Book Review: Uncharitable

Dan Pallotta send me a copy of his new book Uncharitable to review and I LOVED IT! I am a big believer in the potential of the nonprofit sector and I also believe that there are many structural issues that impact how effective nonprofits can be at achieving their missions. Dan's premise is that human beings are innately charitable and that we have a desire to help our fellow man. Our current system of charity is the bureaucracy that we set up to fulfill that need to help one another. This system has remained unexamined because doing "good" is good enough. In this book Dan asks some key questions: Does this system work? Is it the best system we could have? What other systems are available? His vision is to set free charities and all of the people that work for them from a set of rules that were designed for another age and another purpose and begin to use the rules of free-market capitalism to supercharge the sector. Before you get all high and mighty and remind me that the free-market system is collapsing around us everyday and that opening up the nonprofit system to its corruption and volatility wold ruin the purity of the sector, I'd like to remind you that the sector is already influenced by the corruption of the for profit sector, as evidenced by many high profile scandals and the volatility for the free-market is what is shrinking my foundation's endowment. The nonprofit system has all of the pitfalls of a free-market system with none of the benefits (e.g tolerance for risk, investment in research and development, and competitive pay). This book is destined to start some great conversations, which are very overdue.

The book is available November 28th at Amazon, check it out here.

Philanthropy in the New Administration

During this year's Council on Foundations annual conference there was a plenary session focused on what role philanthropy could play within the new administration. Many ideas were tossed out there, such as creating an advisory position on the new President's cabinet and changing the foundation tax laws. For those who may still have some thoughts and questions about what the new administration means to philanthropy, Grantmakers in Health is partnersing with other grantmaker groups to host a session on this topic on December 1st and 2nd in Washington, DC. Here's the description:

Grantmakers Income Security Taskforce; Grantmakers for Children, Youth & Families; and GIH invite you to attend a Post-Election Briefing for Grantmakers. This timely briefing will inform grantmakers about the priorities of the new Administration and Congress and provide funders with an opportunity to help inform, shape and influence this agenda. Several informative sessions will be offered, including:
-A diverse panel of experts and representatives from the new administration’s transition team will discuss the priorities of the new Administration and Congress on a variety of domestic policy issues including health, human services, and budget and taxes.
-A panel of grantees will discuss the implications of the new political environment and what it suggests in terms of opportunities and challenges for the short- and medium-term on a federal, state, local, and community level.
-A facilitated strategy session will provide grantmakers with an opportunity to reflect on the briefing and consider strategies and opportunities for investments and cross-sectoral collaboration.

For more information, go to http://www.gih.org/calendar_url2665/calendar_url_show.htm?doc_id=706190

Independent Sector- Diana Aviv

Diana Aviv gave a wonderful keynote at the Independent Sector Conference. She was also was getting her groove on at the NGen party. I don't have video of her dancing, but I do have her full remarks from the keynote here.

New Voice- Tera Wozniak

Tera over at the Social Citizen Blog is twittering about the Independent Sector Conference here.

New Voice- Rosetta Thurman

Rosetta from Perspective from the Pipeline is live blogging from the Independent Sector Conference. Check out her posts:

Day One

Day Two

I had a great dinner last night with a fabulous group of African American female bloggers. The food was terrible but the conversation was wonderful. Rosetta, Kathrin Ivonovic- Diversity Projekt, Naomi Leapheart-Matchstick Movement, and Monica Montgomery- Blog TBD (get on it Monica, we are waiting to hear from you) and all wonderful women that have a lot to say and are making great change through their writing. Check out their blogs.

New Voice- Heather Carpenter

Heather is blogging on the Independent Sector Conference over at her blog Nonprofit Leadership 601. It has been great to finally get to have an in-person conversation with Heather, since the bulk of our communications have been over email. Check out her posts:

Independent Sector Conference Here I Come

Elections and Nonpofits

There are also many people twittering about the conference. Check out their tweets here.

Independent Sector Conference- Ben Jealous

One of my favorite people, Ben Jealous, the new CEO of the NAACP was the second speaker at the NGen welcome lunch. Ben walked us through a story of the movement to abolish the death penalty that he was a part of right after graduating from college in 1996. Some lessons from that movement included:

• Break big goals, like abolishing the death penalty into smaller goals like ending the juvenile death penalty.
• Engage young people in organizing work because they can engage unusual coalitions like the civil rights community partnering with the conservative pro-life movement.
• Invest in the development of your workforce, regardless of age. The anti-death penalty movement had some key wins, these wins were the result of the organizing work of a recent college grad who had success organizing students in high school and on college campuses.

Ben also gave great professional development advice as a 35 year old CEO of a national civil rights organization:

• Seek out many mentors and give them the opportunity to support your growth. Building those relationships are key in any field.
• He had specific advice for those that care about social justice. Develop the skill sets needed to build institutions, not just the skills to organize individuals. This is the way to create systemic change and strengthen your career.

Expect big things from Ben and the NAACP in the coming months and years.