Feel the pulse of business with The Vancouver Sun Business BC’s Monday morning briefing.

Listings are free of charge and should be submitted to Keeping Track’s webpage at www.canada. com/vancouversun/news/business/ keepingtrack/submit.html Or email keepingtrack@vancouversun.com Be brief as space is limited. Attach photos to your submission. Use of photos depends on space available.

THIS WEEK MARCH 6 TO MARCH 12

Tuesday

Reducing Exposures to Occupational Carcinogens: Identifying priorities for workplace health and safety. Morris J Wosk Centre for Dialogue, March 6, 9 a.m. to 4: 15 p.m., www.cancerpreven-tioncentre.sites.olt.ubc.ca/events/

Future of the Region Sustainability Dialogue, Eaglequest Coyote Creek Golf Club, March 6, 11: 30 a.m. to 2 p.m. free, metrovancouver.org/region/dialogues

Wednesday

Dematerialization: Transitioning to an Economy without Waste SFU Segal Graduate School of Business, March 7, 11: 30 a.m. to 2 p.m., free, www.metro-vancouver.org/region/dialogues

Friday

Tax Tips from an Accountant Small Business BC, 82-601 Cordova St., March 9, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., $59, 604-775-5174 or www.smallbusinessbc.ca/seminars

My First Year in Business – A Financial Overview Small Business BC, 82-601 Cordova St., March 9, 1 to 4 p.m., $39, 604-775-5174 or www.smallbusinessbc. ca/seminars

Monday

Commercial Real Estate Agreements and the Law Small Business BC, 82-601 Cordova St., March 12, 12 to 1: 30 p.m. $25, 604-775-5174 or www.smallbusi-nessbc.ca/seminars

CAREER MOVE CHERYL CARLINE

NEW JOB: Director of development and communications

EMPLOYER: Covenant House Vancouver

OLD JOB: CEO, Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society

QUOTE: “There are no secrets to success. Success is doing the things you know you should do.” -Anonymous

READING: The Little Princes: One man’s Promise to Bring home the lost children of Nepal by Connor Grennan.

WORST FEAR: Not enough time to do all the things I want to do.

GADGETS: iPhone, iPad, iPod.

EDUCATION/CREDENTIALS: BA, Norwich University, Vermont, USA, Social Entrepreneurship, Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif., Voluntary Sector and Arts Management, York University, Toronto

FIRST JOB: Teller, Bank of Montreal

ORIGINAL ASPIRATION: Writer of best-selling novel.

ROLE MODEL: My mother, who has fought a long battle with cancer and who has never given up her sense of humour and positive attitude.

BORN: Vancouver, the year American Bandstand premiered on television.

EMAILS A DAY: 50, and too many texts to mention.

SOCIAL NETWORKING? Facebook, but would like to tweet more -

FACEBOOK FRIENDS: 50 ESSENTIAL WEBSITE: VRBO for vacation rentals all over the world.

BEST PERK: Personal time to focus on healthy balanced lifestyle.

SPORTS/HOBBIES: Golf, and any sport on Kinnect!

LAST CONFERENCE: Fundraising, of course, in Chicago.

CAREER OBJECTIVE: To make a positive difference in the health and well being of a caring, just and civil society.

KUDOS CORPORATE GIVING

RBC Foundation donated $10,000 to the Down Syndrome Research Foundation.

Brentwood Town Centre donated $5,000 to Burnaby Hospital Foundation.

White Spot Richmond Centre donated $9,388 to Richmond Hospital. Every Christmas-day lunch, owner Veena Ganatra and her staff donate their time, restaurant proceeds and tips to charity.

Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation received $2,000 from McDonald’s Celebrity Golf Classic.

Rotary Club of Vancouver donated $5,000 to BC Family Hearing Resource Society.

Ridge Meadows Hospital Foundation received $10,000 from HI Roofing.

GF Financial donated $10,000 grant to the Down Syndrome Research Foundation.

Clevest Solutions has been included in the 2012 Ready to Rocket list for the third consecutive year as one of B.C.’s top companies in the communications technology sector.

Knights of Columbus donated $5,000 to Royal Columbia Hospital Foundation.

BC Sports Hall of Fame received $25,000 from Founder’s Cup Charity Golf Classic at the Jack Farley Tribute Luncheon.

Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation BC/ Yukon Region received $80,000 from Telus’ Go Pink campaign, which saw $25 from every BlackBerry Curve smart-phone donated to the Foundation, from Oct. to Dec. 2011.

MOVES PERSONNEL CHANGES

Brenda Bouw joins PR Associates as an account director. Bouw was previously Globe and Mail’s mining reporter.

Fraser Valley Real Estate Board’s new board: President Scott Olson (1); president-elect Ron Todson; vice-president Ray Werger; past president Sukh Sidhu; and directors Manny Boparai, Jorda Maisey, Mohamed Mansour, Gopal Sa-hota, Sharon Wayman, Charles Wiebe, Ralph Visser and Dennis Germyn.

BMO Bank of Montreal appoints Christine Cooper (2) as corporate finance vice-president for B.C.

Richard Jan Lee (3) joins Iredale Group Architecture after 13 years with James K.M. Cheng Architect.

Matthew Baird (4) joins MusicFest Vancouver as program director. Baird spent 30 years with the CBC.

Tourism Whistler has named Louise Walker (5) as its new vice-president of marketing and strategic planning.

Michael McPhie (6) has been appointed chair of the Association for Mineral Exploration B.C. McPhie is CEO of Curis Resources.

Society of Notaries Public of B.C.’s new board directors: Filip de Sagher, Kate Manvell, Lorne Mann, David Watts.

McMillan LLP has admitted five new partners: Ryan J. Black, Farzad Forooghian, Christine Man, Laurel Petryk, and Joan Young.

Jon Eaton (7), a member of the Abbots-ford Police Board, has been appointed president of the BC Association of Police Boards.

Canada Korea Business Association’s new board: Charles Kim, David L.

Scott Ackles has been appointed CEO of BC Sport Agency. Ackles recently led the team that delivered the 2011 Grey Cup championship and festival.

OPEN FOR BUSINESS

Name: Metro Gnome Lawn and Garden

Owner: Scott Thran

Location: Vancouver

Phone: 604-358-5296

Email: info@metrognome.ca

Web: www.metrognome.ca

Description: Our bicycle-driven business provides quiet and emission free traditional lawn and garden care solutions for existing yards in Vancouver.

Opened: January 2012.

If you have just opened a business, submit your information at vancouversun.com/keepingtrack/open

Article source: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Keeping+track/6251024/story.html

 

Within the Ivy League, Brown has long held the reputation as a haven for social activism, stemming in part from the legacy of the New Curriculum’s creation. Many students still enter lucrative careers in the private sector, but figures from the Center for Careers and Life After Brown reveal the University’s historical activism bent is far from gone.

According to Jim Amspacher, career advisor in Careers in the Common Good at the CareerLAB, 48 percent of graduates in the Class of 2010, the latest year of complete available data, decided to work in nonprofit or government sectors. Amspacher, who worked for nonprofit initiatives for 20 years before coming to the CareerLAB, said the percentage of each senior class headed to careers in the common good — like social entrepreneurship ventures, government agencies and public health programs — has remained constant over the years.

Though recent media coverage on volunteers’ personal safety and financial stability has exposed drawbacks to careers in the common good, alums still agreed the benefits outweigh the challenges.

 

Brown teaching for America

The most common nonprofit venture that seniors join has consistently been TFA, which recruits graduates from elite universities to teach in low-income communities in the United States, Amspacher said. Twelve percent of the Class of 2011 applied to work for TFA, with 43 students eventually joining the program.

“We’ve definitely seen an increase in applications over the years,” said Angela Callado, TFA’s recruitment manager for the New England region. She said applicants from Brown stand out as exceptionally qualified each year. 

Callado said she thinks TFA is popular among Brown graduates because many have a desire to make a “socially minded impact” on the lives of less fortunate students. “They know the potential that having an education can have on an individual,” she said.

Nicola Fleischer ’12, an education concentrator headed to a San Francisco elementary school this fall, said education’s valuable impact drove her to join the program. 

For Fleischer and other TFA volunteers, the nonprofit venture offered them the attractive prospect of getting firsthand exposure to teaching students and further understanding of the problems in the nation’s public education system. “I didn’t really want to spend another year talking about this stuff in university classrooms,” Fleischer said.

 

Top of the list

Another popular career in the common good among recent graduates is the Peace Corps, which ranked the University 21st in medium-sized colleges that produced the highest number of the agency’s volunteers in 2011. The University sent 24 graduates into the Peace Corps last year, according to the agency’s website.

