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. They call for social policies designed to reduce income inequality, either by reducing pre-tax disparities in wages (as happens in New Hampshire and Japan) or by using taxation and social expenditure (as in Vermont and Sweden).

While more speculative than their diagnosis, the authors propose a movement to share the economic space now dominated by profit-making corporations with alternative economic institutions. These institutional alternatives already exist, in the form of cooperatives, credit unions, employee-owned firms and certainly non-profit organizations (not to mention government). Wilkinson and Pickett suggest that an economy with more space occupied by nonprofit  organizations would tend to restrain top salaries and raise those at the bottom, while also delivering important social benefits at reduced cost to consumers.

That may sound radical by current American standards, but it’s squarely in line with traditional American liberalism (anyone remember Hubert Humphrey?) and European social democracy. The recent recession has made the growing chasm between affluence and poverty in America undeniable. The steady withdrawal of public goods such as public education and decent roads, are just two visible manifestations of steadily growing inequality in American society. Must we get used to this steady decline, or can we work for alternatives?

Our nonprofit clients and colleagues, and many government agencies, struggle valiantly against overwhelming social problems. Their programs have life-changing impact on individuals, but they rarely have the resources or social influence to solve or even significantly reduce the incidence of large social problem like illiteracy, obesity, crime, drug abuse, education. We can blame the victims or apply bandages. Is there another choice?

The Spirit Level challenges us all to take a new political stand in favor of policies that promote equality. And it provides an excellent store of new evidence and analysis to help us get started.

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit. – Helen Keller

Our best wishes for a just and joyous 2011. There is much work to be done and many challenges ahead.

Peace.

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.

You don’t have to ban a book to keep it out of a child’s hands. You can just lock the door. So, I send my thanks to Providence Community Libraries, a new nonprofit here in Providence, which stepped up at the eleventh hour to acquire and operate all nine beloved neighborhood branches of the Providence Public Library. Thanks to PCL, the PPL’s plan to close branches in low-income neighborhoods was headed off this spring. Good thing, too, because libraries in our public schools, which serve the same neighborhoods, were essentially abolished and converted to conventional classrooms this fall.

Here are the ten books most frequently censored in 2008. Note the obsession with saving children from exposure to unconventional thoughts. (If you’ve ever talked to a child, you know it’s too late for that.) This year’s “honorees” join a proud list of subversive works banned in prior years, such as Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird and James and the Giant Peach.

Out of 513 challenges (attempts at outright removal of a book) as reported to the Office for Intellectual Freedom

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
   Reasons: anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group
2. His Dark Materials trilogy, by Philip Pullman
   Reasons: political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, and violence
3. TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle
   Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
4. Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
   Reasons: occult/satanism, religious viewpoint, and violence
5. Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
   Reasons: occult/satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, and violence
6. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
   Reasons: drugs, homosexuality, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, suicide, and unsuited to age group
7. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar
   Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
8. Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, by Sarah S. Brannen
   Reasons: homosexuality and unsuited to age group
9. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
   Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
10. Flashcards of My Life, by Charise Mericle Harper
    Reasons: sexually explicit and unsuited to age group

• 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.
• Tuesday, Nov 3rd: Gayle will be leading a lively discussion “Building Board Leadership: The role of board officers” at TDC’s downtown headquarters in Boston, Mass.
• 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.
• Thursday, Dec 3: “Strategic Planning and Succession Planning” will run for the last time in 2009 at the Rhode Island Foundation/ Fidelity Investments Board Development Program. This one is an early morning session from 8:30-11:00 at Fidelity’s Smithfield, RI campus.

See you there.

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’ve shared two examples already — the shared administrative capacity of the Chattanooga Museums Collaboration and the merger between two CDCs that created CommunityWorks Rhode Island.

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.

Thank you.

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 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.

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.

According to Amnesty International (one of the best organizations out there– all you funders measuring results pay attention). “the U.S. government is required by international law to respect and ensure human rights, to thoroughly investigate every violation of those rights, and to bring perpetrators to justice, no matter their level of office or former level of office.”

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.