nonprofits

Bumped. Ian Storrar, COO of Mobilize.org, invites you to apply for a grant summit in Chicago. - Karlo

On Friday I attended a reception with Majority Leader Hoyer’s staff at the Capitol, along with many of my friends and colleagues in the youth empowerment movement. In July, Majority Leaders Hoyer keynoted at the 80 Million Strong For Young American Jobs summit where over 100 Millennials engaged with him on some of the most pressing issues of our day. On Thursday, I attended a hearing of the House Education and Labor Committee (see Karlo Marcelo’s coverage on FM). My fellow Co-Chair of 80 Million Strong, Matthew Segal, testified about the huge disparity in unemployment across generations that leaves the Millennial Generation ill-equipped to tackle the economic and personal financial barriers of the near and long-term future.

Let’s turn to Chicago, not to dissect the 2016 Olympics but because this November 18th to 20th Mobilize.org will be holding another summit for young leaders in our generation to tackle economic problems. Democracy 2.0: Exploring the Millennial Generation’s Return on Investment (ROI) will bring together 150 people, many of whom were in DC this July, to discuss the barriers to our collective financial health and then compete for Democracy 2.0 Awards ($25,000 is available) to implement their ideas at the grassroots and netroots levels. The issues we will address range from healthcare and medicare/-aid to personal financial education and taxes.

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation sponsors Exploring Millennial ROI so, for selected summit participants who need it, travel expenses will be paid. We’re also excited to have an intergenerational partner in AARPs Lifetuner. The application form for the Summit is open until October 17th and anyone interested in competing for an Award should fill out a separate form with their proposal outline. I’m always happy to talk with anyone who’s interested and/or has questions (202 736 5703) or email ian@mobilize.org.

This is the year for dealing with these issues and pushing bold, innovative ideas. Demos is holding A Better Deal in Washington, DC I two weeks. You should go, I am. From there, let’s go to Chicago and cement our commitment to making change happen through collaborative approaches to our tough fiscal times.

Change.org recently announced its new Jobs for Change initiative, linking those wishing to pursue careers in change-making with available positions in organizations serving the common good.

Over the past few months President Obama has inspired a renewed interest in public service, providing a historic opportunity to mobilize a new generation of Americans to address the major social and environmental problems we face.

Yet there are few resources connecting people interested in social change with careers in service, threatening to limit the potential impact of this new civic spirit. We aim to change that.

We are currently building the largest database of nonprofit, government, and social enterprise jobs on the web and have just hired a team of career advisors to provide daily advice and guidance to help people of all backgrounds find and develop a career in social change. We have also partnered with more than a dozen leading organizations that will give Jobs for Change reach to millions of people interested in deeper civic engagement.

While those observing the trend toward public sector jobs among youth usually focus on the success of programs like Teach for America and City Year, this initiative will fill a large hole enabling one-stop career shopping for youth already involved in creating positive change. Many more organizations will now be in the spotlight thanks to this tool, and as a result, the millennial mobilization will be strengthened.

What I especially like about this site is the extra stuff. Along with the job postings, Jobs for Change offers "Career Advisors," who are assigned to various areas/aspects of the job search process, such as college students and AmeriCorps. In addition, young job-seekers are able to ask questions to their peers regarding change-making careers. Finally, content offering tips for young job-seekers is regularly published on the site.

A variety of organizations have teamed up with change.org to provide our progressive youth movement with an excellent resource. Kudos to everyone involved.

Amid the craziness of the inauguration this week, the League of Young Voters Education Fund launched 99Problems.org, a website seeking to join the fight against systemic problems that face our youth.

From the site:

The premise of 99Problems.org is simple.

During the first hundred days of Obama’s administration, users will be encouraged to submit creative video testimonials outlining the biggest problems facing their communities.

Site administrators will sift through the submissions and post the day’s most engaging videos to the site’s front page.

Videos will be selected based on their creativity and resonance. Site administrators encourage people to make their videos less than 90 seconds.

