V3 Campaign Updates

In a recent Chronicle of Philanthropy op-ed, Robert Egger lays out the undeniable facts:

This time last year, 29 states announced that they would post deficits for 2009. All totaled, their projected shortfall was a staggering $47-billion.

Today, California is desperately trying to manage a projected budget deficit of $24 billion and is anticipating writing IOUs totaling $3 billion a week.

The majority of other states are also trying to find ways to balance their budgets. All told, 47 states will be posting over $130 billion in deficits.  While this is disheartening from a tax payer standpoint, we need to recognize that it will directly affect the issues we care about and the people we care for, as well as our own livelihoods.

 Bob Ottenhoff, President of Guidestar is also examining this issue.  On his blog this week, he explains what are the largest sources of revenue for nonprofit organizations. 

“According to the Urban Institute’s Nonprofit Almanac 2008…29.4 percent comes from government grants and fees for services.” 

Yesterday, President Obama announced during a press conference that government can’t and shouldn’t do everything and be everywhere.  During this media event, President Obama called on:

foundations, philanthropists, and others in the private sector to partner with the government to find and invest in these innovative, high-impact solutions. 

We also need to be the solution!  We, as nonprofit workers need to make sure that government officials are aware of the value we bring to each community.  We need to make sure that it is not our budgets they first slash when trying to balance their checkbooks.  It is time for nonprofit workers to speak with one voice and to advocate broadly for the great contributions we offer to our communities.   

You can be that voice.  Here is what you can do today:

• Ask your elected officials what they are doing to partner with nonprofits in your community.
• Follow us on Twitter at @v3campaign and tell us what your elected officials are doing. 
• Join us on Facebook. 
• Share this blog post with your friends and colleagues. 

I’m so excited to join the V3 Campaign as the new Campaign Director.  No one knows the power of the nonprofit sector like you do, and we are going to build a great campaign using your capacity to see a brighter future.

Together, we will build a wide-sweeping organization of people who understand the value of the nonprofit sector.

Your small actions can have huge results.   Here is what you can do this week:

Be a V3 Correspondent

No one knows your community like you do.  Use your Twitter account to tell the V3 Community what is happening in your town!  Are your elected leaders talking about nonprofits?  How many nonprofit workers are there in your office - in your city?  Be a voice of nonprofits in your city.  Follow us at @v3campaign and we will happily re-tweet the action in your city!

Bring V3 Home

Does your community recognize the value of nonprofit organizations?   Organize your friends and colleagues to discuss your impact.  Don’t be afraid to invite local elected officials or their staff.  Ask the V3 Campaign Questions:

• What are your personal and professional experiences with nonprofit organizations?
• If elected, how would you partner with and strength­en the nonprofit sector to achieve the goals of your campaign?

Write an Op-Ed

Make sure your local newspapers know the true value that nonprofit organizations bring to your community. If your letter is published, let me know and I will post it to the V3 blog.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with your ideas and your stories of how you are reaching out to your neighborhood.  You are an integral part of your community - and of this campaign!

shoot me an emailor call me at: 202.266.2016.

I can’t wait to hear from you!

Courtney Sieloff

V3 Campaign Director

An invitation from V3’s friends in Pittsburgh:

“Join us for a community forum featuring all three of Pittsburgh’s 2009 Democratic mayoral candidates - Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, Councilman Patrick Dowd and attorney Carmen L. Robinson

Thursday, May 7, 2009 from 3:15-5:15 p.m.
Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland

Moderated by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette executive editor David Shribman, candidates will be asked to address topics of particular interest to the nonprofit sector, including its relationship to city government and the impact of today’s current economic climate.

Submit your own questions for the candidates at pghmayoralquestions@gmail.com by Monday, May 5, 2009. Only pre-submitted questions will be considered.

The forum is FREE and open to the public. Reservations are strongly recommended.

RSVP or find more information at www.ProArtsTickets.org or by calling 412.394.3353.

Parking is available on the streets surrounding the Carnegie Museum and Library and in the parking lot behind the museum.”

Read the rest of this entry »

This week, JVA Consulting listed its highlights (and lowlights) of 2008 for the nonprofit sector, and chose V3 as its #3 top highlight:

3. Nonprofits come together to form the V3 campaign, a consortium of nonprofits dedicated to making sure the voices of nonprofit organizations are heard by politicians. The V3 campaign has contacted politicians across the country and asked them to lay out precisely how they plan to work with nonprofits and advance their causes. Many have responded. To see their responses and get involved with V3, click here.

