gdp's Comments

Poverty Insights : The Intersection of Public Policy and the Social Sector

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:37:51 +0000

Great point Kathryn, the way I wrote the piece it seems as though service providers are only capable of being passive recipients of the after-effects of policy decisions, which is not (and should not) be the case. Indeed, service providers have an important role to play in shaping policy, especially representing the voice of a constituency that faces barriers to influencing politics on their own.

Poverty Insights : Broken Social Safety Net is Making Americans Sick

Mon, 6 Feb 2012 21:30:54 +0000

Health Leads is a great organization, I had the pleasure of meeting Rebecca at a conference a few years back.

Poverty Insights : Welfare Expenditures at Strip Clubs Underscore Rationality of the Poor

Fri, 3 Feb 2012 17:52:51 +0000

Thanks for the clarification on the law, and pointing out the insidious long run plan with continued restrictions on welfare payments (or at least where one can make a withdrawal). As to the rationality of low-income people, the very rhetoric of this proposal, and ones like it, suggests that a lot of people do doubt the rationality of the poor. More troubling though are seemingly well intentioned services that impose interventions based on assumptions of general incompetence, like forcing parenting classes for people in homeless shelters, when the need for one intervention does not necessarily imply a need for the other.

Poverty Insights : Evidence that Blogging Does Matter

Mon, 9 Jan 2012 23:03:19 +0000

Hey Mark, thanks for the comment and kind words. I certainly agree that more input on the "consumer" side is needed, and Invisible People among other efforts does a great job of that. I would hope, however, that service providers exchanging ideas would also lead to better service for consumers, as service providers would learn from each others' efforts and outcomes. Ideally service providers would track their outcomes and share best practices AND listen to the aggregate voices of consumers.

Poverty Insights : Does Blogging Matter in the Social Sector?

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 19:47:41 +0000

Your point about Demonstrating Power helped me to clarify my own thoughts on this topic. I think for me the bigger picture is not Demonstrating Power, but channeling it. You cite Occupy Wall Street, which indeed is a great example of online media facilitating a demonstration of power. Of course the question that always follows a demonstration of power is, now what? I'm not mitigating the importance of demonstrating power by any means, but for me the more interesting question is what to do with it. From my career vantage point, the "power" I focus on is the possibilities of the social sector versus its current output. There is plenty of power here in terms of resources (financial, human capital, good will, expertise, etc.), but I have significant doubts that said power is in anyway maximized, with agencies working toward a collective goal in semi-functional silos. It seems that our conversation is in some ways parallel, with your focus on larger scale social change and mine more on institutional change of social sector organizations. Of course, the intersecting point is that both our focuses ultimately aim toward the same end, with my focus a subset of your grander vision. Perhaps a good starting point in amalgomating the inherent sector in sectors nature of our work is to expand the authorship and viewpoints on this site, a process we began with the inclusion of the excellent policy oriented work of Kathryn Baer. Drop me a line if you'd be interested in featuring some of your work on this site, dhenderson@idealistics.org, and thanks for your comments on this post, you definitely got me thinking, and perhaps more optomistic than when I first sat down to write this piece.

Poverty Insights : Does Blogging Matter in the Social Sector?

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 19:33:25 +0000

Hey Carey, thanks for the comment and for sharing some of your accomplishments. Indeed you do offer some compelling examples of important victories (personal and for others) achieved via blogging. I think for me, and to be clear my criticism in this piece is about the efficacy of my own writing, the issue I grapple with is whether or not the blogging medium can bring about larger system level change. In my work, the systems change I focus on is at the level of social sector organizations. If you look at Michael Dahl's comments above, his focus is on the larger level of community empowerment and politics, perhaps more in line with your initiative to combat stereotypes. There certainly are individual examples of powerful or insightful writing changing both the hearts and minds of people, whether they work directly in the social sector or not. And indeed, there is value there. I think the question then is one of opportunity cost, meaning, is this the best possible medium I can use for the type of change I seek. I hope it is, and encouraging comments like yours certainly help to push me further toward believing blogging does matter.

Poverty Insights : Does Blogging Matter in the Social Sector?

