Category Archives: Justice

Award, Justice, Philanthropy

INSPIRING PHILANTHROPY PROFESSIONALS

1 Comment

We are proud and inspired by many of our friends and collaborators in the University of San Francisco MNA Program who have been recognized by the Association for Nonprofit Professionals (AFP) Golden Gate Chapter during the 2020 National Philanthropy Day. “The National Philanthropy Day is a special celebration to recognize and pay tribute to the great contributions that philanthropy — and those active in our own philanthropic community — make to our lives, communities and world. This year, AFP Golden Gate has joined chapters across the country and around the world virtually to honor individuals, organizations and businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area who generously give their time, talents and resources for the enrichment and benefit of our communities.”

Among this year’s honored recipient was Kay Sprinkel Grace, our MNA Advisor a well recognized author and well-known fundraising professional who was recognized with a lifetime achievement award along with Mary Barbara Schultz, a well-known philanthropist. We are also very proud of Robert (Bob) Glavin, MNA, former MNA Advisor and past Development Director at USF who, along Dr. Chandra Alexandre, our current MNA advisor and past Fundraising course instructor, were the winner of the Spirit of Philanthropy Award.

Philanthropy – as love of humanity – is one of the most noble expressions of our common humanity and needed collective values. Unfortunately, philanthropy has many limits and cannot become the substitute to needed systemic solutions to societal issues such as individualism, inequalities, homelessness, poverty and racism. As Martin Luther King, Jr. stated:

“Philanthropy is commendable… But it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.” (MLK)

Regan Pritzker, co-founder of Kataly Foundation and representative of one of the wealthiest families in the United States of America, was this year’s recipient of the Outstanding Philanthropist Award. Recognizing her family’s privilege she also acknowledged the limits of philanthropy and how the generosity of those who give back should raise the question of their privileges in how they accumulated their wealth in the first place. Reflecting on the importance to channel the power of philanthropy toward impact investing and systemic change, Ms. Pritzker suggested that

“Philanthropy should be in the business of investing in new models that democratize decision-making and ownership, and shift power and control to those who are most impacted by social, economic, and environmental harms. These are the people best positioned to lead us towards change and transformation” (Impact Assets).

Philanthropy should be about promoting deeper expressions of humanity, innovation, inclusion and compassion, and not become a substitute to justice. Charities often target symptoms, not causes. This is why privileged and powerful people prefer to be recognized as philanthropist (s)heroes instead of granting systemic solutions for implementing social justice and tax-supported public services. That is why our MNA program moves beyond philanthropy to educate well-rounded leaders who combine human compassion with social justice, social innovation, social impact and organizational sustainability.

Action, Advocacy, Impact, Innovation, Justice, Leadership, Responsibility, Social Sector, Women

Social Movements: Seeing Change Through to Fruition with Strategy and Partnerships

Leave a comment

By Claire Lewis

Earlier this year, I participated in my first protest ever – The Women’s March. I cannot remember who organized it or who invited me to the Facebook event group; I just knew I wanted to make a difference. If raising awareness was the key objective, then we definitely accomplished that goal. According to USA Today, 2.6 individuals across 32 countries participated in this historical march. Celebrities from America Ferrerra to Madonna gave powerful speeches about the importance of women’s rights. News stations across the globe covered this momentous day.

How was such a feat accomplished? The answer is social media. Facebook protest events across various cities and states filled my newsfeed leading up to the day. I witnessed many friends mark they were “interested” or “going” to these events.

However, despite this outpouring of support, there is little to no reform. One of the issues with “social media” marches is the lack of strategy behind the effort. I, like many others, was unclear as to the main purpose or end-goal of the Women’s March. Was it a particular policy change? If so, was it related to sexual harassment, gender inequality in pay, freedom of choice, and/or all of the above?

In order to sustain long-term change in policy and legislation, strategy, goals, and hard work need to be put forth and adhered to. This Ted Talk goes into more detail on the lack of strategy behind online uprisings. As, Zeynep points out, the Civil Rights movement was incredibly successful because there was a well thought out strategy, what she refers to as “slow and sustained” and “painstaking long-term work.” The Civil Rights movement also had specific, tangible goals such as ending segregation and reversing “separate but equal.” Both individuals (ex. MLK) as well as the work of SMO’s led to major change. For example, the NAACP was instrumental in policy change. NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall, challenged segregation in the landmark case, Plessy V. Ferguson that later led to Brown v. Board of Education. The Brown Case resulted in large-scale protests such as the March on Washington.

These powerful protests are the reason for both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Clearly, both SMOs and individuals are important in a social movement. So the question is, in our current social media climate, how can we harness the power of these social media inspired protests and actually produce tangible results? To me, this is more important than whether an SMO or an individual creates a protest event on Facebook. I do not care who starts it, I just want to contribute and see change actually happen.

