Go, Kristen! I’m excited to connect my Community & Nonprofit Leadership undergraduate students - all gender designations, and mostly women (surprise!) - with your great work!
Great analysis. Taking this further, where does social impact investing go with this? Doesn’t it just perpetuate the paternalism of traditional nonprofit funding? How is it different?
Great analysis and a very thought-provoking piece. Thanks Kristen!
It’s clear that the social sector is overwhelmingly populated by women. And, it’s also often the case that major funding organizations are primarily driven by men.
At the aggregate level we are continuing to struggle to make meaningful headway across a number of the world’s most pressing social challenges, despite throwing more and more resources at the problems. We haven’t figured out how to “solve” problems like homelessness, poverty and the like. In fact, one could argue that we are actually going backwards in some areas.
In my opinion, innovation is so crucial to the future of the social sector, as we need to continue to seek better solutions. But promoting innovation in the social sector, as in the for-profit sector, requires the space for experimentation, patience and tolerance for failure, adaptive learning, and a real commitment to truly understanding the needs of the customers.
I believe that the social sector has much to learn from thinking and models that have a history in the business world (e.g. lean startup, quality improvement, venture capital funding models etc). But herein lies a cautionary note - the social sector concerns itself with people related challenges, and people are not widgets. We must be careful to use these models thoughtfully and mould them to the purpose at hand.
There is huge potential for better solutions in the social sector, and we must learn to leverage the unique skills and capabilities of all players, whether male or female. After all, better social sector outcomes are good for all in our community.
I expect that the venture capital firms that fund the for-profits are just as male dominated as the for-profits themselves. I wonder if donors that fund the non-profits are similarly female dominated? If so, then the fact that for-profits enjoy risk-capital while non-profits endure “safe capital” may be more related to gender-influenced risk tolerances of the funders than to the perceived roles of the implementing organizations themselves?
Imagine if foundations, venture philanthropy funders, volunteers and other resource providers were using the internet to shop for thought leaders and ideas they could invest in, rather than NPO leaders and innovators constantly searching to find people to support their ideas in the way that Kristen has described.
A growing number of data visualization sites are providing maps that show indicators of social, environmental, health inequities and needs. I created this concept map to point to just a few that I list in my web library. http://tinyurl.com/TMI-MappingData
With this type of information, resource providers can now pick the cause they are interested in supporting, the geographic area, and then….search for web sites or forums where innovators are sharing their ideas, brainstorming and looking for help to execute their ideas.
That will be aided as additional intermediaries create overlays on top of indicators data, adding layers of information showing organizations providing services in different places. This interactive Chicago tutor/mentor program locator is a pilot of what I’m describing. http://www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net/InteractiveMap.aspx Click on the green stars on the map and get contact info for youth organizations. Double click, and go to their web sites.
As the web sites of these organizations begin to show more of their vision, their goals, their challenges, their needs, etc. resource providers will have the chance to do their own deeper learning, and be able to build relationships and offer help to the people and organizations doing the work that they want to support, in the geography they are interested in supporting.
I’m not certain how much money, time and emotional energy NPOs and social innovators spend looking for the resources needed to do their work, but if just a fraction of this were reduced because of the way resource providers were searching for people and organizations to support, I think it would be a dramatic change in the availability and quality of needed services in many sectors and geographic regions.
This validates my experience in the non-profit sector.
Where a majority of those working in non-profits are women, and with a majority of men leading non-profit boards, often as part of an incredibly paternalistic corporate charitable/philanthropic “duty”—there is a huge disconnect in financing vs fundraising, “social investing” and “restricted funding.” This dynamic hurts the entire sector and holds back many nonprofits (and their female leaders) from serving those that need help the most—- and I would posit, the impact of sexism in the sector has some correlation between high employee turnover for nonprofit EDs & Development Directors.
Important topic that needs more attention.
COMMENTS
BY Cheri Dubiel Buckner
ON June 12, 2015 01:47 PM
Great analysis and articulating a thought I could not previously articulate.
BY Michael Maguire
ON June 12, 2015 02:30 PM
Go, Kristen! I’m excited to connect my Community & Nonprofit Leadership undergraduate students - all gender designations, and mostly women (surprise!) - with your great work!
BY Crystel Anders
ON June 15, 2015 10:28 AM
Yes, Ford’s announcement this past week is so encouraging..
