My intent yesterday was to report a bit further on some of the entries I caught a glance of while listing Philanthropy Blogs in Monday’s entry. For those who read such blogs regularly what I saw might seem mundane, but as a new reader I was excited and engaged by what I saw.
As I began to plumb a little deeper into the blogs I became convinced that the philanthropy industry blogs were the site of contentious debate. First was this entry on Gift Hub about the writer of Wealth Bondage calling philanthrophy bloggers Uncle Toms beholden to the wealthy.
I got so wrapped up in reading both sides of the story on the entry and learning about the Wealth Bondage blog that I found myself short on time to do an entry. White Courtesy Telephone notes that WB writer Happy Tutor styles himself as a modern day Diogenes challenging all who linger too close to the blog while on the information superhighway.
It wasn’t until I happened to go back and read the comments section on Gift Hub that I saw the author, Philip Cubeta, claim to be Happy Tutor. The satire tags on the entry seem to bear it out as far as that goes. Apparently he is a man at war against himself, casting aspersions at his alter egos. Or may be not.
I am still a little confused and unsure about the truth of the matter. It is intellectual elitism or intellectual rigor rarely seen in these days. Let’s just say I walked in a little late on a joke and caught the last line and punchline. I thought I would just shed a little light on the situation, as dim a bulb as I might be, in case others were exploring those blogs and were also taken in/confused.
Among the more interesting entries I came across during my explorations was this one on White Courtesy Telephone about Power and Powerlessness in Foundations. The entry was revelatory for me because it didn’t touch upon the relationship between grantors and grantees as I assumed it would, but rather on the internal power struggles of foundations.
Over time I came to believe that my colleagues and I acted out of a sense of powerlessness. Think about it. We start our foundation careers with a diminished sense of self-worth. Many of us … were lackluster community organizers or so-so [nonprofit executive directors]. We weren’t up for the challenge of real work 🙂 And for reasons that had little to do with actual talent, we found ourselves in foundation jobs that paid well and were very secure. We were fooling ourselves because as program officers, our jobs were never 100 percent secure. There were always a hundred other people out there ready to replace us.
There was also a great entry on Donor Power Blog- Marketing: No Longer A Department. Blog author Jeff Brooks points out that “It’s everyone’s job to tell the story [of the organization] in a motivating and exciting way.” Not only that, it is incumbent on the marketing department to let them rather than trying to wholly control the transmission of the message themselves.
Where Most Needed blog had two entries that really caught my eye. One on protecting against donors who renege on pledges. The other entry is on dealing with demanding donors.
The final blog entry I wanted to cite today is from Charity Governance where author Jack Siegel makes a case for why the Sarbanes-Oxley Act shouldn’t be applied to non-profits. His basic argument is that non-profits lack the monetary and personnel resources (as well as availability of external auditing firms) to comply. The entry is well written and cross-referenced with Security and Exchange Commission and Government Accounting Office publications. (Be warned, you can’t avoid finding out about the book he wrote.)
