More bang for your buck

A few days ago, the NYTimes ran a sad article (at least for fireworks lovers like myself) detailing how many municipalities, faced with a budget shortfall, have had to cut back or completely eliminate their fireworks displays this year. In many of the areas surveyed for the article, it was the difference between putting on one show and saving one job. Obviously they chose the later. In some areas, civic and nonprofit leaders scrambled to fill the void left by the city, but that really leads to the question of how lavish fireworks show align with pretty much any nonprofit’s mission (except for perhaps the National Fireworks Association). While I am sure civic organizations can promote such family friendly activities as fireworks displays, isn’t it somewhat silly to focus on something so limited in  time when the national unemployment rate may soon hit 10%? Wouldn’t that money be better spent on, oh I don’t know, services to the community?

Fireworks outrage aside, however, I didn’t find a story about a situation where fireworks and nonprofits were actually able to work together in a harmonious manner. It seems that TNT Fireworks has taken to teaming up with local nonprofits to help them raise funds through the sale of sparklers and other consumer Fireworks. So, as cities eliminate their commercial fireworks, would it be possible to return the focus to the local, backyard celebrations, sparklers and all. This may be an odd time to quote an Allstate commercial:

but lets get back to basics because “the basics are good.”

Filed under: fundraising

Join or die?

In this era of tightening belts and budgets, some organizations are choosing to join with their peers to pool resources and information. One such recently formed collabarative is the Investigative News Network. The group, which formed out of the 3-day Pocantico conference that finished today, posted it’s charter online. Their central mission is simple:

to aid and abet, in every conceivable way, individually and collectively, the work and public reach of its member news organizations, including, to the fullest extent possible, their administrative, editorial and financial wellbeing.

I have long held that a possible avenue for newspaper survival is to go the nonprofit route, and the folks at Pocantico seem to be supporting that idea. It will be interesting to see how their fundraising efforts unfurl over the next few months and exactly how much centralization the seperate organizations are willing to provide for the project. Also interesting to note is the number of heavy hitters in both the news and nonprofit sphere in attendance, ranging from HuffPo and NPR to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and Center for Public Integrity.

Filed under: journalism, investigative reporting, journalism

The Scarlet “L”

Lobbyists have always been somewhat hard to pin down and their influence has been hard to calculate. But, with hugely important legislative decisions on the horizon, NPR has decided to take to the people in order to find out who these lobbyists really are. By using crowdsourcing, NPR has been able to not only indentify a number of the over 200 people packed in to watch a Senate committee meeting earlier this month. Check out the full story here.

While crowdsourcing poses the inevitable danger of mis-identification (after all, how do you verify these things?) it’s also yet another step in the move towards further governmental transparancy. And while the Obama administration polls the public to generate new OMB guidlines on the topic it seems that NPR is taking matters into their own hands. After all, a picture tells a thousand words.

Filed under: politics, technology, crowdsourcing, lobbying, politics and technology

A quick glance

I think the name of this blog is pretty self-explanatory, though not overly limiting. I hope to provide commentary and hopefully spur discussion around nonprofits, politics, the environment and other such “leftist” ideas.  As any blogger, I would love any insight or feedback you may have and I hope to hear from everyone, regardless of your political outlook. Please leave a message in my comments field or email me at maria.tchijov at gmail dot com. Thank you!

Filed under: Admin, overview