All that’s left of the Dodo. Luckily, CSH, NFF, Enterprise and LISC are all still around.
Dear reader, as part of a special report for Shelterforce I sat down with the heads of four of the largest community development intermediaries in the country and asked a simple question: Are you still relevant?
This six part series looks at the evolution of their role in the community development sector and their strategies for the future.
To binge-read the full report, click here. Continue reading
Disney’s Dodo: not known for innovative social finance policies.
Dear reader, as part of a special report for Shelterforce I sat down with the heads of four of the largest community development intermediaries in the country and asked a simple question: Are you still relevant?
This six part series looks at the evolution of their role in the community development sector and their strategies for the future.
To binge-read the full report, click here. Continue reading
Dodo’s do not scale well. Luckily, intermediaries do. – Image by rhombitruncated.
Dear reader, as part of a special report for Shelterforce I sat down with the heads of four of the largest community development intermediaries in the country and asked a simple question: Are you still relevant?
This six part series looks at the evolution of their role in the community development sector and their strategies for the future.
To binge-read the full report, click here. Continue reading
The dodo has nothing to do with this blog series. Really. – Image by Daniel Eskridge
Dear reader, as part of a special report for Shelterforce I sat down with the heads of four of the largest community development intermediaries in the country and asked a simple question: Are you still relevant?
This six part series looks at the evolution of their role in the community development sector and their strategies for the future. To binge-read the full report, click here. Continue reading
It can be hard to not feel frazzled.
As I was saying, there are plenty of people who want to give your organization money. Seriously. Lots of it. There is, of course, a catch: you have to give it back.
With interest.
Understandably, this stops most nonprofit executive directors in their tracks. It’s no mean feat to raise the prodigious amounts of grant funding needed to run one of these juggernauts as it is. It requires stamina, persistence, a LOT of friends, and just a touch of maniacal charm. Now, the frazzled ED asks, you want me to spend a huge amount of time raising money I have to pay back?
Well, yes. And here’s why: Continue reading
Also posted in my guest blog on Rooflines.
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… What the hell is that?
In my last blog post I spent a good chunk of time talking about the trend toward “complexification” in the nonprofit sector. There are plenty of small, scrappy, neighborhood based nonprofits around (as a matter of fact, that number continues to grow), but we’ve also seen the emergence of nonprofits with $100 million plus in annual revenues, hundreds of staff, sophisticated operational structures, and highly complex financial instruments built to conduct their business.
I argued that we’re past due in borrowing some tools from our for-profit colleagues, including stronger staff development and retention regimens, the ability to access substantial capital for opportunistic growth, shaping board relationships that focus on organizational development and not just fiduciary oversight, and developing a nonprofit sector trade association to lobby on the collective needs and issues of our sector.
We’re clearly entering a new era that will continue to blur the lines between for-profit and nonprofit. And let’s be honest: it’s a little scary. Why? Because we’re all very worried that we might somehow become like, you know, them.
Reposted from my guest blog on Rooflines.
But there’s a hole in the bagel, dear Liza, dear Liza.
When I first came to NYC, still wet behind the ears and tasked with helping distribute money from Deutsche Bank’s foundation, I was sent to meetings. Lots of meetings. Very interesting meetings, where the community development banking luminaries of the day would hold court: Carol Parry, Phyllis Rosenbloom, Mark Willis, Marc Jahr, Bob Rosenbloom, Michael Feller, Greg King, Hildy Simmons, Gary Hattem. Or other meetings, where the United Way, Ford or Rockefeller called the tune, and the jolly members of NYRAG would troop in to talk about the inner workings of domestic microfinance, workforce development, educational reform, financial literacy, homeownership, arts and economic development, you name it. There was a palpable core of philanthropic leadership really focused on the challenges of the city, and they held significant mass. Their effect was gravitational: where they led, others followed. They drove discussion, led thinking, catalyzed partnerships, commanded attention. You may not have loved what they thought, or how they went about things, but their presence was manifest, and their impact was broad.
New York City still has the strongest and most vibrant philanthropic community in the country. It’s still provides enormous leadership in social investment strategies, community development finance, building public / private partnerships, and program innovation. But something has changed. Over the years, there’s been a growing vacancy in the focus on New York City itself: on its systems, challenges, nonprofit leaders, and neighborhoods.
In short, despite the incredible presence of philanthropic leadership and resource, the attention has moved elsewhere. I’m not sure that most folks have even noticed. It’s been a creeping drift, a steady ebb. A spreading hole in the center of our little everything bagel universe.
Reposted from my guest blog on Rooflines.
Mom at the Darke County Fair, Greenville, Ohio
Mom at the 9/11 Memorial
Re-posted from my guest blog on Rooflines.
In case you missed the first post in this series, you can link to it here. You should read it. My mom says so.
My goal is to answer my mom’s simple question: why did the economy crash? She was asking me because she had read two newspaper articles that had completely different views as to why this very bad thing happened: Five Good Reasons Why Wall Street Breeds Protesters (USA Today), and Wall Street’s Gullible Occupiers (Wall Street Journal).
In a nutshell, these two opposing views are:
In my first post, I explained some of the background for these opposing views, and I also spent a substantial amount of time discussing why view #2 appears to be (a) freakishly out of touch with reality, (b) so freakishly out of touch with reality that even people who normally want to blame the government for everything can’t agree with it, and (c) in spite of (a) and (b), freakishly popular.
To add vinegar to gall, I don’t think view #1 really doesn’t do justice to the issues either. Continue reading
Re-posted from my guest blog on Rooflines.
My Mom Rocks!
My mom rocks. She’s the most big-hearted, intellectually curious, bright-eyed and good-looking mom in the world. Now, she and Pop came for a visit a few weeks back and Mom pulled out of her purse a couple of news clippings: Five Good Reasons Why Wall Street Breeds Protesters (USA Today), and Wall Street’s Gullible Occupiers (Wall Street Journal). She laid them down in front of me over a lovely brunch (at Kevin’s in Red Hook for you foodies out there) and asked in that demure Dayton, Ohio drawl of hers: which one should I believe?
Mom deserves an answer!
So, I’m going to give it my best shot. There are an awful lot of folks who have killed an awful lot of trees trying to sort this business out (and I will cite throughout this blog my personal favorites), and much black ink has been spilled. I’m going to try and give to you, in layman’s terms, what I believe the critical issues were and some ideas on how to address the current aftermath and future implications thereof. This may take a while. Ready? Continue reading
Man About Town 