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:29:57 +0000

Michael, thanks for your thoughtful comment and response on your blog. Your point about sharing versus communicating is spot on. Page views and re-tweets are far too passive to usher the type of systems change you allude to. As not to dwell too much on commiserating, as you warn against, how do we move away from siloed mini-megaphones to serious discussion and engagement? As the editor of this blog and my site, Full Contact Philanthropy, I tend to prefer to measure (I know, there I go measuring again) the strength of posts by the discussions started rather than views and shares. Of course, this is an imperfect metric as those posts might simply be commiseration instead of the greater advancement you and I both hope to move toward through writing. The Internet era was supposed to usher in the democratization of ideas, at least for those with means and access to the net (I'll leave the digital divide arguments for another day). This is indeed a grand vision, but one clearly not realized in our sector, if at all. I'm very open to any and all ideas...

Poverty Insights : Does Blogging Matter in the Social Sector?

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:18:33 +0000

Kathryn, you are quite correct to call me out on my myopic vision for blogging. Indeed there is value in educating those outside of our field. My view here, likely because of the line of work I am in, is more "inside baseball." My critique here is only confined to posts intended for an insular audience of social sector professionals. I should have made that point explicit.

Poverty Insights : Is Building Affordable Housing Always the Answer to Homelessness?

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 03:26:13 +0000

Indeed affordability is relative, although wage differentials at the low end are negligible across the country due to minimum wage laws. Regardless, there's not much room for wage suppression at the low end of the scale anyway. So the more notable fluctuations in regional wage differences is at non-poverty paying rates. Therefore, I'd argue it is definitely more affordable to be poor here than in more populated metro areas. That said, if the issue is the chronically homeless, then affordability is not the issue. But for the cyclically homeless, my unsubstantiated but logical seaming guess is that people are less likely to fall into homelessness here than in a place like Los Angeles. My work in Pittsburgh has focused on community development, so I don't know much about the state of homelessness here. There are clearly less visibly homeless persons here than in Los Angeles, but it's not non-existent. The bigger issue in Pittsburgh is job creation, beautification, and driving out slum-landlords. There are quite a few dilapidated and vacant buildings. You can buy a house for under 20k in some parts. While that's very affordable housing, I assure you it's not desirable.

Poverty Insights : No Consensus on Poverty Census

Wed, 9 Nov 2011 16:19:00 +0000

I certainly agree with you on some levels Kathryn. I welcome the new poverty measures, they are a more accurate representation of what poverty means and a much needed update to an antiquated measure. To me the most significant benefit of this poverty reassessment is not in the total number of people who are estimated to be poor, as bother measures are more or less equivalent, but in the mix of who is poor. As you pointed out in your post, senior poverty is under-represented as is poverty for whites and Latinos in the current methods we use. These findings should have both advocacy and planning implications. While I'm less convinced that poverty measures are a tool of government subversion, I do agree with Joel that the overall change in the number of people estimated to be poor is not terribly useful from a planning perspective.

Poverty Insights : How Trashing Each Other Solves Poverty

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:52:59 +0000

Hey Sean-Michael, Thanks for the comment and kind words. To your question of including the views of those experiencing homelessness in the conversation about solutions, I'd recommend the best way to do this is through a solid framework of market research, regular feedback, and iteration on a particular intervention. Fundamentally, our objective in the social sector is no different than that of a for-profit enterprise. We have a constituency that has a need and we're trying to figure out how to best meet that need given budgetary constraints. Effective organizations make regular feedback, conducted through constituent sampling, a regular part not only of their evaluation, but everything the organization does. The trick in all of this is two-fold: 1. Make sure you are truly open to getting feedback from all stakeholders (not just those that love you or hate you) 2. Don't let any one or a group of stakeholders speak louder than the rest. This second point I think is particularly relevant to my above article. Screaming a point louder, or nastier, does not make someone right. It is important to get negative and positive feedback, but if a minority of people advocate for a point more loudly than a larger, tamer group of stakeholders, the decibel level should not outweigh the person, or impact, count. So, that's the long way of saying all organizations should make evaluating the effectiveness of their programs a regular part of what they do. That way when you are administering and designing interventions, client feedback is always part of the discussion.

