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Category Archives: International

Measuring Economic Achievement

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By Marie LeBlanc, Community Partnerships Coordinator

Within the nonprofit community, there’s a movement towards data-driven, quantitative measurement and analysis of impact. These conversations lead to the bigger question of how “impact” and nonprofit “success” are measured, particularly for those providing services that might not lend themselves to a numerical calculation. This week, that conversation reached a broader level, in terms of the way that we measure our economic success on a national scale. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke remarked that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — a fairly straight-forward measure of income and expenses — might not be the best and only way to measure economic well-being, suggesting that there are “better and more direct measures” to gauge how economic policies impact individuals.

Several alternative measures to GDP-based economic analysis have been offered in the past, such as the Genuine Progress Indicator, and more recently, the OECD and the Gross National Happiness index, pioneered by Bhutan. As Nonprofit Quarterly mentions, “the suggestion that there might be a better way to measure a nation’s wellbeing is nothing new to many in the nonprofit sector whose work and worth is often not measured in dollars and cents.”

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What the Coffee Means

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By Matt Bright, Earth Sangha’s Tree Bank Coordinator

Earth Sangha Tree Bank / Hispaniola is a partnership with a group of small-holder farmers who live along a section of the Dominican Republic-Haiti border. Our goal is to create a system in which tropical small-holder farming is more compatible with native forest. Such a system, we hope, could one day benefit small-holders in the many parts of the rural tropics. This guest post is an excerpt from First Hand, a series of essays and videos intended to show you what it’s like to do small-scale “green development” in a rural, developing-country context.

Our Rising Forests Coffee is, to our friends in the DC area, the most visible and tangible achievement from our work in the Dominican Republic. Drinking our coffee is not just a delicious way to start your morning (now available in dark roast: order here!); it’s also an important way to support our conservation efforts. Our coffee supports our Tree Bank, provides much-needed income to our farmers, and encourages conservation.

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An Olympic Effort

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In this past Friday’s Washington Post, A Wider Circle founder Mark Bergel writes:

Like competitions of the past, the London Olympics are not only the result of hard work on the part of the athletes but also of remarkable community support and financial investments. I can only imagine that if the District, instead of London, had been selected 10 years ago as the site of the 2012 Games, our city would have made a similar commitment […]

So here’s my question: If we were prepared as a community to mobilize the region’s resources and fund the premier athletic event in the world, why can’t we make the same commitment to house our homeless neighbors, feed hungry families and clothe young and old in our community?

He points out that, for example, London constructed 40,000 apartments and will serve 14 million meals over 60 days this summer. Certainly, similar resources could provide for “thousands and thousands of children and adults” in need across the region year-round (London’s population is twelve times that of DC).

What do you think? What would be necessary to catalyze an effort of this size, scope, and importance?

Learn more about A Wider Circle here.

Turning The Tide

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Yesterday, the 2012 International AIDS Conference (“Turning the Tide Together”) began here in DC. According to the International AIDS Society, the Conference is:

… the premier gathering for those working in the field of HIV, as well as policy makers, persons living with HIV and other individuals committed to ending the pandemic. It is a chance to assess where we are, evaluate recent scientific developments and lessons learnt, and collectively chart a course forward. […]

By acting decisively on recent scientific advances in HIV treatment and biomedical prevention, the momentum for a cure, and the continuing evidence of the ability to scale-up key interventions in the most-needed settings, we now have the potential to end the HIV epidemic.

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Around Town: June 8-11

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Have a great weekend (and start of next week), Greater Washington! Here are a few destination options:

Artland Temporium at Dance Place, 3500 12th Street NE

A 12-week public art celebration offering free cultural events and promoting creative expression, Artland events include exhibits, dance, concerts, poetry readings, and games and free to the public. Check out the full schedule for this weekend right here.

DADA Returns; Chinese Menu Improv at DCAC, 2438 18th Street NW

Two plays for the price of one! “Handkerchief of Clouds” by Tristan Tzara and “Manifestival” by the Dadaists come to DCAC on Friday & Saturday at 7:30 PM, followed on Saturday by Chinese Menu Comedy at 10 PM. Check out the full schedule this way!

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5 Year Plan

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by Adam Tibe (Philippines, Class 8 serving at Operation Smile)
Reposted with permission of Atlas Service Corps, Washington DC

At 27 and ambitious, I have sketched my life’s plan in the next 5 years.

I guess soon after you hit the quarter life, that’s when you start seriously to rethink about your life and make a mental note reflecting circumspectly about your direction both personally and professionally.

I have arrived in the United States last January to join an 18-month professional fellowship program. This has been part of my “5-year plan” and being able to tick it out in my list excites me more than anybody. It was also a sweet bonus to learn that I will be serving with Operation Smile International as one of their Program Coordinators. The organization works in more than 60 countries and brings free medical surgeries to children with facial deformities especially those with cleft lips and cleft palates. Another box is set to be marked off — trip around the world! I went on my first mission last month in San Cristobal, Mexico and had a real awesome time with some of the most amazing in-country and international volunteers. It was incredible to see an unmatched level of professional skills coupled with passion and dedication to serve the children in that part of the world that otherwise may not have had the opportunity to have a normal smile and life if not for Operation Smile. Without a doubt, I more convinced that I made the right decision to volunteer. The happiness I felt to be there was simply irreplaceable.

