over many years to stand up to the forces of greed and terror that are too successful in keeping others in misery.
There are no magic bullets or killer apps in our movement to social justice. Just every day, everyone who cares making intentional decisions to share, and to act in brother and sisterhood with the least fortunate among us. And to join together in nonviolence, as it is only through those actions that we can find the power and courage to win against the greatest forces of tyranny.
Scott Molly, Professor of Labor History, University of Rhode Island
People who want to ban a book can’t think of a better argument than “SHUT UP!” The would-be censors are still busy compiling the 2009 list of banned books in schools and libraries across America as I type, but we can share the final 2008 list thanks to the American Library Association and Banned Book Week (Sept. 26 – Oct. 3). For those who can tolerate and even welcome thoughts other than their own, Banned Book Week celebrates the First Amendment and our right to read. The ALA has done a great job explaining what’s at stake on their Banned Book Week site. Thanks, librarians, for keeping the door to shared ideas wide open to everyone. Read More >>
Check out the nonprofit workshops we’re giving around New England this Fall. We hope you’ll join us.
Wednesday, Sept 30th: Gayle will be co-presenting on Annual Giving Campaigns at the Boston Fundraising Summit at Simmons College. Our session runs from 9:30-10:45 am.
Thursday, Oct 8th: Jon and Gayle will be presenting “How to make the most of your year end appeal” for the RI Land & Water Partnership from 5:30-8:30 pm. The session will take place at Audubon Society of RI headquarters in Smithfield, RI. While the session is open to all, first dibs go to watershed associations and land trusts.
Monday, Nov 9th: Gayle will be presenting “Funding your work in these times” at the YES WE WILL Conference at the Crowne Plaza, Warwick RI. Her workshop is from 2:45-4:15.
Friday Nov 13th: Dig deep into board self-assessment at Gayle’s workshop “How are we Doing? Using Self- Assessment to Jumpstart Your Board Improvement Plan” at the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network/Associated Grantmaker’s Conference at the Sheraton Framingham in Framingham, Massachusetts. Session runs from 1:45-3:00 pm.
Have a tale of a joint venture or collaboration that has strengthened your operating capacity? We’d love to share details of that story through our blog.
Every day we are hearing more and more stories about the growing numbers of nonprofit organizations that are working together to improve their organizational capacity. We’re learning about many innovative or even routine activities that can have a big impact.
We are extremely interested in hearing your stories of nonprofit incubators, employee lease backs, sub affiliates, shared back office support, group purchasing, or whatever models you’ve developed. We think that the number of published case studies don’t reflect the diversity and number of interesting collaborations happening in this sector. We think that the lack of a great recipe book — what it is, how it came about, the mechanics of the arrangement, what makes it successful, direct and indirect benefits — is one of the barriers standing in the way of more nonprofits experimenting with new ways of operating.
We are happy to share your stories on this blog. Send your story along to us at gayle@ceffect.com. Send us your phone number so we can connect if we have additional questions.
These words emerged from a workshop I facilitated this morning called “boards that lead.” To get us started I asked everyone to think of a great board experience they have had and then to share one word that characterized that experience.
In just a few minutes, the 40+ board members, executive directors and staff who attended shared the words above. Together, they described the perfect board experience. What a gift. Thank you.
I love spring in New England! What a glorious day today has turned into.
I just walked home from a meeting with a prospective client. However that goes, I couldn’t help but smile the whole way back. The sun was shining brightly at 5:30 pm, the air was warm, the tulips were still blooming, as are the dogwoods, wisteria, and lilacs. The birds are singing up a storm. Bees are buzzing. Mother Nature has done it again.
It’s too easy in this work to get focused solely on the great need and all that is wrong with the world. It’s easy to forget to take the time to appreciate all that is beautiful around us.
So take a moment and enjoy the natural pleasures of your neighborhood, wherever you may be. Praise Spring, glorious Spring.
Principle IV of the Nuremberg Principles states”The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.”
So while I understand completely why our President would like to avoid right now the whole messy situation of the torture of prisoners during the Bush administration, unfortunately, his reasoning doesn’t fly with me. If the administration believes this is torture, then they are obligated under international law to investigate and hold the perpetrators accountable if found guilty.
I expect the boards and staff of nonprofit organizations to know when they are doing something wrong and unethical or immoral. I expect more of my government.
Please sign one of the petitions urging your congressional representatives to create a non-partisan, independent commission to investigate the use of torture by US intelligence agents and their superiors. You’ll find the one from AIUSA here. What has been disclosed is still only a tiny portion of what may have happened.
You don’t get to say “he made me do it” when you know that the act is wrong. My mom wouldn’t let me get away with that and neither should our President let employees of the US government do the same.
And I’m sorry, but no one can convince me that the interrogation techniques which have been sited in the memos released are not torture. And torture is never acceptable.
If we don’t hold the moral high ground internationally, what do we have left as a country? As I tell my clients, there is nothing more valuable to your organization than your good name. That goes for the USA as well.
