A Mighty Wheeze From Little ACORN Grows!

ACORN - (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) is the nation's largest community organization of low-and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities. In other words they serve the poor through their advocacy and have been at it since 1970. Fuhgeddaboutit.

Some acorns fall further away from the tree than others. At ACORN as the NY Times recapped this morning "... some workers were videotaped offering advice to conservative activists who were posing as people interested in establishing a prostitution business," and allegedly those workers told them how to do it and how to evade taxes.

"Conservative activists" have long abhorred ACORN. They tried to make it an issue in the Obama campaign (nudge-nudge, Obama was a community organizer). Health care legislation, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nuk-el-er proliferation in Iran, financial legerdemain, pervasive conflicts of interest, ethical lapses, seedy sex and other hypocritical conduct is not keeping the Republicans (and alas some Democrats) - in both houses of Congress - busy enough. Industrious as they are ACORN is the dog days diversion. The House has voted to prohibit any federal funding of ACORN programs; the Senate is not far behind. This appears a largely symbolic act given that most of its revenues come from members' donations and other non-governmental sources.

The real issue here is not ACORN but the "war on poverty;" not that war, not Lyndon Johnson's famous coinage but the right's war on the poor. For as long as I can remember the image of the peasants storming the castles and seizing all that is ours has inflamed the imagination of the perfervid right. Ronald Reagan of blessed memory brought us the "Welfare Queen" tooling around in her Caddie as he and his cohort systematically disemboweled the Legal Services Corporation (largely succeeding in truncating its ability to defend poor people in civil litigation). The current hullabaloo over immigration is a first cousin to the war on the poor - viz Lou Dobbs a privileged big-mouth whose rantings goose ratings.

As a long time board member of PICO National Network (www.piconetwork.org) a similar but smaller organization doing like work in 50 communities nationwide I have learned that despite their huge numbers (currently 13.2% of the nation's population according to the guv-mint) individual by individual the poor are invisible. But when they act collectively (a word inciting hydrophobia among the likes of Fox News, much of CNN, Hannity, Beck, Dobbs Savage et. al.) on matters like housing, safety, immigration, education, health care and anything else you can think of in which the haves crap on the have-nots they get results. In PICO's "actions," (similar to ACORN'S methods - except we take no government money) carefully organized presentations to legislators locally, statewide and nationally as well, produce results - especially at local levels.

The right wing hullabaloo and stacked "town meetings" railing against Obama's health care initiatives "you lie" (boy) - The Times Maureen Dowd really nailed it! - has at its institutional core racism, pure and simple.The organized war against health care reform and the war on the poor is the same war. Its battlefields are America's inner cities and essentially the people of color who live in them. Though there are millions of people of color in the rural US - African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans - there are actually more poor whites. The whites out in the sticks and the hundreds of thousands of Native American poor on reservations - not benefiting from casinos and cigarettes - are even more invisible than the urban poor.

Congress's latest blather and diversion from the nation's business is not about ACORN. Think of cave dwellers blinded by the light.

Back to School

With the last quarter of the year on the near horizon it seems America's nonprofits are and have been struggling with endowments sliced nearly in half, deep cuts in government funds and giving in general off anywhere from 10-30%. Admittedly these data are impressionistic, reliant on trade gossip, press reports, direct experience and a tremulous gut. Some groups I know will come out technically ahead this year because they budgeted conservatively in January - reducing projections substantially from previous highs. Others with cock-eyed fiscal years, poor forecasting or both are showing significant losses in two calendar years running.

Though I can't prove it I truly believe it will get at least a bit worse before it gets better. In past recessions what I saw was philanthropy as a lagging indicator - meaning it plopped after the rest of the economy and a leading indicator in the recovery - coming out of the swoon sooner. If I'm right for 2010 charities will have to be even more diligent in setting expectations and in assuring fiscal prudence. If I'm wrong they will not be hurt by being careful.

A few thoughts:

• During the troubles we have heard people urge like nonprofits to merge to save money. Horse pucky. Nonprofits have trouble merging in the best of times when both parties bring strong balance sheets and profit and loss statements to the table. In these times one party is likely to be much weaker than the other and the acquiring organization may be taking on trouble. Ergo: if you're hurting look at a possible merger. But more realistically get your boards to concentrate on rebuilding the balance sheet and improving the P. and L. from the inside out. The frog won't turn into a prince. Better to plan for the princess turning into a frog.
  

• When you buy a new car you get a better deal by bargaining up from the dealer's true cost rather than haggling down from his posted list price. That's how I think you should be looking at your organization. Assume the government money is not coming back any time soon. Individual and family foundation donors - contrary to Madoff and other exaggerations - have been less hurt by the recession than foundations and corporations. But many have been hurt. Plan for a modest comeback for individual giving in 2010.

