Tag: community organizations

Philanthropies as Government Shadows

americas-shadow-government-1New Orleans       Whoa!  You just know it’s getting hard out there when you find yourself nodding your head in some agreement with a senior fellow of the hardcore conservative Manhattan Institute, which over the years has been in the first ranks of community organizing attackers and ACORN-baiters.  There it was though, a Wall Street Journal op-ed by  James Piereson called “Philanthropies as Creatures of Government,” and there my head was, bobbing uncontrollably in agreement.

Of course much of his argument was poppycock and the usual fear-the-government, semi-Big Brother, line, but then there was this paragraph:

But the reasons the philanthropic sector should be independent of government have nothing to do with government spending or taxes.  Philanthropy is an integral part of civic society and, as such, offers alternative ways to address public problems.  Private philanthropy, at its best, can insure that new and sometimes unpopular ideas are funded and are not crowded out by political pressures or the bureaucratic groupthink that evolves when organizations are turned into instruments of government.  It allows those who have accumulated wealth to apply their own insights to alleviating poverty, improving education or strengthening the arts.  That was the original purpose of the philanthropic sector: to support programs privately that government could not or should not support.

He then talks about how the demarcation lines are collapsing between the private and public sector, quoting Irving Kristol, one of the intellectual saints of the conservative pantheon.  Of course the full-on assault of business and their conservative vassals for privatization of governmental services pulled this wall down, but that doesn’t take away from a point of agreement that the left and right seem to share about philanthropy, that it is squandering its mission by being unwilling to take risks, innovate, and fund programs and projects that are controversial and that government would not support.  The point of philanthropy should not be simply to leverage government, but step up where government has to step down, to break new ground, when government bunkers in the hillside.

Recently talking to lawyers about the necessity of their giving community organizations options, rather than advice, particularly if they had not looked at all of the consequences of such advice, I used the example of the corporate and tax status of community organizations. I used the standard example that being a nonprofit did not require incorporation at all since unions and many others are unincorporated associations of groups.  Furthermore as a nonprofit the question of being tax exempt is heavily freighted and electing a tax status, especially if not necessary, might handcuff future directions and actions of the organization.  Too many lawyers as a kneejerk reaction advise applying for 501c3 or 501c4, tax exempt status, and it’s wrong for many, if not most organizations, and cripples their ability to move independently of government and the politics that drives policy.  One voice in the room, simply and quietly, said, there was little choice because “funders” were demanding such tax decisions.How tragic!

Philanthropy has to have a higher purpose than providing the rich with a tax deduction, just as nonprofit work has to have a higher purpose than bending and tailoring our mission to the demands of money, private or public.  We may have a place though that the right and left can find agreement that philanthropy cannot simply be a shadow shackled to government.  We will never agree on the “ends,” but we might have consensus on the “means,” when it comes to foundations and the fact that they need to maintain their independence.

The Poor Need Good Organization and Representation, Not Attorneys

Jackson   It was my kind of headline in the Times, “Right to Lawyer Can be Empty Promise to the Poor.”  I was ready to agree whether I read the article or not, they “had me from hello.”

Inarguably this is not a new problem.  In criminal matters even with the Gideon decision ostensibly giving indigents the right to counsel, such defendants face hard odds and long sentences even with over-matched and outgunned public defenders and courts where mercy stops at the door of the legislatively determined mandatory sentencing not the judge’s chambers.

This piece though was making the very valid case that the poor were being hammered on civil cases as well, and without a doubt, that’s true in spades:

“Civil matters — including legal issues like home foreclosure, job loss, spousal abuse and parental custody — were not covered by the decision. Today, many states and counties do not offer lawyers to the poor in major civil disputes, and in some criminal ones as well. Those states that do are finding that more people than ever are qualifying for such help, making it impossible to keep up with the need. The result is that even at a time when many law school graduates are without work, many Americans are without lawyers.   The Legal Services Corporation, the Congressionally financed organization that provides lawyers to the poor in civil matters, says there are more than 60 million Americans — 35 percent more than in 2005 — who qualify for its services. But it calculates that 80 percent of the legal needs of the poor go unmet. In state after state, according to a survey of trial judges, more people are now representing themselves in court and they are failing to present necessary evidence, committing procedural errors and poorly examining witnesses, all while new lawyers remain unemployed.”

What really caught by eye was the fact that people are representing themselves.  The article was making the case for lawyers every which way, but why not advocates or representatives that are not lawyers, but who know the rules of the road, like union stewards and grievance handlers with deep knowledge of programs and procedures, similar to the case I made in Citizen Wealth for “maximum eligible participation?” Why not men and women who are able to advocate as paralegals of sorts to make sure that poor citizens in a world unknown to them but one with huge, lasting consequences including incarceration?   And, why would community organizations not be spectacularly qualified to fill this void?

I can guarantee that there is not suddenly going to be new funding to meet the “80% of the legal needs of the poor” that are going unmet.  In civil matters like foreclosures, small claims, debt and credit issues, and similar economic matters, this would seem to be grist for the mill for community organizations.  There’s a vacuum begging to be filled!