http://www.ssireview.org/articles/ Strategies, Tools, and Ideas for Nonprofits, Foundations, and Socially Responsible Businesses en lynch_loreal@gsb.stanford.edu Copyright 2009 2009-11-19T07:00:01+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/grassroots_concrete/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/grassroots_concrete/ On the morning of Jan. 26, 2001, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck the western Indian state of Gujarat. More than 20,000 people were killed and 160,000 injured, many of them crushed by falling buildings. International aid agencies flocked to the scene and began reconstruction. One year later, civil engineer Elizabeth Hausler traveled to Gujarat on a Fulbright scholarship, hoping to learn how she could use her skills to build homes that withstand tectonic shifts. She found that many survivors didn’t want to live in their new, donor-built earthquake-resistant houses because they were made from odd materials and in strange styles. “One approach I kept seeing over and over was designing a house with the toilet inside,” says Hausler. “People don’t want the toilet in the house, because the houses are so small. So that ends up being wasted space. And they don’t use the toilet, so they don’t have a toilet.” It wasn’t enough for a house to be solid, realized Hausler. It needed to fit. Even when donor-built homes suited people’s needs, they were frequently too expensive. “I didn’t see a single example of a technology introduced by a local or foreign organization that continued to be used without… Economic Development 2010-02-03T22:39:18+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/second_chances_and_a_third_bottom_line/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/second_chances_and_a_third_bottom_line/ Inside the steel and glass office towers of Chile’s capital, Santiago, computers, printers, and faxes hum. Out on the streets, business executives and taxi drivers chat away on some of Chile’s 14 million cellular telephones. Urbanized, well educated, and home to 17 million people, Chile is one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America. And as is the case in the United States, all its electronic gadgets are beginning to lead to a whole lot of electronic waste. The country currently discards 300,000 computers a year, and by 2020 it will be grappling with an annual pile of 1.7 million trashed computers, estimate Daniel Garcés and Uca Silva, researchers at Plataforma RELAC (the Regional Platform on E-waste in Latin America and the Caribbean, a project sponsored by a Chilean NGO). Worldwide, e-waste is the fastest-growing solid waste stream. This widening river of trash poses both human and environmental hazards. Each cathode ray tube in a television or computer monitor, for instance, contains several pounds of lead. Electronics also harbor mercury, cadmium, and other heavy metals. Many consumers and manufacturers dump these materials into landfills, where toxins leach into groundwater and poison people and animals. Even when people attempt to… Environment 2010-01-27T00:14:46+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/strength_through_flexibility/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/strength_through_flexibility/ In June 1992, the five founders of what became the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) met at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center on Lake Como, Italy. Each woman was a minister of education in her home country (Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, the Seychelles, and Zimbabwe). And each lamented that only half of Africa’s school-age girls enrolled in school. FAWE’s founders understood the obstacles that girls met on the way to the schoolhouse. Many parents simply couldn’t afford school tuition and fees. Others preferred to keep their daughters at home to perform household chores and to take care of younger siblings. Girls who did make it to school encountered such indignities as bathrooms shared with boys, discrimination from teachers, and sexual harassment from both teachers and students. For the few girls who did make it through elementary school, pregnancies often cut short their middle and high school educations. But FAWE’s founders also knew that the rewards were great for girls who did manage to secure an education. Educated girls were—and are—less likely to suffer from violence and harassment. They live longer and contract HIV/AIDS less. They have fewer and healthier children. And they make greater contributions to their country’s economic… Education, Government 2010-01-20T22:36:19+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/an_ounce_of_advocacy/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/an_ounce_of_advocacy/ For years before Hurricane Katrina laid waste to the Gulf Coast, scientists, engineers, and journalists warned that New Orleans’ levees might not withstand the inevitable “Big One.” Yet government officials at every level ignored the warnings and cut the programs designed to fortify the city’s defenses. So when disaster finally struck in late August 2005, government agencies were woefully unprepared to deal with the devastation. Into this breach waded nonprofits and businesses. The American Red Cross, for instance, spent more than $2 billion and deployed 220,000 volunteers to assist 1.2 million families, reports a Congressional committee.1 Smaller nonprofits like PRC Compassion also sent their best. This group of ministers distributed more than 62 million pounds of food, clothing, and other aid. Likewise, businesses large and small raised funds and donated profi ts to the relief effort. General Electric, for example, donated $22 million in cash, goods, and services, and raised an additional $50 million for the Red Cross, reports the Philanthropy Journal.2 In total, private donations for Katrina relief came to $3 billion— the most ever donated for a single event in the United States—with corporate donations making up about one-third of that sum. Yet the private sector’s unprecedented outpouring… Government 2010-01-11T21:38:30+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/social_innovation_conversations/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/social_innovation_conversations/ Environment, Social Entrepreneurship, Corporate Social Responsibility, Philanthropy, Responsible Investing 2010-01-08T23:01:18+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/blueprint_widget/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/blueprint_widget/ Philanthropy, Responsible Investing 2010-01-07T16:32:04+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/women_hold_both_sky_and_solutions/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/women_hold_both_sky_and_solutions/ Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof’s book Half the Sky is an absorbing narrative of stories that are rarely heard: a New Jersey teenager is raising awareness about the status of girls in poor countries, an Afghan schoolteacher is leading a learning insurgency, and a former first lady of Somalia’s hospital is saving the lives of mothers in Somaliland. These and other vignettes bring to life the struggles and courage of unforgettable women who are, as the book’s subtitle suggests, turning oppression into opportunity. Half the Sky begins by outlining the most egregious ways in which human rights are violated: trafficking and slavery, prostitution, rape and honor killings, and maternal mortality. The authors do not flinch from describing experiences that are horrifying testimony to the deeply rooted gender inequality that persists around the globe. The book also explores the reasons for such discriminatory practices—including attitudes toward religion and traditional cultural beliefs—effectively stoking the reader’s growing sense of moral outrage. We learn, for example, that the world’s leaders are effectively ignoring the 500,000 women who die each year either giving birth or trying to cope with unplanned births, by relegating maternal mortality to a “women’s issue.” After convincing the reader that this… Human Rights, Book Reviews 2009-12-30T23:43:01+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/a_spark_for_good_art/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/a_spark_for_good_art/ Back in 1999, playwright Lisa Kron applied for a grant from a new arts organization called Creative Capital. She had no idea what she was getting herself into. When Kron learned that she would be receiving a few thousand dollars, her initial reaction was, “Great!” And then Creative Capital staff kept asking her, “When are you coming in to talk with us?” Kron demurred, saying: “I’m fine. Really.” Privately, she fretted about wasting her time “on help I didn’t need,” she says. When she heard that the organization was planning a retreat for its artists, all Kron could think was, “Leave me alone.” The plot changed when Kron discovered that there was more money in the pipeline—up to $50,000, available at milestones in the life of her project. This unusual cash flow wasn’t the whole story. As her three-year fellowship unfolded, Creative Capital offered Kron a range of career-boosting benefits, including help with marketing her work and practical advice about budgeting. Kron went on to earn a Tony Award nomination for Well, the autobiographical play produced while she was a grantee, and today credits Creative Capital with taking the “beggar mentality” out of arts philanthropy. Instead of offering her a… Arts, Culture, and Religion 2009-12-21T17:46:14+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/the_wrong_risks/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/the_wrong_risks/ During the early 1980s, I worked in a community center that looked after the welfare of an inner-city neighborhood in Mumbai. My clients were the poorest of the poor: pavement dwellers who lived on the sidewalks. We offered these families health services, enrolled their kids in school, and organized childcare for them. But every 15 days, public officials came and broke up their makeshift homes because it was illegal to squat on sidewalks. All we could do was give our clients a safe place to hide their belongings until the officials passed. Being young and hot-blooded, a small group of us took the local government to court. At that time, India had a chief justice of the supreme court who regarded even a postcard from a poor person as a legitimate opening to a public interest suit. And so the suit commenced with relative ease. Our small group was very excited that we might actually change the policies that kept pavement dwellers impoverished. To my surprise, however, my employer severely reprimanded me for this action and stripped away many of my discretionary powers. This organization, the Nagpada Neighborhood House, was one of the oldest and most prestigious nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)… Nonprofit Management 2009-12-15T20:00:00+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/outrun_the_recession/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/outrun_the_recession/ Recessions are not sprints; they are endurance events. To find out how nonprofits are faring during the toughest recession in more than 30 years, we have been surveying 100 nonprofit executives across the United States at six-month intervals since late 2008. As of October 2009, some 80 percent of our respondents had experienced funding cuts, and a full 93 percent said that they were feeling the effects of the downturn. Yet many of our respondents are also adopting healthy habits that not only will help them survive the present recession, but also may help them thrive when better times return. Below we summarize the seven healthy habits of nonprofits that endure. Act quickly, yet thoughtfully Anxiety tends to provoke one of two responses: unthinking activity or deer-in-the-headlights paralysis. Both are understandable; neither is helpful. Instead, nonprofits must be both thoughtful in their decision making and fleet-footed in their implementation. And that means planning for the worst, starting now. For example, take the Women’s Lunch Place, a Boston-based nonprofit that gives poor and homeless women and children a daytime refuge. By the fall of 2008, the organization had seen its funding reduced by $400,000 and wasn’t sure what its future held.… Nonprofit Management 2009-12-07T20:33:01+00:00