“Let the beauty we love be what we do.”

]]> http://www.ceffect.com/blog/great-quotes/being-the-beauty-we-love/feed/ 0 http://www.ceffect.com/blog/great-quotes/wisdom-from-dalai-lama/ http://www.ceffect.com/blog/great-quotes/wisdom-from-dalai-lama/#comments Tue, 15 Jun 2010 22:27:07 +0000 Gayle Gifford http://www.ceffect.com/?p=2683 I had just had a few moments to crack open a magazine today and happened to pick up the June 14, 2010 edition of Time magazine.

Its”10 Questions” column featured the Dalai Lama, who apparently has a new book out called Toward a True Kinship of Faiths.

This quote really called to me:

In response to the question: “How can we teach our children not to be angry?” He replied:

“I have always had this view about the modern education system: we pay attention to brain development, but the development of warmheartedness we take for granted.”

As we go about doing our own work, how much of what we consider essential, what we truly value, do we take for granted?

The Dalai Lama reminds us that we need be intentional in our actions to create the word we’d like to see.

But I also found in his concern, another request. That as we focus on achievement and producing results, we need to also remind ourselves that our humanity, our societal connections formed from kindness and empathy, are achievements too. And ones we need to work at.

At today’s annual luncheon and awards ceremony of our client the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless, chair of the board Rabbi Alan Flam shared the above quotation from Rabbi Tarfon (c 70CE – 150CE).

I felt it is was particularly apt given the vote by the US House of Representatives who passed an historic but imperfect health care reform bill last night that President Obama will sign tomorrow.

The universe was

a place of wonders,

and only habituation,

the anaesthesia

of the commonplace,

dulled our sight.

– Salman Rushdie

]]> http://www.ceffect.com/blog/great-quotes/best-wishes-for-2010-2/feed/ 0 http://www.ceffect.com/blog/great-quotes/we-need-to-build-community-chemistry-r-lebouef/ http://www.ceffect.com/blog/great-quotes/we-need-to-build-community-chemistry-r-lebouef/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:23:41 +0000 Gayle Gifford http://www.ceffect.com/?p=1983 My newspaper carried a front page story of a business where the employees decided to foresake their $20 per employee company paid holiday dinner and run a food drive instead.

What really jumped out from that story for me was a comment made by the branch manager, Ray LeBouef:

” the corporate rationale for the annual holiday dinner is that ‘it builds team chemistry. But I think we need to build community chemistry‘ ”

Thank you, Ray, and the employees of Tractor Supply Company in Coventry, RI, for brightening up my morning.

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Peace Prize Lecture, 1964

“A fair prosperity and a just society are within our vision and our grasp, and we do not have every answer. There are questions not yet asked, waiting for us in the recesses of the future, but of this much we can be certain because it is the lesson of all our history: Together a president and the people can make a difference. I have found that faith still alive wherever I have traveled across this land. So let us reject the counsel of retreat and the call to reaction. Let us go forward in the knowledge that history only helps those who help themselves.

“There will be setbacks and sacrifices in the years ahead but I am convinced that we as a people are ready to give something back to our country in return for all it has given to us.

“Let this be our commitment: Whatever sacrifices must be made will be shared and shared fairly. And let this be our confidence: At the end of our journey and always before us shines that ideal of liberty and justice for all.”

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democratic National Convention 1980

We spotted this sign on Trinity Church in Boston.

]]> http://www.ceffect.com/blog/tidbits/more-kindness/feed/ 0 http://www.ceffect.com/blog/big-ideas/a-though-for-monday-morning/ http://www.ceffect.com/blog/big-ideas/a-though-for-monday-morning/#comments Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:49:29 +0000 Gayle Gifford http://www.ceffect.com/?p=1261 “Every moment you are alive you can learn something very deep, but you will never know it unless you are listening.” John Maeda, President, Rhode Island School of Design, from an interview in Color Magazine.

This reminds me of a quote in Boards that Make A Difference by governance guru John Carver that has always stuck in my head. “A crude measure of the right thing beats a precise measure of the wrong thing.”

All this was stirred up for me by the recent buzz within the world of philanthropy for measures to better direct donor giving to “what works.”

There is a real danger in oversimplifying what works.

While I’m completely in favor of focusing the attention of our sector toward processes that produce real community results, I’m wary of reliance on simplistic nonprofit rating systems (e.g. GiveWell) that attempt to duplicate for mission effectiveness the same style of rating formulas that Charity Navigator and others use to rank nonprofits by their financial metrics. We already know that judging a nonprofit solely upon the percentage of program expenses tells us nothing about community results and, in many cases, not even a terribly lot about nonprofit financial effectiveness.

How can we better use the indicators that do exist to influence whole systems change and not just randomized philanthropic endeavors?

There are already some pretty powerful indicators out there. Hats off to the Annie E. Casey Foundation for its funding of KIDS COUNT data nationwide and in every state. (We are very fortunate to count the superb Rhode Island KIDS COUNT among our clients). Or thanks to UNICEF for the State of the World’s Children.

Having data such as this helps us understand where we are starting and helps focus our attention on the progress that we’d like to see made.

Throughout RI, we heard that publishing credible and sophisticated data sets on current conditions has led to significant changes in the way that RI government and nonprofits think about policy for kids.

But in addition to its data, Rhode Island KIDS COUNT is known for researching and bringing forward examples of practices that have been shown to make real progress for children. By bringing all parties to the table, they help entire systems develop legislation, policies and practices that better serve children.

UNICEF articulated GOBI-FFF, now considered the basic elements of child survival, to reduce infant mortality worldwide. (Growth monitoring, Oral rehydration therapy, Breast feeding, Immunizations with  supports from Female literacy, Family spacing, and Food supplements).

Yes, we can and should hold many individual organizations accountable for where they spend their dollars and the quality of their investments. But if we get distracted and only focus our attention on what nonprofits donors should invest in, as a community we distort the massive, interlocking systems changes needed to dramatically move the needle for all.

Funding the best of charter schools won’t change public education as long as charters enroll miniscule numbers of kids. Funding a few individual organizations that adopt child survival isn’t enough to eliminate communicable disease when 100% of kids need to be immunized.

We must hold accountable whole communities, states and countries for the investments they make in the outcomes we profess to desire. Our society must invest in practices at the scale needed to reach every kid or every adult and not just the fortunate few who may win the nonprofit assistance lottery.

While I believe in the power of nonprofits to change lives, I also know that our institutions are a small part of the picture.  The easily measured usually serve as band aids or incubators. It’s a lot harder to measure the efforts of the advocates or catalysts for widescale change.

I’d hate to see philanthropy distracted from enabling big system societal changes. Let’s not invest excessive amounts of energy in measuring and evaluating individual nonprofits in isolation, and miss the bigger systems that need our attention.