What I like about this site is its emphasis on solving problems, and the responsibility that's necessary to do this. I've written before about the pragmatism I value in Obama, and this effort is a reflection of that: no ideology or drama, but instead, a common sense view of the problem and an example of how young people are solving it. "Service" can help in problem-solving, but it should be accompanied by an emphasis on public policy to determine how to disrupt the systemic aspect of the problem; thankfully, 99Problems does this by posting "action" videos of those who have already taken steps to combat the issue. The best part of the site, in my opinion, is its focus on those non-college youth who aren't on the receiving end of many resources and attention that the government, political parties, and/or media gives to college students. The LYVEF has a long history of advocating for that forgotten group of people, and 99Problems is a fantastic tool to continue their work.

Here is the first video, illustrating the program well:

• MTV is finally running its first paid political ad - and it's an attack on Senator Obama run by a third party organization. Classy. In a conversation I had with an MTV rep, they said that third party ads would be reviewed and accepted on a case by case basis. If newfangled swiftboaters can get their ads placed, I assume MoveOn or other progressives will have no trouble getting their own ads on TV, right?
• EJ Dione at The Washington Post pens the Best. Op-Ed. Ever. on the youth vote by a professional political pundit.
• McCain is getting ready to roll out new social networking features on his website to attract young voters. Because McCainspace was such a smashing success last year, right? I think Bondelli has the right take on building new social networks, but I've got no problem with McCain competing with the College Republicans to see whose social network can suck worse. Divide that tiny potential audience up and doom them both to failure.
• Jason at the Sentinel posted slides from his two excellent Netroots Nations panels on how to monetize, popularize, and all around make your blog more kickass.
• MSNBC has an interesting story about the role that nonprofits play in our elections. If you want to know about the differences between 501c 3, c4, and 527 organizations, it's not a bad place to start, even if there are some questionable assumptions about issue advocacy and ideology in the piece.
• Youth to Power made Micah Sifry and Andrew Raseij's "political beach-reading list."
• Facebook has plans to take over the rest of the interwebs . . .
• Over at his other blog, Kevin reports that Kanye West and MTV are teaming up to welcome home veterans and shed more light on the situation of our soldiers as they return home.

I continue to find Tactical Philanthropy to be an extremely interesting read, particularly posts about the Streamline Project - an attempt to make the grant application process much less onerous through standardization. As I said before, it's kinda like the "common application" for nonprofits.

In this post, they tackle a topic that should be of interest to any budget-conscious ED or Development Director - the inordinate amount of time we sometimes spend jumping through a series of very particular hoops for funders, and what that "lost" time and money means for the efficacy of the grantmaking process:

If you are buying the services of my firm Ensemble Capital, you don’t care what our company’s “client acquisition” costs are. But if you are investing in the company, you care very much about these costs. Another way to think about it is this; all of the money in a foundation has already been given to nonprofits, it is just being held for future delivery. This is factually the cases since the IRS only grants an income tax deduction for gifts to nonprofits because the gift is considered a “completed gift” to a nonprofit. That money literally belongs to the public. So whether a cost is paid for by a nonprofit or paid for by a foundation, the end result is the same. We know that foundations care very much about keeping their own administrative costs down, so the logical extension of this decision would be to minimize the cost to nonprofits of obtaining grants.

I think the concept of “net grants” is a powerful one and something foundations should understand when they think about their grant making. Realize too that the costs of the nonprofit that actually obtains the grant are not the only relevant costs. If 100 nonprofits spend $1,000 each to pursue a $100,000 grant, they the net grant would be $0. Nada. Nothing gained. In effect the foundation has just taken $1,000 away from the 99 nonprofits that failed to get the grant and delivered the money to the winning grantee.

It's a powerful argument for streamlining the process. There have been some attempts at this within the political realm - most notably the New Progressive Coalition. NPC tried to put many organizations on an even playing field where, once they completed an application process, they could be exposed to an open market place of donors for little to no additional costs. Conversely, the process was supposed to provide potential donors with enough information about each organization to invest with confidence. Unfortunately, many participants found the process to be even more cumbersome than the traditional grant making process, and the Return on Investment even smaller. So far NPC boasts barely more than $100,000 in monies raised for the accepted 35 participants.

Still, streamlining the process is definitely something for funders - non profit and partisan alike - to think about. I hope they're reading Tactical Philanthropy as closely as I am.