This column has been printed from The Cincinnati Beacon: Where Divergent Views Collide!
The Cincinnati Beacon
Support Your Local Company Town Charity Funding System
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Posted by komarek
I’m not surprised that Cincinnati’s 2009 United Way campaign was designed and delivered by P&G executives. United Way has depended on huge last-minute donations from wealthy givers to “top off” its campaigns for years. Once the economy tanked, those core donors could not close the 2008 campaign money gap. And so we have 2009’s new campaign, built by corporate marketing teams from P&G, combining Sunday coupons, online infomercials, billboards touting the 211 service, cell phone texting, and online appeals from your friends.
I hope the campaign succeeds in motivating millions of consumers to support charity work. But I also want to see some “truth in advertising.”
At a minimum, United Way should disclose the charities it no longer funds.
• ARC Hamilton County (Association of Retarded Citizens)
• Mental Health Association of the Cincinnati Area
• Seven Hills Neighborhood Houses
• Camp Washington Community Board
• CCHMC Postponing Sexual Involvement
• Clermont 20/20
• Fidelity Health Care
• OSU Extension - Brown County
• Winton Place Youth Center
• Social Health Education Inc.
• Renaissance New Richmond
• Comprehensive Counseling Service of Middletown
• Memorial Inc.
• Madisonville Child Care Center
And maybe United Way should disclose that its top two staffers earn a combined total of over half a million dollars. Perhaps even the list of its key donors whose political contributions helped dismantle our public safety net over the course of the past decade.
Cincinnati’s United Way has completed its evolution.
No longer serving needs identified by member charities, United Way is now a vertically-integrated, corporate-controlled charity funding mechanism, designed by experts to deliver workforce development solutions for the corporations that dominate its strategic planning, funding decisions and marketing campaigns.
8/31/2009
4/14/2009
Successful Online Fundraising
Here's a non-technical article about successful online fundraising.
http://nonprofit.about.com/od/onlinefundraising/a/givingpages.htm?nl=1
The article describes two successful online fundraising campaigns using Firstgiving, the web service we are using for the NAMI Clermont County fundraising walk.
From the article:
Of course you can't neglect the next part of the grassroots fundraising job:
Making the "ask.”
--pk---
http://nonprofit.about.com/od/onlinefundraising/a/givingpages.htm?nl=1
The article describes two successful online fundraising campaigns using Firstgiving, the web service we are using for the NAMI Clermont County fundraising walk.
From the article:
It is person-to-person fundraising - our supporters are making personalized appeals to their social network, and each one of those individuals is leveraging their social network. It's an amazing tool that can really increase donations.The principles discussed in this article also apply to NAMIWALKS team pages. Every NAMIWalks page has a “share” button at the top that makes it possible to link to Facebook, MySpace or other social networking websites.
Of course you can't neglect the next part of the grassroots fundraising job:
Making the "ask.”
--pk---
4/13/2009
Activist's Book Club - Understanding Poverty
About a year ago I attended a large Cincinnati workshop for nonprofits. I thought the speaker with the best lesson for smaller nonprofits was Ruby K. Payne, author of A Framework for Understanding Poverty.
Though criticised in some quarters for offering stereotypes in place of analysis, I have been struck over the course of the past year by the truth of what she writes, especially with regard to the primacy of relationships among people who live in poverty.
One example. This past weekend I read Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh. Mr. Venkatesh writes about his graduate-school field work in Chicago's most notoriously crime-ridden public housing projects. He worked closely with gang leaders, tenant association leaders, and youth program coaches in an effort to describe how people living in US inner-city poverty make it through each day.
Time and again, throughout the book, Venkatesh's experiences validate Ms. Payne's concepts.
I can recommend the lessons in these books to help educators and activists design better programs, and increase their effectiveness.
--pk---
Though criticised in some quarters for offering stereotypes in place of analysis, I have been struck over the course of the past year by the truth of what she writes, especially with regard to the primacy of relationships among people who live in poverty.
One example. This past weekend I read Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh. Mr. Venkatesh writes about his graduate-school field work in Chicago's most notoriously crime-ridden public housing projects. He worked closely with gang leaders, tenant association leaders, and youth program coaches in an effort to describe how people living in US inner-city poverty make it through each day.
Time and again, throughout the book, Venkatesh's experiences validate Ms. Payne's concepts.
I can recommend the lessons in these books to help educators and activists design better programs, and increase their effectiveness.
--pk---
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