The first step is creation of a strategy. Many SMOs already have strategy and goals built into their programming. For example, the NAACP has various toolkits for social change initiatives. The trick is to connect SMOs to these grassroots movements so that everyone is on the same page.

Below are some ideas I brainstormed that could create movements that are more effective. I assume (and hope) that at least some of these ideas are already in place.

  • SMOs identifying and working with various grassroots protest planners to create strategies and goals together that can be communicated to the masses
  • SMOs training leaders to be part of these small grassroots movements and educate groups
  • SMOs attending various protests as guest speakers and/or handing out information
  • SMOs collaborating with influential social change leaders such as Michael Moore to ensure a goal is put in place and communicated. He does a great job, but a partnership with an SMO could be even more impactful
  • SMOs and/or individuals harnessing various media sources to make it clear what the public needs to do in order to achieve the goal (make it easy to do, easy to understand)
  • SMOs educating the public at various venues on what legislation is related to the current issue, what propositions to watch out for, etc.
  • SMOs partnering with small grassroots groups to create follow-up sessions after protests
  • SMOs and/or individuals partnering with schools and universities to provide education on various social issues and legislation to build a pipeline

Our current social media climate has so much potential for enacting real, tangible change. By harnessing the strategies that SMOs already construct and articulating clear goals, we have a chance at influencing policy change. SMOs and individuals can be much more powerful as a team, and I hope there will be more partnerships in the future. I am so proud of the Women’s March and awareness it spread, but I want to see women receive equal pay, a right to choose, and fair trials in the cases of rape and sexual assault. I want to see not just a short-term uprising, but long-term change. The partnership of SMOs and individuals can act as a catalyst to bring reform to fruition.

Advocacy, Education, Justice

Nonprofit Equity and Diversity

2 Comments

som_evnt_15f_socialequityleadershipconference_3226_1600x600px

The University of San Francisco is hosting the Social Equity Leadership Conference (SELC) on June 1-3, 2016. Established by National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), the Social Equity Leadership Conference is focused on advancing the knowledge and understanding of applied and theoretical research toward the promotion of social equity in governance. Nonprofits and the Third Sector are not exempt from the challenges and opportunities to advance social equity in the communities they serve and in the representations of their own organizations.

The papers presented represent many issues related to racial equality, gender inclusion, economic integration, access and justice. These topics are some of the main concerns of nonprofit organizations (NPOs). NPOs are on the forefront of addressing systemic issues related to various aspects of life and dignity in our societies. They do so though their advocacy work and by reminding us all that service and compassion are not enough to produce those systemic changes needed to address injustices generated by our socio-economic systems. But NPOs are also not exempt from looking inward and promoting social equity within the organizational structure and leadership compositions of our boards. Many NPOs still fail to promote more inclusive organizations, especially in nonprofit leadership that is still not diverse enough to represent clients and served communities.

The MNA program at USF takes these issues for social equity and racial diversity to heart by welcoming critical thinking and uncomfortable discussions about diversity, inclusion, access and inequality. We cannot change what we do not recognize as an issue and we cannot manage what we cannot identify and measure. Our Nonprofit Ethical Leadership course – a foundation course in the MNA program along with Strategic Board Governance – centers the discussion on these issues through cases, statistics and ethical decision making exercises.  We discuss and reflect about how NPOs must promote equity from within. We compare our organizations and reflect on how promoting board diversity is not just politically correct – but essential for achieving effectiveness in our social missions.

On the one hand, racial, ethnic, political, and disciplinary diversity needs to be promoted and better integrated in our NPOs. On the other hand, economic inequality and privileged opportunities needs to be dissipated, accounted and transformed in order to guarantee that our mission reflects our practice. While nonprofits are becoming more efficient in their managerial and business practices they cannot lose sight of their social representation and social accountability for the common good. Unfortunately, the controversies regarding top salaries of nonprofit CEOs and EDs often reflect the extreme inequalities we see in not-so-conscious capitalist societies and unsatisfied self-serving leaders. This is unfortunately evident in underpaid nonprofit workers. It is also evident regarding gender gaps and  women who lead and excel in every aspect of the nonprofit sector – except pay.

Nonprofits are active in denouncing extreme poverty – both locally and globally. But because of their donor-dependency for funding they fall short in denouncing extreme wealth. This is a factor that often makes nonprofits both a solution to the consequences of inequalities but also part of the problem. As they advance their strategies for fundraising they also must work to recognize and transform the extreme (systemic) inequities of our society.

Learn more through these studies and links: