Archives for January 2017

Non-Profit Advocacy: Impacting Public Policy – Inside Scoop

(Jan. 23, 2017) Catherine read speaks with three Northern Virginia non-profit leaders about the importance of advocacy work to the mission of non-profits focused on human services. In the first segment she is joined by Mary Agee, the former President & CEO of Northern Virginia Family Service (NVFS) which grew substantially in the 40 years she was there. Mary discusses the importance of advocacy and speaks to a widely held misconception that 501(c)3 organizations are prohibited from this activity because it is “lobbying.” Advocacy at its core is an educational activity designed to inform policy makers from town councils to Capitol Hill. Without the work of non-profits who are on the front lines, there is often little awareness of complex issues that require regulation or resources from the government.

In the second segment, Lisa Whetzel, Executive Director of Britepaths (formerly Our Daily Bread, Inc. – Fairfax) talks about advocacy as one of six identified pillars of change in the book Forces for Good. Britepaths only recently adopted an “advocacy policy” and the journey of their board of directors to address advocacy after 30 years of direct service delivery is instructive. Lisa explains that in the face of disappearing housing where our clients live in Fairfax City, she felt that Britepaths must take a stand in advocating for affordable housing. In focusing on which issues are support the core mission of the organization, Britepaths is able to join forces with other groups such as VOICE and the Virginia Housing Alliance to make a real impact on policy makers from Fairfax City to Richmond Virginia.

In the third segment, Kerrie Wilson, CEO of Cornerstones (formerly Reston Interfaith) talks about coming from a position where she worked in government relations for a national organization to taking the helm of a regionally based non-profit in 2001. Kerri talks about the efforts to build coalitions around issues like affordable housing which impact low income working families here in Northern Virginia and how their organization has evolved over their four decades of serving the Reston area.

The final segment with Mary Agee addresses the importance of cultivating relationships over the long term with elected leaders. She also discusses the importance of having human services organizations include advocacy as a major pillar of their efforts and how boards need to take a leadership role in shaping an advocacy policy. There is also discussion about how to find people in our communities who have the skills, the time and the motivation to help solve some of the many problems people in our community face. How does need connect with resources and what can we do to be more efficient in finding volunteers, supporters and advocates?

This show aired as the 2017 Legislative Session in the Commonwealth of Virginia was just underway. For 45 days, Richmond, Virginia, is the destination for people from around the state doing advocacy work around specific issues related to human services. This process is repeated every year where thousands of proposed bills are introduced and the majority of them don’t ever make it to the Governor’s desk. Going forward, it is imperative for non-profits to focus energy and resources on moving the needle forward on policies that improve the quality of life for Virginians in every community.

by Catherine Read

#WomensMarch in Washington, DC

(Jan. 21, 2017) The Women’s March on Washington, DC, was remarkable on so many levels. To begin with, it started with an idea. No one owned the idea. It wasn’t trademarked, funded by a corporation or association, or even managed. It was an idea that traveled from Hawaii, on the ripple of a butterfly wing, to encircle the globe.

There was no fee to attend, no registration, no security, no bag checks or tickets. There was no speciality pricing on hotel rooms. People just showed up – by charter bus, on the metro, by foot and car. They stayed with friends, or friends of friends, or welcoming strangers. They were young and old, able-bodied and in wheelchairs, young families and older couples, a rainbow of ethnicities, languages and beliefs.

The signs were made of brown cardboard from packing boxes and poster board or whatever was at hand. Painted, colored with markers, taped onto sticks. They were clever, creative, blunt, profane, colorful, accusatory, uplifting . . . They were homemade. Home made. These thoughts, feelings and ideas belonged to the people who made them, brought them, carried them through the streets. The materials used to create these messages spoke so loudly to the grassroots energy of those who showed up: our family, friends, neighbors, co-workers.

The images on social media leading up to Saturday’s march showed planes and trains and buses full of women. In pink pussy hats, and t-shirts with their messages, and smiles on their faces. There was a sense of hope, optimism and energy that radiated from their faces. There was a sense of community that said we are stronger together.

There were so many men who came, and marched and chanted – including my own husband. They were not there as the leaders of this movement, but as supporters, and followers and believers in a world where equality means equality for everyone.

