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by Putnam Barber, President, The Evergreen State Society

(This is one of a series of brief observations about the work of nonprofits.  They will be sent occasionally to members, supporters and friends of The Evergreen State Society.)

A group of people in San Francisco, headed by Tod Hill, are engaged in an effort to establish the day after Thanksgiving as "Giving Day." Their slogan is simple: "Give thanks. Then Give."

(See their website http://www.givingday.org.)

The day after Thanksgiving is, of course, best known as one of the biggest shopping days on the calendar. Frankly, the idea of setting aside a little time to make a well chosen charitable contribution on that day appeals to me. I plan to do it myself this year.

I'm also intrigued by the idea of trying to create a new tradition using the World-Wide Web. As far as I can tell from rummaging around on the website, this is really a "virtual" enterprise. They are not trying to "do" the idea of Giving Day themselves; the website offers only resources, referrals and encouragement. They don't solicit donations for themselves, or offer to pass them on to other organizations through their website. They steer visitors to Helping.org (http://www.helping.org), where people can make a credit-card donation to any organization in the Guidestar data base. And they offer a limited amount of other information about charity and the nonprofit sector more generally; some of the website is still a work in progress.

Helping.org is, as you probably know, a project of the AOL/Time-Warner Foundation. It links to the Guidestar database of registered 501(c)(3)s (http://www.guidestar.org) and allows visitors to follow a relatively simple process to make a donation using a credit card to any listed organization (except the few that have requested that such donations be blocked -- go figure?). Because the service is supported by AOL/Time-Warner, there are no charges to either the donor or the recipient organization.

This last week, AOL/Time-Warner, in cooperation with a strong list of other sponsors, announced the launch of the Network for Good (http://www.networkforgood.org) which incorporates the features of Helping.org and adds other kinds of support for nonprofit work -- volunteer sign-up and advocacy tools for example. To my thinking, the idea of a central portal connecting the entire public to the whole universe of nonprofits seems odd. I have an easier time visualizing much more direct forms of relatedness. Of course, it will be a good thing if the Network for Good can encourage new people to connect with community-benefit organizations, and more people to connect in new and strengthened ways. I'll be interested to hear how you see it.

As I write on Thanksgiving eve, I like many other Americans find myself newly aware of the limits of my understanding of Islam. The contrast between the ample meal I'll share with family and friends tomorrow and the obligations of Ramadan led me to think about those limits in a new way. Then I found the column "Desperate for Ramadan" by Laila Al-Marayati (spokeswoman for the Muslim Women’s League based in Los Angeles). The beliefs and traditions described are unfamiliar to me, of course, but the energies and hopes resonate with many of the things I'm thinking about these days. You can read the column on BeliefNet at:

http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?pageLoc=/story/93/story_9347_1.html&boardID=28585

My sister (a pre-school teacher in Cambridge, MA, whose program is part of city government) responded to the correspondence about co-op preschools with this thoughtful paragraph:

"Thank you for your clear answer to the cranky person who did not want to contribute to the preschool teacher's bonus! I would have liked to ask about the comparison between the salaries that parents and the teacher enjoy, and a bunch of other questions, but you were more restrained, which is good in the context. And when it comes to fundraisers, I am very glad to be able to go forward with my program these days without the struggle to raise a pitiful amount from the same people who are having a hard time paying their bills month by month. Some how we must fund the care of young children differently. Meanwhile, keep up the good work!" -- Lucy Stroock

After I wrote about preparing an organizational plan for responding to disasters, Carolyn Cunningham of United Way of King County steered me to "Vital Signs: Anticipating, Preventing and Surviving a Crisis in a Nonprofit" published by the Nonprofit Risk Management Center. See http://www.nonprofitrisk.org/pubs/vital.htm and (for excerpts) http://www.nonprofitrisk.org/nwsltr/current/nl901_1.htm. The book costs $20 and can be ordered online.

Putnam Barber, President
The Evergreen State Society
PO Box 20682
Seattle, WA 98102-0682
206 329-5640 :: pbarber@tess.org

©2001, The Evergreen State Society