Poverty Insights : LA Homeless Count Reports Unreliable Racial Data

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 17:11:59 +0000

The problem with a category for two or more races is that you lose the underlying racial identification information. If a significant portion of your population was multi-racial, such designation obscures meaning out of the data. If you collect as many races as one identifies with for each person, then you have options for how to report out the data. If you would rather the output sum to 100% of total observations, you can aggregate across every chosen combination of races, such as "% of White and Black", or "% Asian, Black, and Latino", etc. So whether or not the output of a racial population exceeding 100%, which you argue is unhelpful, if the data was collected with more granularity, we would have several options for presentation. As collected though, there is no way of distinguishing multi-racial at all, let alone one combinations thereof.

Poverty Insights : Social Service Intakes Bore Clients to Death, Say Little About Impact

Thu, 9 Jun 2011 17:17:20 +0000

I think you are dead right that "Questions should be asked for the good of the person we are serving." Good data analysis informs our work, who to help, how to help, where to place interventions, what to fund, etc. All of those points ought to be rooted in how to best help people in need. What baffles me is that we use this very process in much of our work. There is a fantastic culture of focusing on client needs in the social sector, yet this discipline is somehow lost in the data fog.

Poverty Insights : Social Service Intakes Bore Clients to Death, Say Little About Impact

Thu, 9 Jun 2011 15:49:36 +0000

You certainly raise a good point about funder mandates regarding data collection. In my experience data collection is a two-headed monster with both funders and agencies themselves driving illogical question design, with a funder demanding one set of untelling metrics then an implementing agency compounding confusion by adding their own. However, you seem to be getting at a different scenario all together, where eligibility rather than demonstrated impact is the objective. I would wonder if when questions pertain to eligibility there is more of a data collection restraint, or if we don't see the same approach whereby we collect as much as we can first, then pick and choose what was relevant later.

Poverty Insights : Bad Data, Bad Decisions - How Well Intentioned Organizations can Hurt the Poor

Wed, 8 Jun 2011 07:43:26 +0000

I was recommended this blog by my cousin. I'm not sure whether this post is written by him as nobody else know such detailed about my difficulty. You're wonderful! Thanks,

Poverty Insights : A Lesson for Homeless Advocates from the Consumer Electronics Show

Tue, 7 Jun 2011 01:24:14 +0000

I just sent this post to a bunch of my friends as I agree with most of what youÃ¢re saying here and the way youÃ¢ve presented it is awesome.

Poverty Insights : Tiny Housing Units Provide a Small Answer to a Big Problem

Thu, 2 Jun 2011 14:45:12 +0000

this is a mighty major practice you have these.

Poverty Insights : Ending Homelessness is Strictly Business

Mon, 16 May 2011 12:00:09 +0000

Interested to know, what is the estimated annual cost of processing bogus disability claims? Debates are more interesting with concrete evidence.

Poverty Insights : Why Nonprofit Technology Sucks

Tue, 8 Mar 2011 18:07:09 +0000

Hi Alexis, thanks for the comment, and certainly fair points. I'd point to my own company (Idealisitcs) but in the sake of not being biased, there are plenty of other positive examples I can point to of non-profit technology that does work as well. Ushahidi is an excellent example of a platform designed for social good that is well built, maintained, and effectively used for disaster relief. The Causes on Facebook platform and Blackbaud provide pretty top notch fundraising software, and Change.org has developed a competent tool set for online activism. But, those examples don't get to your point of systems that aid front-line services, and the fact is there is not much out there that meets muster. Fundraising is a competitive realm, so you get competent businesses innovating in that space, and online activism has the potential for profitable scale, where as technology for front line service providers tends to be smaller scale and one off, meaning agencies choose local vendors with little expertise or vision. In Joel's last post he mentioned We Are Visible, which is a potentially nice example of community building, but while this may be a useful forum, it's not necessarily a tool in its self. It is in the realm of innovating real tools in direct service provision that I argue nonprofit technology offerings fall short.

Full Contact Philanthropy : Firing Bad Donors

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 02:11:42 +0000

Thanks for the comment Narissa, I certainly don't disagree. I think the question is how should organizations go about being more stead-fast in the face of dangling funds that might pull them away from their core services. I'd like to believe donor education can make a difference, but I worry that the philanthropy crowd is increasingly becoming as fickle as a teenager, hopping from one new cause/approach to the next, to the detriment of core needs. To that end, there is a disconnect between those whom consider themselves philanthropy professionals and the real needs of people. You are right to point out that it is those core needs so many non-profits address, let's hope donors, funders, and those who advise donors, can provide agencies the operating support they need to create social value in their core competencies.