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.

Toni and my students would have strongly agreed with Heather’s tip #5: “Don’t tweat about your coffee, the weather, or how tired you are. Provide value to your followers, not chit chat.”

With hundreds of tweats to check, who has time to hear the minutia of any one other than their very close friends. (That’s what I use FaceBook for… to appreciate everything from the mundane to the existential and wry wit of my closer friends.)

I’ve personally been experimenting with Twitter for a few months now so that I can be informed and helpful to the organizations I work with. I try to log onto Twitter at least  once or twice a week (sorry, just can’t make it daily or have it stream into my mobile phone). When I do, I always find really interesting references that keep me informed of larger trends and thinking in this sector, which is really helpful to me.

Unfortunately, once I’ve logged in, two hours can go by before I realize that I didn’t get to the top of my To Do list yet. UGH. That’s the downside of Twitter.

In addition to great references, I’m also finding that Twitter is a good lead generator for our web site. And, because our web site is built in WordPress, we’re using a really helpful plug in called TwitsMe’s to send Tweats directly to our Twitter account… you can message me @gaylegifford.

I’m building a following and large list of followers, largely through automatic sign ups via key words which I think I made happen through MR. Tweet, but now I can’t find how to change those keywords. (Anyone who has advice, PLEASE share it).

Unfortunately, any time anyone mentions the word “philanthropy” or “charity,” I’m suddenly following them, even if it was just a rare, one time occasion that they used the word. I’m hoping to connect on Twitter with individuals who dare care about the good work of philanthropy, who have useful information to share about how we can all get better at the work we do, and who might be willing to pass along other news and helpful tips.

So back to Heather’s Tip 5. With hundreds of really interesting people to follow, it helps not to have to scroll through really mundane Tweets from people one doesn’t know and who haven’t offered any reason to want to get to know them.

So, if your nonprofit can find a smart high school or college student to help keep up, Twitter offers interesting opportunities to find a lot of people who care about the things that you care about.

I’ve always felt that it was unfortunate that the measures of giving have no way to track philanthropy in its essence, the love of human kind.

Reading Michelle’s column reminded me that we need to honor these daily acts of altruism that occur all around us… from the neighbor who gladly shares a few eggs to the vacation rental landlord we met one year who volunteered by driving cancer patients four or five hours each way from rural Maine to Boston for treatment.

Thank you.

Lots of helpful advice to get you started.