In this week’s reading, the second chapter of “forces for good”, it talks about how to make maximum social impact: through combining service and advocacy. In the chapter, it introduces us three ways to bridge the divide. One is starting from direct service to advocacy; another is from advocacy to direct service; the other is from combining both from the beginning. In this chapter, it also tells us that it is only through advocacy can a nonprofit make large-scale social change.
When we talk about a nonprofit in class, our first concern is often about the social impact it has made or can make. When we define a successful social entrepreneur, the first thing we mention is always the impact that the person has made on the society.
Therefore, I couldn’t help wonder, if almost every nonprofit’s goal is to make social impact, why some would start from direct service? Why not start with advocacy? We have many successful examples of nonprofits that start with advocacy. So why not use their stories of success as a reference when starting a nonprofit? Or is there some kind of reality concern that make some nonprofits choose the other way around or starting from combining service and advocacy? What is the standard to help a nonprofit choose its path? How can a potential social entrepreneur know in what way to start a nonprofit? Even when they are doing well in the first stage, when can they know it’s time for bridging the divide?
I would love to hear from you guys.
September,
ReplyDeleteYou raise a very good point. I fully agree with you that if advocacy is a strong component of non-profit success, then why not start with that? I think from Andrea's response to an earlier post of mine, most non-profits starting out, do not have the capacity to advocate. It is much easier to start with service first, because that's really what you think about as far as making an impact.
Without reading chapter 2 in the Forces for Good, I would start with service first myself. Advocacy is almost a second thought because you tend to want to start serving people, and then get help elsewhere through advocacy. I'm sure this is what most non-profits do as well, including Andrea's Museum. An idea such as pushing for advocacy, are the kinds of ideas we can bring forth when we enter the non-profit or public sector.
Many community-based nonprofits exist to fulfill local needs which would otherwise go unmet. Thus, many community-based nonprofits provide services, as they are the vanguard for many local needs. I suppose an organization's activities (service and/or advocacy from the onset) depend on its mission, setting, purpose, ability/capacity, etc. Remember, the nonprofit sector is vast, with much diversity in mission, scope, and activity. Social impact occurs at a variety of levels, both local and broad. If an organization attempts to exceed its ability to make an impact, the agency may find that it is depleted of resources, whereas its insolvency may overwhelm its capacity to make any further impact (whether local or at a larger scale).
ReplyDeleteIn my own experience with a few different nonprofits, including one that just established its 501c3 status last week, it seems like many nonprofits begin in order to fill a specific need, as Andrew said. I think a lot of times people begin with an understanding of the effects of a problem - children failing in school, citizens becoming homeless, people being inadequately prepared for disasters, etc, and these are the things that cause people to start nonprofits. I think that as the service work begins, the leaders grow in their understanding of the causes, depth, and details of the issues at hand, and then they are able to do policy work. I agree with what the reading is saying about the need for policy work, but both authors mentioned being an expert on your issues and I think this is best done after real "in the trenches" experiences with individuals who are experiencing various challenges.
ReplyDeleteI think that direct service needs to come before advocacy so that organizations have a full understanding about what they are advocating for. The authors of Forces for Good state "By operating programs, organizations gain a firsthand view of the problems facing their constituents, enabling them to see their impact directly. 'They are close to their customers.' Nonprofits that provide services create local solutions, which can then inform their policy positions" (p.33). From this statement it is clear that to best benefit customers, an organization needs to first understand that customer's need. By providing services, organization get to work directly with customers to learn this. Why advocate for something if you do not have a clear picture of the need? This is similar to the idea of listening that Kanter and Fine discuss in The Networked Nonprofit, except that instead of listening online, nonprofits need to listen to the people they serve in order to have a clear understanding of what people need advocated.
ReplyDeleteYou make a compelling argument Rebecca, but what would you say about organizations that people create as advocacy organizations, such as The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and The Heritage Foundation? The people who started those organizations did so to shape the policy debate. In other words, they started with a vision for public policy in the United States. CBPP's service work was to advance its policy goals, to make sure that low income Americans were able to receive the social benefits for which the organization had advocated.
ReplyDeleteProfessor Campbell I suppose my previous statement above cannot be true for all organizations. It probably depends on the type of organization and who it serves. However, I would still think that organizations who start out as advocacy organizations have probably already done their "listening" even if they never provided a direct service. In this case, I would imagine the need to advocate was in response to an already known problem where what needed to change was more obvious.
ReplyDeleteAdvocacy is a powerful tool for creating bigger impact. But not all the organizations can start with it or integrate in their work easily. Some of them cannot do it because of the particular strategy that organization adopted to fulfill its mission, some of them because of their capacity, resources available, network scope and urgency of the issue with what they are dealing. For some organizations it is even the question of the stability. In the Forces for Good the authors are mentioning that many organizations do not do advocacy because the risk to lose some of the donors and also volunteers is really high.
ReplyDeleteWeakly planned and organized advocacy campaigns can even ruin the image of the organization. If you succeed you will have great credentials but if not it will be great loss of time, resource and definitely reputation.