The crowds exceeded expectations and spilled out all over the city. As the crowds spilled out of their boundaries in cities and small towns all over the world . . . on every single continent.

And nothing bad happened. No incidents, no injuries, no arrests. Despite the millions of people out in the street all over the world. There was no need for armed men in riot gear, the national guard or the army reserve.

There is a lesson in all of this. One that it will take some time to process. It will be written about in the decades ahead as something extraordinary that speaks to our common humanity in the fight for equality across the globe. It is a universal message about the rights of women to be seen as human beings with all the rights and privileges thereto.

This is the story of resistance to a national narrative that wants to exclude us. And the story of people getting woke. Finally. To understanding that we must look out for everyone’s rights. This means being engaged, informed and willing to work at the democratic process.

Women have worked for centuries to get where we are. It’s not far enough. Not for our daughters, our granddaughters or the generations to come.

by Catherine Read

The UnBanking of America – Lisa Servon

More than sixty million Americans have no FICO score at all because credit bureaus use data they cannot provide. And if you don’t have a credit score, it can be very hard to get a loan, rent an apartment, or convince an employer to hire you.

Driving home on Tuesday, I heard an interview on NPR with Lisa Servon, a professor of city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania. She was talking about her book and I was so impressed and intrigued that I stopped at Barnes & Noble to inquire if they had it. Ten copies had arrived that day and had not made it out to the Sociology section yet. One was brought to me from the storeroom.

If you only read one book this year, it should be this one. Most of us truly have no idea of how banking has changed since many of us opened our first bank accounts. Servon talks about how the industry as changed since she opened a pass book savings account in her hometown as a child in 1971:

“Banks like Pulaski still exist but have dwindled in number: very small banks (those with less than $100 million in assets) decreased by 85 percent between 1985 and 2013, while the number of very large banks (those with more than $10 billion in assets) nearly tripled. Local banking is now the exception rather than the norm . . .”

Servon had been doing research on consumer financial services when John Coleman, President of RiteCheck, was brought to one of her classes by Joy Cousminer, founder of Bethex Federal Credit Union. What she believed she knew about check cashing services and payday lenders was turned on its head by Coleman’s description of the community he served in the South Bronx and Harlem and why those services are needed. RiteCheck was founded in 1949 by his father-in-law Howard Stein, who at 92, still comes into work three days a week.

As Sevron describes it in her acknowledgements, “This book began with a question that turned into a quest. And, like all good quests, this one involved a journey, a series of vexing obstacles, a few riddles, and a terrific group of trusty sidekicks and wise elders.”

Understanding that quantitative data wasn’t telling the whole story of how the “unbanked” and “underbanked” used these “alternative financial resources,” she asked John Coleman if she could work as a teller for several months at RiteCheck to gather more qualitative data. Her research working at a branch location in the largely Latino community of Mott Haven relied on her co-workers’ deep understanding of the community and their long term relationships with their customers. Read More

by Catherine Read

Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear… and Why

Trainwreck - Sady Doyle (Jan. 2017) Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear… and Why is a fascinating book. It gives context – historical context – to well known “trainwrecks” from Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Bronte & Sylvia Plath, to Billie Holliday and Marilyn Monroe, right up to Amy Winehouse, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.

Here’s the thing: What they have in common is they are remarkable, talented and accomplished women. We look at them and want to believe they must somehow be “flawed.” It makes me think of how people believe that poverty is also a “character flaw” and not situational or circumstantial. We should just be able to fix what’s wrong with us and then we would know success and acceptance!

Sady Doyle has done a great job in her historical research. I was fascinated to learn about some of these women whose life stories I was unfamiliar with. She also draws a common thread from the 17th century to the 21st century to show the similarity in how women are viewed – by the media, in the context of the social norms of the day and always through the lens of impossible standards.

One of the most interesting chapters is about Hillary Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. This book is not an academic endeavor. I believe her research is credible and adds so much to the subject she’s trying to illuminate. But at the end of the day, it’s meant to be a contemporary work about where we are right now and the women and stories that are making headlines. This book is meant to shift our paradigm – to show us the commonplace hostility toward women through a different plane of the prism. Doyle does a good job with that.

I highly recommend the book. In fact, I recommended it to my oldest daughter and she loved it! It is time well invested. We need to consider more thoughtfully the signals we are sending to every generation of girls who become women.