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In The News …

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Gap between best and worst DC schools growing (Washington Examiner): “The gap between the District’s best- and worst-performing schools has been growing amid the most intense school reform in the city’s history […] The American Institutes for Research found that, if two students have the same test scores in 2010, but one attends a wealthy, high-performing school and the other attends the opposite, the student at the wealthy school likely would have outpaced the latter student substantially in 2011, even though they were on equal footing the year before.” For example, on average, students in Ward 3 schools demonstrated a 70.8% two-year growth percentile, while students in Ward 8 received a 46% growth score.

State Of The World’s Mothers Report 2012 (Huffington Post): This year, Save the Children ranked Norway, Iceland, and Sweden as the best places to be a mother. “In addition to its annual ranking, the 2012 report focuses specifically on the issue of children’s nutrition. One in four of the world’s children are chronically malnourished or stunted […] malnutrition kills as many as 2.6 million children and 100,000 mothers every year. Millions of others are left struggling with the physical and mental impairments of stunting.” Over half of the world’s children do not have access to vitamin A, zinc, and water and sanitation — universal access to these perhaps could save as many as 680,000 lives.

Battered and Bruised Minds Lead to Homelessness (TIME: Battleland): “The Department of Veterans Affairs first-ever large-scale study of homeless vets shows that the vast majority of homeless vets have mental disorders […] Dealing with veterans’ mental health may be just as important in preventing homelessness among vets as dealing with their lack of housing;” the study shows that “78?83 percent of the newly homeless diagnosed with mental disorders at the end of the study, were diagnosed before they became homeless.” Additionally, the “Homeless Incidence and Risk Factors for Becoming Homeless in Veterans” report also followed 300,000 veterans who left active duty between July 2005 and September 2006 until October 2010; while none of these particular veterans had been homeless before, more than 4% became homeless at some point during that period.

Come Forward

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In a Politico op-ed, “Violence against women is no ‘women’s issue’,” Women Thrive Worldwide co-founder & President Ritu Sharma writes:

This lesson has been learned by longtime activists, who have been battling this scourge that affects one in three women globally. Gender-based violence can take many forms: rape and assault used as weapons of war, domestic violence, acid burnings and female infanticide. The list is long.

But ending this violence has one common element: The men who are political leaders — village elders, pastors and mullahs, fathers, brothers, husbands and boyfriends — need to come forward and say stop. […]

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Taking A Lead

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From “In Favour of Philanthropy” by Tony Blair in today’s Huffington Post:

In the USA, the philanthropic sector is most advanced. At roughly $290 billion per year it is several times the size of the US Aid budget. 11 new foundations and over 100 non-profits are created every day. Even in the UK the amount given is bigger than many departmental budgets; and in Asia and the Middle East there is a huge growth in the sector which though still way behind the US, now runs into billions of dollars every year.

The work these philanthropic institutions do is crucial precisely because of the limits of government. They can’t and shouldn’t substitute for things only government can do. But that still leaves a pretty big range of activity and though only government or legislatures can pass laws, one huge lesson we’re learning from governments around the world is that the private and philanthropic sectors or partnerships between them and government, are often more efficient ways to get government programmes done.

This is because the best philanthropy is not just about giving money but giving leadership. The best philanthropists are those who bring the talents that made them successful into their charitable work. Those talents — determination, drive, refusal to accept the conventional ways of doing things — are just what some of the world’s problems need.

An interesting (and far-reaching) question for today: where does the public sector end and the private one begin, and vice versa? Nonprofits, both global and local, can be so vital to our communities because they can act in fast and direct response to what is happening that hour, that day. Government often does not have that capacity. But in an ideal world, would it? Would you like to see a closer relationship between the sectors or a more distinct one? And what are they ways that that relationship could deepen and improve?

In The News …

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Not Enough Qualified Workers in DC? (Washington Post via DCentric): “Unemployment in some DC neighborhoods is as high as 25 percent. At the same time, cranes fill the skies in pockets of the city, signaling economic activity. So why not encourage hiring unemployed DC residents for those projects? That was the intent behind tightening the District’s hiring rules for projects receiving city money. But now builders and contractors say that the new hiring standards are impossible to meet because the city simply lacks qualified workers.” To learn about a Catalogue nonprofit focused on construction training, head to DC Students Construction Trades Foundation.

3 new private conservation reserves established by communities in Peru (Mongabay: environmental news): “Three new private conservation areas in the Amazon-Andes region of Peru will help buffer the country’s national park system while offering new opportunities for local people to benefit from protecting ecosystems. The new private conservation areas cover 18,882 hectares (46,659 acres) of habitat ranging from high elevation grasslands to cloud forests to rain forests […] The new reserves are also significant in that they are part of a broader initiative by the Amazon Conservation Association, an NGO with offices in Washington DC and Peru, to support sustainable livelihoods in a region that is traditionally very poor.” A Catalogue nonprofit, ACA preserves miles of wilderness through sustainable use of resources, research, and education.

Housing costs trouble many Arlingtonians (Washington Post: Local): “The biggest problem facing Arlingtonians, by many measures, is the cost of housing. If you don’t have it, and you’re not financially well-off, you can be in for a long, painful search. “Affordable” housing options usually are targeted at those who make 60 to 80 percent of the median income,” which is $110,000 in the county. “Further down the income ladder are those who are already homeless. A-SPAN, the Arlington Street People’s Assistance Network, recently received a $93,000 grant from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to provide housing and case management for six chronically homeless adults in Arlington.” Also a Catalogue nonprofit, A-SPAN also operates Opportunity Place, where homeless individuals can take a shower, wash clothes, secure a health-care referral, and obtain an address.