Archive for July, 2009

Lessons in Love and Cultural Competency

My beautiful tabbyMy sweet cat is slowly fading. Her kidneys are failing, and she has almost entirely stopped eating. She’s been part of my being for 16 years and now I am watching as she slowly fades away.

Last night on Twitter, my friend Christine Egger wondered aloud, “If you hadn’t been taught you had dominion, how would you treat other species? If we hadn’t been taught that, would we be less likely to think we had dominion over other people? Their lives, their choices? What does “dominion over others” mean to you? How do you play it out? I think there’d be a huge part of me that would relax and celebrate more, if I could let that dominion stuff go…”

Which brings me to the learning community meeting we attended today – a lively session on Cultural Competency with a group of perhaps 30 individuals who consult to community benefit organizations. The facilitators/teachers did a great job of explaining cultural competency (or as they suggested, cultural “humility”). As we broke into 2’s and 4’s to discuss the issue, though, I was plagued by questions.

Why do we spend whole workshops and meetings reminding ourselves to listen, be present and respectful, appreciative of the hardships and joys and the histories of the people with whom we are working – why do we only consider those questions when we are relating to people whose ethnicity or race or gender or age is different from our own? Why do we only consider eliciting and building upon the wisdom of those who are perceived to be “different?”

Aren’t these approaches just as relevant with people of my own ethnic background? My race? My gender? My sexual orientation? Shouldn’t I be looking to elicit and build upon their wisdom as well?

And as consultants, why are we not asking how we can listen, be present, open, respectful, appreciative of the hardships and joys of our consulting clients? Why is it ok for consultants to assume they are smarter than the organizations who hire them, rather than helping to elicit the clients’ own wisdom, to guide them to their own success?

As spouses, as parents – is this not the way we want to be in our lives? Are the lessons of cultural competency not merely the lessons of living joyfully with others, period?

And I guess today, I am a bit more sensitive than I might otherwise be. Because today it is my cat who is trying desperately to share her being with me.  It is my job to listen to her, to appreciate her joys and her hardships. It is my job to be present, open to where she is within her own tiny being right now. As she fades slowly, it is my job to elicit her wisdom, to help guide her to what will be best for her.

That is what we do when we love one another.

Which brings me back to my conversation with my friend Christine last night on Twitter. I had suggested to Christine that I prefer a spirit of compassion rather than dominion. That “dominion” and “dominant” appear to share a linguistic root, and that I consider compassion to be more “alongside each other” than “one above the other.”

“Does compassion still have room for hierarchy?” Christine wondered. And then she answered her own question: “Perhaps only love doesn’t.”

The greatest sages of all time, from Jesus to the Buddha to modern day rabbis, teachers and bodhisattvas – they all instruct us to love one another. Tonight I am taking that lesson from the tiny being who has slept curled up beside me for the past 16 years.

We make distinctions and create walls at our peril – between cultures, between consultants and clients, between parents and children, between us humans and the rest of our animal brethren.

“Hate never dispelled hate; only love dispells hate.” That is what the Buddha told us thousands of years ago. “Love one another” Jesus told us shortly thereafter.

And all this time later, regardless of the group or the individuals each of us encounters in our lives, I cannot think of a circumstance where that is not the very best advice we can give or receive.

Photo is Max about 6 months ago

Monday Morning Rock Out!

Stop sign

It’s Monday, and I’m starting this week with a nagging question: What’s stopping you?

What’s stopping you from making a huge, visionary, significant difference in your community? And if you think the answer is the economy or your board or a million other answers, I hope Mark Horvath’s story will cause you to stop and reconsider.

Mark Horvath has been on the adventure of his life – traveling the U.S. alone, documenting and sharing and engaging people in the issue of homelessness.

Mark is not a young kid out of college, on furlough between school and life.  Neither is he a documentarian on a stipend.

Mark is a breath away from homelessness himself right now, feeling blessed to have a tiny apartment that will hopefully still be his when he returns. Not too long ago, that apartment was a dream; Mark was living on the streets, just like the people he is now documenting.

In towns across the U.S., Mark is talking to people who are living in tent cities and on the streets. He is connecting with them and documenting their stories.  (You can see the videos Mark has posted so far at his website here.)

Last Friday, due entirely to the attention Mark’s trip is generating, all the homeless services and local reporters convened in a northwest Arkansas community. Mark joined them on that community’s first-ever media tour of homeless services.

A nearly homeless man documenting the stories of homelessness in America and convening the powers that be to talk about what is possible. A man who, with little more than a sponsored Ford, a video camera, and bags full of socks to help ease a bit of suffering, is roaming the country to connect all of us to the reality that homelessness is not what happens to “other people.” It is us – each and every one of us.

And that brings me back to my question. What’s stopping you from getting out there and making something happen in your own community?


Right now – stand up. Push your chair away from your desk and get out of your office.

Right now, stop talking about making stuff happen in your community. Get out where the people are and make it happen.

Go ahead – do it.  Because your community is counting on you!

Have a great Monday and a great week, all!

Research Questions I Wish Someone Would Answer

question markEvery once in a while I ask folks on the listserv for ARNOVA ( Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action) if they know whether research has been done about this topic or that.

Lately the responses I receive are simultaneously disappointing and intriguing.
First, no one finds research to address my question, and
Second, I get a slew of off-list emails from folks, asking, “If you get an answer, please let me know – this is of intense interest to my own work as well.”

So I thought I would share some of my questions here. Perhaps someone will read this and point me to research that does indeed exist to answer my questions. Or perhaps someone will say, “That’s a great idea! I’m taking that up for my thesis!”

Or perhaps we can just gather a huge ongoing repository of questions we wish someone would research and answer, if for no other reason than to just get it out of our systems!

So herewith, my top few. Please add your own!

Assessments
Frequently a board or a funder will request an outside assessment of an organization’s systems. The assumption is that the organization will then take the assessment to heart and make recommended changes.

Research Questions: Do organizations who receive such assessments actually change / become more effective as a result of the assessment? In what percentage of cases is an outside assessment really used as a management tool for improvement? Three years after the assessment has been done, is change noticeable?

Mergers
The drumbeat for mergers in the community benefit world seems to get louder every year, in good times and bad times, despite proof in the for-profit world that the majority of mergers fall apart in the short term AND the long term. Regardless of whether mergers last in the community benefit world, and regardless of whether or not mergers provide for increased efficiency, those are not my questions. My questions have to do with the only thing that matters – what difference does it make to the community?

Research Questions: What percentage of mergers among community benefit organizations result in increased community impact? Is it more mission effective to have a greater number of organizations with the same mission or fewer?

Capacity Building
“If only organizations all had capacity building interventions, they would all run more smoothly and create more impact! Foundations should be funding more capacity building!” If you have not heard this lament, then you haven’t been in this sector for long.

Research Question #1: What percentage of organizations who receive capacity building intervention actually change their behaviors / increase their effectiveness for the long term? How many revert back to the same problems for which they needed capacity building? After 2 years? After 5 years? What is the staying power of capacity building assistance?

Research Question #2: When an organization receives capacity building intervention, is there any measurable difference in the impact that organization has in the community? What percentage of organizations who receive capacity building assistance are making a more marked improvement in their communities’ quality of life?

If the research has already been done to address these questions, would someone share the findings here? And if the research has not been done, would someone please pass this along to a PhD review committee and see if they might suggest it?

Those are just a few of my questions. What questions about this sector’s work do you wish someone would research and have answers for?

Photo credit: Newsday.com