“Brown is a mainstay of the Peace Corps’ top college list,” said Elizabeth Chamberlain, public affairs specialist for the Peace Corps’ Northeast division. “Brown students seem to be very interested in international development and have strong language skills.” According to Chamberlain, the Peace Corps looks for applicants who are open to serving in a wide variety of countries.

In response to recent concerns over cases of sexual abuse of female volunteers in the agency, Chamberlain sent The Herald an email highlighting the Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act of 2011, which codified reforms aimed at increasing personal safety measures for the agency’s volunteers.

“Safety and security really is a paramount concern for us,” Chamberlain said, adding that volunteers need to have their personal safety assured to give them the confidence necessary to immerse themselves in their host cultures. 

Jeanine Chiu ’10, a development studies concentrator who also learned Arabic during her undergraduate years, is now volunteering for the Peace Corps in Jordan. While at Brown, Chiu worked for a middle school enrichment program. She said she feels her background in development studies provides her with a perspective different from many Peace Corps volunteers.

Chiu described the experience of working on a committee for Camp GLOW — Girls Leading Our World — as particularly gratifying. On the committee, she helped recruit girls from rural areas to attend a week-long camp to learn healthy lifestyles, as well as leadership and critical thinking skills. 

Many of the girls entered the camp shy and uncertain, Chiu said. “Seeing them blossom and grow throughout the short six days was incredibly inspiring,” she added.

One of the most surprising parts of Chiu’s experience has been the difference between Western media perceptions of the Middle East as a violence-ridden region and the welcoming spirit of the Jordanian rural community in which she has worked. “Everybody I’ve met has been incredibly welcoming to Americans,” she said.

Charlie Wood ’10, who is now in his second year of teaching science at a high school in Mozambique, told The Herald in an email that the best moments are when his students, most of whom have had inconsistent educations, rise to the challenge of learning physics.

The students not only had to “deal with adjusting to the crazy American teacher with his ‘radical’ ideas like games, group work and class participation, but also my simple grammar and terribly strong accent,” he said.

Students who are interested in exploring the Peace Corps as an option should start looking into the program earlier rather than later, Chiu said. “The experience is very different from what you expect it to be. You just never know what you’re going to get.”

 

‘Breadth of opportunities’

Apart from TFA and the Peace Corps, there are a multitude of other options available to students looking to make a difference after commencement. 

Harrison Stark ’11, who worked at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race Justice at Harvard after graduating last spring, said he believed many alums who may have leaned toward more lucrative careers in finance or consulting decided to consider careers in the common good after the financial crash.

“A lot of the private sector companies are really good recruiters because they have the resources to do it,” Stark said. “I think Brown is unique in that so many of its students are interested in public good issues.”

The breadth of opportunities for students interested in the common good was also striking for Ari Rubenstein ’11, who joined Green Corps, a grassroots activist organization that mobilizes campaigns for pro-environment issues. “I was active in environmental issues on campus, and I knew that I wanted to continue that work in some form after graduating from Brown,” Rubenstein said.

Rubenstein was attracted to Green Corps for both its primacy in the environmental activism movement and for its strong job placement program. The organization connects its employees with other progressive groups after their one-year commitments to the program are over. 

Describing how he has moved to various locations, including Richmond, Va. and Chicago, Ill., to organize environmental movements for Green Corps, Rubenstein said the challenge of constantly moving has been outweighed by the difference he feels he has made.

One case that Rubenstein found especially memorable is his work rallying members of a low-income community in the South Side of Chicago who were hard hit by pollution from a nearby coal plant. He said he helped mobilize 140 community members to attend an Environmental Protection Agency hearing, during which 30 witnesses testified about the firsthand effects of pollution.

“It was really affirming because we were talking about real people’s lives,” Rubenstein said, adding that he believes many nonprofit groups remain a strong choice for recent college graduates.

“Even in this poor economy, organizations like Green Corps have not been suffering as much as people might assume,” Rubenstein said, adding that he is not too concerned over his job prospects for the next few years. “Even in hard times, people still care about things they really value.”