Full article here

Does your candidate have a plan to strengthen nonprofits in your community? If not, why?

Can you imagine electing a candidate that didn’t have a plan to partner with the business sector to strengthen their community?

Having a hard time envisioning that? Today we made a video to show you what it might look like…

Tell your friends.  If enough of us ask, we just might get some answers.

Guest Post by Kimberly Caldwell of Greenlights.org

While watching an episode of Frontline on PBS a few months back, I felt my stomach drop and panic overtake my brain. I was overwhelmed by the lack of accountability that our national executive leadership had to the citizens of our country, and what a poor job the media was doing to make us aware of the abuses of power.

“How do we, as voters, in a country this size, hold our national leaders accountable to our interests?” I thought, “how do we break through the insulation of lobbyists and political contributions to get OUR issues on the table, protect our rights, and ensure that responsible decisions are made for the long-term success of our country.”

I don’t have all the answers. Yet. But as the election cycle played out, the attention to community engagement raised by Service Nation gave me hope that there would be real dialogue, at a national level, about the real needs of our cities and who does the work that keeps them sustainable. The V3 campaign started buzz about the power of the nonprofit sector and how it is up to US who work in it to show that power and hold some feet to the fire to make change in our government.

But it all comes back to accountability. We nonprofit folk know accountability better than anyone else. We are accountable to our funders, to our volunteers, to our clients and stakeholders, to the communities in which we serve—we can’t sneeze without reporting to someone about it. And while that may be more extreme than it needs to be, we know that the purpose of accountability is to make sure that when we invest our funds in doing good, we get good work done.

So where does that accountability come into our republican democracy? How does a local nonprofit consultant, or even a crazy credible, energetic, entrepreneurial nonprofit leader make a politician act in our best interest?

We elect people who get it. And while this is a super-nascent movement we have to keep it going if we want nonprofit values (which I would argue kick small town values any day of the week) to make it to the White House. We accept our power, which is totally against our consensus-driven mindset, and DO SOMETHING WITH IT.

Imagine a government that understands how community work is done and builds their metrics for grants around the way we do our most effective work, rather than just monitoring every 15 minutes of our time? Imagine a government that understands how it isn’t just about throwing money at a problem, or withholding money from an agency, it’s about understanding who will be most effective at helping people and investing resources there.

We won’t have that government until we work to elect it. Accountability may sound boring, but it’s one of the best values we’ve got.

After two years of being inundated campaign ads, mailers and 24-hour news cycles devoted to nothing but politics, the election is a little over a week away. It would be easy to assume that the new president will handle everything, but we would be misguided to do so. Our work is just getting started.’

Last week, Nonprofit Listening Post Project at Johns Hopkins released a study of nonprofit executives’ priorities for the next the next administration.

According to the study, 80 percent of the responding executives identified “reinstatement and expansion of tax incentives for individual charitable giving” as an ‘extremely useful” policy measure. An additional 17 percent claimed this idea was at least “somewhat useful.”

I agree with them on that one. Do you?

I do differ with the overwhelming majority of respondents on another point though. The report states that only 36 percent strongly favored the creation of a federal agency to represent and promote the interests of the nonprofit community.  I don’t know where you come down on the issue, but I wholeheartedly disagree. I think that what is in the interest of the nonprofit community is in the interest of the everyday citizen. I want to find out what would happen if the best practices from the individual nonprofits were discussed in the halls of government.

Nonprofits effectively feed the hungry, house and clothe the poor, train the jobless and so often provide a voice to the forgotten citizens of our country. I don’t think that we have anything to fear from a federal agency that brings the best nonprofits have to offer into our government. No one understands “We the People” like nonprofit employees do. But that’s just my opinion. What’s yours?

The Chronicle of Philanthropy talked with Lester Salamon, an author of the report and discussed how the implications of Congress’ $700-billion rescue plan for banks might change the opinion of nonprofits on the urgency of changing government:

Lester M. Salamon, director of the Center for Civil Society Studies and one of the report’s authors, says nonprofit executives would probably have expressed even greater urgency in seeking changes in government policy if the survey had been conducted in the past two weeks.

“Nonprofits are going to be called upon to absorb enormous demands and they’re going to need help to do that,” Mr. Salamon says. “We need policies that recognize the role that they are going to play in the recovery.”

Regardless of where we agree or disagree, we all understand that there is a sense of urgency in the air. We will need to work together if we are going to implement any of the ideas featured in the Listening Post’s report. Let’s get to work!

To read the full report click here.
To read The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s article on the report click here.