logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

The Obama Budget and Nonprofits

Ruth McCambridge
May 15, 2009
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

We here at the Nonprofit Quarterly are trying to make sense of the Obama Budget right along with all of you. As always, there are a thousand moving pieces which can get shaped/warped/hijacked in a hundred different ways as they pass through the hands of lawmakers, intermediaries, state administrations, and agencies. So a “just the facts, ma’am” approach to understanding the first Obama Budget does not work any more than it did with the Bush Budgets. So I have included a few things here that I hope will be useful in understanding what bears watching. One is Rick Cohen’s first installment of an analysis of the Obama Budget.

Then, additionally, I just need to address myself once again to the issue of social innovation or social entrepreneurism. These terms that accompanied the Obamas to the White House are now institutionalized, albeit without firm form (at least as far as we know) in the Office of Social Innovation.

The limited statements that have been issued regarding the office include one made by Michelle Obama on May 5 referring to a few fairly large nonprofits with better than normal access to venture capital as innovative examples. Our sincere hope is that these statements do not imply that this office believes that most of the innovation in the sector happens within such already built out institutions. Our experience is that innovation among nonprofits happens in every conceivable size institution and entrepreneurism is the soul of the sector. But, even with that, a lack of capital that can be applied systematically to research and development in small settings often results in the loss of national programmatic advancement. The development of an innovation into a proven practice which is of use to a whole field takes something extra.

One of the ways that innovation sparked in a creative single community gains impact is indeed through the necessarily rare big investment and championship of a major national foundation, as in the case of some of the organizations mentioned as examples in Michelle Obama’s statement. But another important way that innovation is developed and circulated is through effective intermediary networks. The story here is of the Colorado Rural Housing Development Corporation, an organization that both innovates and makes use of innovations piloted elsewhere in part aided by its relationship with national community and housing development intermediary groups. When you read the story, you will likely be as impressed as I was with the creativity and agility of this organization, and its ability to mix and match resources to craft an end result that best serves community.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

The type of support for more widespread innovation that can come through intermediary groups can include consistent highlighting of the variety of practices that are showing good results in particular communities where they were originated, the tracking of whether or not that particular model plays well elsewhere, and the selling to government of programs that do replicate well. Granted, this approach does not build an institution as much as it does a field and the communities being served by the field but I am assuming that in a moment where we might be able to develop a new kind of relationship between government and nonprofits, that we should try to gain traction for the idea that government can and should expect to find valuable social innovations in unlikely places — very often at the margins. Because that is where it often starts.

The use of networks to get things done should be second nature to the Obamas so we hope that the same idea will carry through in the job of locating and supporting social innovation — particularly in fast moving targeted fields like health care and housing where we will need to move ideas quickly from isolated experiment to field wide practice.

Anyway, as usual, we’d love your comments about any piece of this letter.

And stay tuned for our next installment of “Nonprofits in the Age of Obama”.

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Ruth McCambridge

Ruth is Editor Emerita of the Nonprofit Quarterly. Her background includes forty-five years of experience in nonprofits, primarily in organizations that mix grassroots community work with policy change. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Ruth spent a decade at the Boston Foundation, developing and implementing capacity building programs and advocating for grantmaking attention to constituent involvement.

More about: Editor's NotesOpinionPolicy

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda
To Save Legal Aid, Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Zoë Polk
No Justice, No Peace of Mind and Body: The Health Impacts of Housing Insecurity for Black Women
Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Maile Chand and Andrea Flynn
The Human Impact of the Global Refugee Crisis Must Be Understood—And Acted Upon
Anmol Irfan
Black Americans Need Reparations: The Fight for the CTC Highlights the Roadblocks
Jhumpa Bhattacharya and Trevor Smith
Edgar Cahn’s Second Act: Time Banking and the Return of Mutual Aid
Steve Dubb

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda
To Save Legal Aid, Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Zoë Polk
No Justice, No Peace of Mind and Body: The Health Impacts of...
Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Maile Chand and Andrea Flynn

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.