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When College Ends, So Does Activism

I used to be very discouraged by how many of my college peers dropped their activist commitments when they left school, so much so that for a time I worked on a book that was to be depressingly titled Selling Out. In When College Ends, So Does Activism, Adam Donster looks at how that's a rational choice for most people. It's our economic and social structures, to be sure, but it's also a result of civil society's terrible underinvestment in cultivation of new leaders. (Elsewhere I have described how the right has something akin to cradle to grave job security for committed activists.) Fortunately, it's not too late to start taking this challenge seriously, but in the mean time, we are pouring people's passion down the drain. Posted: 7/16/07; 8:47:59 PM #

Why Don't Affluent Baby Boomers Give More Money Away?

Anne Ellinger and Christopher Ellinger are the founders of something called The Bolder Giving Initiative, where they're answering this question: Why Don't Affluent Baby Boomers Give More Money Away? By combining peer stories and individual support, they are trying to bring my generation up to the standards of giving of the generations before us. Although they try to say otherwise, by focusing on those who give away more than 50% of their assets or incomes, they fall into a rhetorical trap that assigns the virtue of generosity to the rich. Nevertheless, I'm excited about both their mission and their model. Posted: 7/16/07; 8:38:21 PM #

Do Nonprofits Dream of Electric Sheep?

I'm really not fond of the conventional notion that nonprofit organizations should act more like for-profit ones. Evidently, Gavin Clabaugh isn't either. Although I'm not sure he has his parallel structures within his title, in Do Nonprofits Dream of Electric Sheep?, he dissects that convention with his characteristic wit. He explores the sectors from a systems perspective, looking at the dynamics of incentives and economics and in his closing paragraph he says: "The for-profit world would be better off if it thought more like the non-profit; eschewing short-term gain in favor of long-term sustainability. Once you think beyond the next quarter, to the next quarter century, clearly the common good is also good for the bottom line." Posted: 7/16/07; 8:28:49 PM #