• Grant-making foundations are asset driven. The so-called market recovery has not yet come close to attaining previous highs. That means foundation assets haven't either. Multi-year grants are unlikely and if you're not already on their books the odds lengthen.

• With corporations it will continue to be pick and play. Big banks, investment houses, oil and many entertainment companies are doing well. Retail and big box are mixed; communications, food, real estate are mostly sucking wind.

• Until employment rebounds the economy will not fully recover. No one I read is forecasting a quick recovery.

In a word caution for 2010. Stick to the basics. Don't forget your galoshes.

Women as Confident Askers

A just-published study by Scott Taylor, an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico, shows that women tend to underrate themselves substantially (11%), while men tend to overrate themselves slightly when asked how they think their bosses would rate them. Furthermore, the older the woman, the more she may underrate herself. I wonder if the findings might carry over to the level of confidence that women feel going into a solicitation. Is a woman a bit more likely to underestimate the effectiveness of her presentation in a face-to-face encounter? or less likely to speak up at a board meeting on behalf of her point of view? It's worth a little introspection.

I recall a formative moment early in my development career, perhaps a rash moment, in which I attemped to emulate the way I thought a man might handle a situation. I was visiting the head of PG&E in San Francisco with my boss Frank Oppenheimer, the Director of the Exploratorium. Our goal was a program grant for $5,000 - a good sum from PG&E in those days. The CEO and Frank made pleasantries. The CEO was an admirer. Frank referenced a new book the museum had just published entitled "Looking at the Light," a copy of which was in my hands. The CEO said he'd like to see it. Something came over me, and I tossed it on the table toward him saying lightly, "Sure, but it'll cost you $5,000." The CEO laughed, thumbed through the book, and gave us $5,000.

That moment set me up for the rest of my career. And yet, it did not instantly create a new, confident core. I was a girl from the beforetime, afterall. While I could act with confidence, I was ginning it up. Well, that's good, and practice matters, but what this new study reveals is that there is still more to gain. AP reporter Heather Clark writes, "The exercise was a confidence booster, Walker said. Now, she takes five minutes during weekly meetings with her supervisor to discuss what she's done on the job, something she thinks men do more easily than women."

Stepping out with more confidence that others may regard us even better than we regard ourselves may even lead to better health. Who knows?

Read more at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/11/BUUQ196K47.DTL

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Affirmative Action

A major donor to his alma mater showed up for a football game and as he entered the arena asked the usher where the 50 yard line was. The reply was "sir wherever you wish."

It seems the board and top leadership of the University of Illinois are all for affirmative action. They kept a private list of "connected" individuals to whose children, other relatives or friends admissions preference would be given. I am not rushing to judgment here because I really don't have anything except what I read. But this business of preference comes up all the time in every type of charity. Human character being what it is there is no doubt that the wink-and-a-nod approach to admissions, orchestra seats, elite health care, or for that matter the "right" restaurant table is a clear and present danger.

Development officers rattle on about how building "relationships" with donors is the essence of their work. The donors would more likely call it "connections." Indeed there is absolutely nothing egalitarian about philanthropy and moreover people slip off the ethical cliff all the time. There are major tertiary health care centers with special telephone numbers for key donors; there are theater companies with green rooms for "patrons;" CEOs swig tea with LOLs (no, not laugh-out-loud); "call-me-anytime" privileges attach to those whose importance is digitally enhanced.

A former Oram colleague became development officer at a symphony orchestra in a deep south city whose season opened in early September when even at 7p the temperature was still in triple digits. The women liked to wear their furs on opening night. Forget tote bags, coffee mugs and all the other tchotske "premiums" of the fund raising trade. His best gift to major donors was letting them park their Bentleys in immediate proximity to the front steps of the auditorium. Or as Marilyn Shapiro former major gifts at the Metropolitan Opera put it to me one time: "the ones who give the most get the most!"

I'm for affirmative action. Aren't you?

Home Delivery

"Authorities in Cambridge, Mass., announced today that prosecutors there would not pursue disorderly- conduct charges brought against the prominent black-studies scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. last week after he exchanged words with police officers investigating a falsely reported burglary at his home."

-- Chronicle of Higher Education, 17 July

The New York Times plain out missed this story initially burying it back in the main news section. Eight days later it is page one of the Times and on all the talk shows. The story is still developing. But there is little chance that when a white police officer a sergeant no less sees two black men (Harvard Professor Gates and his cab driver) trying to unjam the stuck front door of Gates' house in an ivied Cambridge neighborhood there wasn't a quick judgment based on ingrained institutionalized racism.

The sergeant's immediate presumption - when another Harvard employed (and presumably white) neighbor called 911 - was two black men breaking into a house in a white neighborhood. Reverse the negative: two white men are "breaking" into a house in a black neighborhood. A 911 call is made and a black police sergeant arrives on the scene. How would s/he respond? Professor Gates and the cab driver who was helping Gates open his front door are lucky they weren't shot dead.