 

Career advice 

To support students interested in nonprofit careers, the CareerLAB has pursued a three-pronged strategy with increased advising, online resources advertising employment options on the Career Field Notes page and six or seven events per semester featuring alumni, Amspacher said. Past alumni forums that have drawn heavy student interest have featured topics like “Demystifying Nonprofits,” “Political Jobs in 2012,” “Pathways to Teaching and Education” and “Micro-financing.”

In response to students’ concerns over their financial security in entering nonprofit careers, Amspacher said the CareerLAB held a forum called “Making a Living While Making a Difference.” He said students should devote serious consideration to “what they’re looking for after graduation” before deciding on a nonprofit career.

The CareerLAB was not aimed at persuading students to pursue nonprofit careers, but rather at aiding those who already expressed an interest to explore options. “It’s less trying to rally the troops and more trying to help students do what they want,” Amspacher said.

Article source: http://www.browndailyherald.com/students-in-nonprofit-careers-find-inspiration-in-public-service-1.2711188

Rush Limbaugh, conservative radio talk show host, attempted to silence women’s voices in the public square through sexual shaming. The early church did the same thing to Mary Magdalene, sexually shaming her in the 6th century, mistakenly calling her a prostitute, and effectively undercutting her spiritual authority.

But today, women are not Mary Magdalene, demeaned by church authority and made into the poster woman for the repentant prostitute. Today, women have fought back against Limbaugh’s sexual shaming and they are winning.

In this image made from Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012 video provided by C-SPAN, Sandra Fluke, a third-year Georgetown University law student, testifies to Congress in Washington. AP Photo/C-SPAN)
(AP – AP)

After Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University law student and articulate spokeswoman for women’s reproductive health care, a “slut” and a “prostitute,” and then worse, a growing firestorm of social media driven protest pushed many of Limbaugh’s advertisers away; Limbaugh has been dropped by at least seven advertisers at last count. A Facebook page has been leading the boycott, and the Twitter hashtag, #StandwithSandra, is increasing in use.

Republican strategists, speaking anonymously out of fear of Rush’s power, have pointed to how his sexual shaming strategies “hurt Republicans.”

Indeed, Republicans are probably losing a generation of young women and men who are appalled by this sexually demeaning attack on women.

The rapid Internet driven protest, and perhaps even more, the advertisers pulling out, has prompted an “apology” of sorts from Rush Limbaugh. The “apology,” however, included Limbaugh’s insistence that the birth control debate is about “personal sexual recreational activities,” not health care, and he compared contraception to sneakers.

Some advertisers aren’t buying it. Both ProFlowers and Carbonite dropped their advertising on Limbaugh’s program after the apology. Carbonite CEO David Friend posted this message on Facebook:

“No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.”

Unlike what happened to Mary Magdalene, this time the attacks on women’s authority in the public square through sexual shaming didn’t work. The advent of new media, and especially social media, means women’s voices can retain and even gain authority in the face of attack.

Limbaugh ought to have paid more attention to what modern media like film did for Mary Magdalene. “The Da Vinci Code,” both the book by Dan Brown and the film based on it, has pretty much restored Mary Magdalene’s reputation as a wealthy woman and a leading supporter of Jesus of Nazareth. She was last at the cross and first at the tomb; Jesus appeared to her after his resurrection and she gained Apostolic authority in the years after Jesus’ death that rivaled even Peter. The fictional account by Dan Brown does add some non-biblical innovations, as readers and film-goers know, but the counter-narrative on Mary Magdalene has been effective.
In this Jan. 13, 2009 file photo, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh talks with guests in the East Room of the White House in Washington. Limbaugh apologized Saturday, March 3, 2012, to a Georgetown University law student he had branded a “slut” and “prostitute” after fellow Republicans as well as Democrats criticized him and several advertisers left his program.
(Ron Edmonds – AP)

More seriously, the Gospel of Mary, written in the second century C.E. and discovered in the 19th century, has been given scholarly attention in the 21h century. Karen L. King, in her wonderful work, “The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle,” examines this incredible text. This long lost Gospel exposes the lie that Mary of Magdala was a prostitute, and presents a convincing argument for women’s religious leadership in the early church. It is also a “sharp critique” of illegitimate power and a vision for spiritual growth. And all of this is written in the name of a woman.

Mary Magdalene had to wait almost 1500 years for her sexual shaming to be ended by new media, and then by rigorous religious scholarship.

Not now. This time, the end to the sexually demeaning attacks on women’s public authority by the likes of Rush Limbaugh takes only days, not centuries.