BY Monica Williams
ON June 18, 2015 08:19 AM
Great analysis. Taking this further, where does social impact investing go with this? Doesn’t it just perpetuate the paternalism of traditional nonprofit funding? How is it different?
BY Jon Sandbrook
ON June 18, 2015 12:12 PM
Great analysis and a very thought-provoking piece. Thanks Kristen!
It’s clear that the social sector is overwhelmingly populated by women. And, it’s also often the case that major funding organizations are primarily driven by men.
At the aggregate level we are continuing to struggle to make meaningful headway across a number of the world’s most pressing social challenges, despite throwing more and more resources at the problems. We haven’t figured out how to “solve” problems like homelessness, poverty and the like. In fact, one could argue that we are actually going backwards in some areas.
In my opinion, innovation is so crucial to the future of the social sector, as we need to continue to seek better solutions. But promoting innovation in the social sector, as in the for-profit sector, requires the space for experimentation, patience and tolerance for failure, adaptive learning, and a real commitment to truly understanding the needs of the customers.
I believe that the social sector has much to learn from thinking and models that have a history in the business world (e.g. lean startup, quality improvement, venture capital funding models etc). But herein lies a cautionary note - the social sector concerns itself with people related challenges, and people are not widgets. We must be careful to use these models thoughtfully and mould them to the purpose at hand.
There is huge potential for better solutions in the social sector, and we must learn to leverage the unique skills and capabilities of all players, whether male or female. After all, better social sector outcomes are good for all in our community.
BY Mike Roberts
ON June 21, 2015 11:59 PM
I expect that the venture capital firms that fund the for-profits are just as male dominated as the for-profits themselves. I wonder if donors that fund the non-profits are similarly female dominated? If so, then the fact that for-profits enjoy risk-capital while non-profits endure “safe capital” may be more related to gender-influenced risk tolerances of the funders than to the perceived roles of the implementing organizations themselves?
BY Daniel Bassill
ON June 29, 2015 03:07 PM
Imagine if foundations, venture philanthropy funders, volunteers and other resource providers were using the internet to shop for thought leaders and ideas they could invest in, rather than NPO leaders and innovators constantly searching to find people to support their ideas in the way that Kristen has described.
A growing number of data visualization sites are providing maps that show indicators of social, environmental, health inequities and needs. I created this concept map to point to just a few that I list in my web library. http://tinyurl.com/TMI-MappingData
With this type of information, resource providers can now pick the cause they are interested in supporting, the geographic area, and then….search for web sites or forums where innovators are sharing their ideas, brainstorming and looking for help to execute their ideas.
That will be aided as additional intermediaries create overlays on top of indicators data, adding layers of information showing organizations providing services in different places. This interactive Chicago tutor/mentor program locator is a pilot of what I’m describing. http://www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net/InteractiveMap.aspx Click on the green stars on the map and get contact info for youth organizations. Double click, and go to their web sites.
As the web sites of these organizations begin to show more of their vision, their goals, their challenges, their needs, etc. resource providers will have the chance to do their own deeper learning, and be able to build relationships and offer help to the people and organizations doing the work that they want to support, in the geography they are interested in supporting.
I’m not certain how much money, time and emotional energy NPOs and social innovators spend looking for the resources needed to do their work, but if just a fraction of this were reduced because of the way resource providers were searching for people and organizations to support, I think it would be a dramatic change in the availability and quality of needed services in many sectors and geographic regions.
BY Meggan lennon
ON July 1, 2015 07:56 AM
Very thought provoking! Would love to see more attention paid to this very important issue. Thanks Ms. Joiner!
BY Kelly Weiss
ON July 4, 2015 07:55 AM
This validates my experience in the non-profit sector.
Where a majority of those working in non-profits are women, and with a majority of men leading non-profit boards, often as part of an incredibly paternalistic corporate charitable/philanthropic “duty”—there is a huge disconnect in financing vs fundraising, “social investing” and “restricted funding.” This dynamic hurts the entire sector and holds back many nonprofits (and their female leaders) from serving those that need help the most—- and I would posit, the impact of sexism in the sector has some correlation between high employee turnover for nonprofit EDs & Development Directors.
Important topic that needs more attention.
BY E
ON August 20, 2015 08:42 AM
in a nutshell, you have put the thoughts of many of us who have also “hoovered” for a lifetime - thankyou