So how much difference is there - really - between attitudes toward race between the Cambridge cop and the august Times? Or between the cop's actions and how the rest of us whites think? Race based thinking is ingrained pervasive and unwitting much of the time. But there it is.

JUDGE ON BOARD

In her Senate testimony last week "a wise Latina judge" was grilled about her role as a board member of Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund (PRLDF). The senators were trying to tie Judge Sotomayor to various PRLDF legal actions and advocacy of which they disapproved.

The judge responded with a brief disquisition on the role of board members at PRLDF and other similar public interest organizations like Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF) and NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF). She said that if the senators reviewed the record of board meetings they'd find that most of the meetings were devoted to fund raising and that board members were expected to raise money not to decide the legal docket.

Having at various times over the decades worked for each of the three I can aver that her statement is true. And universally true. The trustees of nonprofits are legally responsible for conserving the assets of the groups they serve and among other things that devolves to assuring the organization budget is met. If to do so fund raising is required - as it is in most - that is indeed the board's role.

The Republican senators had no discernible interest in that. But I think it is useful to remind trustees of their basic responsibilities. I spend a lot of my time doing it - both as a consultant and as a board member of three nonprofits.

For the most part the board members I know take their responsibilities seriously as counselors and overseers holding their managements accountable. But like walking upright raising money doesn't come naturally. Most trustees are willing enough to give (if asked) but few are willing to ask and duck that part if they can consciously or not.

None of this has anything to do with Judge Sotomayor's qualifications for a Supreme Court seat of course. But this snippet of testimony was an otherwise light moment (for me) in a lethally tedious passion play.

Take the Millions and Run

Recent valuations of nonprofit and foundation endowment funds have come out and it is not a pretty sight. "The five largest single-university endowments - Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - expect to finish the year with 25- to 30-percent losses," reported the Wall Street Journal. Also unlovely is the lack of focus on the much-vaunted money managers whose compensation for the last few years was tied to driving the bubble. Let’s watch for their signature gifts back to the funds they managed, shall we? No one else is.

And everything was going so well! Our poster child was Harvard University. "The Harvard endowment soared from $4.8 billion in 1990 to $36.9 billion as of June 30, 2008, and in the last half-decade or so, the men and women who run Harvard seemed to have convinced themselves that the university's fund would grow at double-digit rates for, well, eternity," writes Vanity Fair.

Just two short years ago, Bloomberg.com was singing paeans to Harvard University's endowment fund CEO Mohamed El-Erian. He had rescued HMC (Harvard Management Corporation) from the gaping hole left in 2005 by the departure of Jack Meyer and nearly three dozen staff, and ballooned the fund to $34.9 billion when he suddenly resigned and returned to PIMCO. "El-Erian's return last year (23 percent) beat Harvard's five-year average of 18.4 percent and the 12.3 percent average over the same period for endowments and foundations with more than $1 billion in assets, according to Wilshire Associates," effused Bloomberg.com. "We will miss his leadership," lamented James F. Rothenberg, treasurer of Harvard University and chairman of the fund's board; "In 18 short months, HMC has completed the transition and rebuilding phase and established conditions for sustaining superior returns over time."

Cut to June 23, 2009 in Bloomberg: "Harvard University, the richest and oldest U.S. institution of higher education, will cut about 275 staff positions in response to its endowment's sinking value… Harvard President Drew Faust has tightened spending controls, frozen salaries and offered employees early retirement as the school estimates its endowment will fall 30 percent for the fiscal year that ends this month."

Previously, President, Drew Gilpin Faust, had issued an open letter on Feb. 18 declaring that the school was "facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."

Vanity Fair's Nina Munk asked a hedge fund manager "who counts Harvard among his investors…to look at Harvard's finances now and assess the extent to which its endowment will be able to keep pace with its immovable costs. The hedge fund manager's conclusion: "They are completely fucked."

My financial advisor, Martin Weil (a former arts executive director), who had tried several times to explain to me over the last few years why university endowment funds were earning vastly more than our puny savings could generate, writes: "I find the story of El-Erian, who left PIMCO in 2006 to take over the reins of HMC, abruptly returning to PIMCO without any comment whatsoever in 2007, to be one of the most under-discussed stories in all of this."

While at Harvard, El-Erian and his number two person made $6.5 million and $6 million very quickly. Then El-Erian was suddenly gone. Is no one protesting? Are millions per year not related to billions lost?

Why is it so hard to hang on to ancient lessons? Hand over your money to someone to "invest" and give them the incentive of a dizzyingly high reward to the extent that they out-do the market, and they'll probably gamble with it (or worse, as we've seen). As we all know, the only consistent winner in a gambling establishment is the House.

-MB