Nonprofits
Are We Still Involved in the Pursuit of Truth? If Not, Why Not?
Let's not lose our college idealism.
Sam Davidson shares a great quote he saw at the National Civil Rights Museum:
“Truth comes from being involved, and not from observation and speculation.”
Amen to that. The pursuit of truth is really why many of us came into the nonprofit sector. Most of us were looking for something real, something meaningful happening in this big bullshit world. But the question is, do most of us find it when we get here, or do we just find more spin, just as much posturing as we see coming from our politicians? As Jeanne Bell will tell you, we pay a price for the stories we tell about ourselves. Because the problem with many nonprofits today is that we are supposed to be in the business of making social change—the kind that can be funded, measured, replicated, and tied up in a pretty red bow. The kind of change that can only happen in air-conditioned offices with receptionists screening our calls, that doesn’t need to speak out against anything because the good work speaks for itself. We think we know what the community needs even though we’ve never set foot over on the east side of town. We have our protocol and our fears about getting too political, and we think we’re doing some good if we get a little mentoring program up and running without addressing the piss-poor state of the school system.
Really?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the inauthenticity of keeping quiet. I moved to DC in 2004 after participating in the March for Women’s Lives, a huge march on Washington and a real protest to secure reproductive rights for women in the face of the Bush administration’s actions. I helped organize one of our bus groups of women’s studies students from Richmond to DC and it really felt like I was doing something, for once in my life. My grandmother thought I was insane to be involved with such an event, and was convinced I would forever be on the “government’s list.” And the college feminist radical in me really wished I was indeed on some watch list. I was proud to be identified as a dissenter. I wanted it to be on the record that I did not agree with the political decisions that were being made on my behalf as a woman. I got involved because NOW (National Organization for Women) along with the Black Women’s Health Imperative had provided me with some real knowledge I wouldn’t find in the history books or on primetime TV. And they showed me what it meant to take action, armed with that truth, to drive change. Yet somewhere along the way I traded in my protest signs for business casual and board meetings. I’m not really sure how I feel about it now, I’ve been wondering if this is the same sector I discovered in 2004. I mean, we can’t be all about protest and dissent 24/7, right? Someone has to pick up the pieces. But maybe this sector dichotomy is just a representation of the way we’re being trained to toe the line. As Elisa, one of my readers, comments:
It doesn’t help that our educational system and the organizations we work in don’t encourage us to do this kind of try and fail experimentation. I don’t know about anyone else, but where I went to school, toeing the line was going to get you farther all the time. Then you transition to a work place that is the same way and it becomes in your best interest (at least in terms of staying ‘comfortable’) to again toe the line.
And I have to be honest here, a lot of my idealism from four years ago has since waned because I’ve seen how nonprofits really work. But I’ve been thinking about what my responsibility is to the Rosetta of four years ago, the one who found out what was really going on and told everybody about it. What is my contribution if I forgo seeking truth in order to avoid getting into some kind of trouble? Where are we going as a nonprofit sector if we lose our drive for the pursuit of truth at all costs? And what good are we as independent organizations if, when we find it, we are too afraid to speak truth to power?
Am I the only one that’s lost a little of my college idealism? What’s been your experience?
Rosetta Thurman is an emerging nonprofit leader of color working and living in the Washington, DC area. She holds a Master’s degree in Nonprofit Management and blogs about nonprofit leadership and management issues at Perspectives From the Pipeline.
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COMMENTS
BY Jon
ON July 9, 2008 11:06 AM
Rosetta, very great insight on our pursuit of the truth- and its something that I think everyone a part of or once a part of nonprofits/ activism/ social justice/ whatever you may call it, looks deep within themselves and questions at least once.
I still have one year left at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and I found myself asking myself the same question over and over this year. Have I lost my college idealism before I’ve even gotten out of college? In short, yes. But it’s not as bad as it sounds
I just came back from spending a year studying rural development in New Delhi, India, and it was an experience that certainly transformed me. In California, I was involved in all sorts of movements and causes, from running an environmentally friendly interactive community based festival, to working in movements to impeach bush, ect ect… My head was filled with idealism, motivation, drive to change things through grassroots, protests, getting voices heard.
But upon my return, I have found myself unable to understand the point. Not only have I realized how inefficient some nonprofits can be, and how many organizations of do-gooders can sometimes just be a group of people with good intentions but without the drive to see things through, but I have also seen things that just a few voices of dissent can’t change.
There are two roles that I feel need to be filled to create social transformation and change:
The first is the idealist, filled with that zeal and “college idealism”. Their role is to go out, street to street, door to door, meeting to meeting, G8 summit to UN conference , and bring attention to what’s happening. They grab the spotlight of the media by their sit-ins, protests, demonstrations. They create an awareness, and set the wheels in motion for change. They rub against mainstream society to show their dissent.
Then you have the (practicalist?). This is, I believe, is what many become. It’s the idealist when they put on a business suite, and work with the rest of society to actually make something happen. Yes, some loose their ideals, and some go into a corporate world- some need to pay their bills I guess you could say. But some choose to make a difference by working within the rest of society, working with the government, moving into venture philanthropy, social enterprises, or other businesses that are working to change things.
This is where I stand. I cannot stand in a protest these days, because I look at how so many people are championing their own causes when its supposed to be united for one thing. I notice how many people have no idea why they’re standing there. It’s still effective, but for me it does nothing. I feel my role, now, is to use what I know, what I’ve learned, to make a change by working within the system, or by working through more formal means to achieve my goal. I’m looking into working with groups like WRI, or many research institutes in India, developing methods to help poverty reduction through innovation.
While I guess I could say I’ve lost that college idealism, I say I’ve moved on to the bigger picture. I’ve got a different role to fill now. Thats just me though.