Somewhere I have to feel Mary Magdalene still has this message for Rush Limbaugh: Your apology was nowhere near adequate. Stop trying to sexually shame women. We won’t stand for it any more.

PS: Do read the Gospel of Mary. It’s very illuminating, especially given our times.

An On Faith panelist and former president of Chicago Theological Seminary (1998-2008), Thistlethwaite is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Article source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/mary-magdalene-to-rush-limbaugh-your-apology-is-too-little-too-late/2012/03/04/gIQAwafrrR_blog.html?tid=pm_national_pop

Banking on equities of leadership and social business

In a rare interview with The Jakarta Post’s Mariel Grazella, Putera Sampoerna, heir to PT HM Sampoerna and founder of Sampoerna Strategic, spoke extensively of his social opus, the Putra Sampoerna Foundation — Indonesia’s primary social business institution which stands on the four pillars of education, entrepreneurship, women’s empowerment and disaster relief.

Under the stewardship of Putera’s incisive acumen, comparable to those he has exhibited in his other business pursuits, the foundation has managed Rp 170.7 billion of funds (inaudited) last year from individual and corporate donors, including Bank Permata, ExxonMobil Corporation, BP Indonesia and PT HM Sampoerna.

Yet, in his own words, much still lies ahead in “educating corporates and the general public on the tremendous needs and limitations this country has in its effort to eradicate poverty, increase living standards and shrink income gaps”.

Question: Certain people who have decided to dedicate their lives to improving society have had pivotal moments which move them towards a cause. Did you have such moments which led you to your work at the Putra Sampoerna Foundation?

Answer: There were no pivotal moments. From my grandfather’s days, we [the family] were always taught that we have social obligations. Somewhere down the line, I came up with the motto of believing that we should all strive within our own individual capacities to leave this world a better place than that which we were born in. In any case, Indonesia has been good to me and this is one way of giving back.

In essence, what makes the Putera Sampoerna Foundation a ‘social business institution’ and in what ways does the foundation stand out from the various versions of charitable organizations?

The difference is one of attitude and perspective. A social business does not see itself as a “charitable” organization, which is totally dependent on donations for its continued existence. It looks at all of its activities as any business would, with sustainability, professionalism, or non-volunteerism, and revenue growth over the long term as its primary goal. Yet, it also does not preclude itself from carrying out “for profit” activities for the greater good. So, if you have the resources to commit to your social obligations, you should then organize those initiatives into social business units and run them with the same dedication and passion as you would your other commercial enterprises.

One of the programs the foundation is highly focused on is education, under which the foundation has set up the Sampoerna Academy in which students from underprivileged families could attain international-standard secondary level schooling. How does the foundation exemplify sustainability through their education initiatives?

For the Sampoerna Academy, we take the top five percent of academic achievers from junior high school and then select those that we believe have leadership potential. To me, the leadership potential is more important than the scholastic potential, so typically, from the five percent that qualify from an academic standpoint, maybe only 30 percent will be accepted by us. If you come to our academy in Bogor, you will see that the 24 provinces and four religions are represented by our students. We also have academies in Malang, Palembang and Bali.

These students are the smartest, the hungriest and come from the poorest families. We have them in our boarding school for three years so we can instill our value system into their DNA. The values are leadership, entrepreneurship, and giving back to society. That is why I insist they must be at the boarding school.

By the time they finish their education with us, they can speak fluent English and they have an International Baccalaureate (IB) certificate, or the equivalent, so they can go to any English-speaking university.

Now, we get donations from different companies, such as ExxonMobil Corporation who gave us around US$ 1 million to support 200 students, whom I bond Exxon with. It costs our academy US$ 5,000 per student and I hope that the sponsor will continue investing in the education of the students up to the tertiary level.

I do not give scholarships for my students. They have to pay me back a total of US$ 15,000 spent for the three years in the academy.

This is because I have invested in, let’s say, you, a student from a poor village. I call it an equity investment. I will support you through school and find other people to support you through school. As soon as you get a job, I’m entitled to 20 percent of your income throughout your life. If you say 20 percent is too high and so on, I would say why? I have taken a risk in you for 8 years. If I take you in or you do not finish school, then what? I have lost my investment, haven’t I?

But if you make it, even at 20 percent of your pay, you are already making seven times your pay because if you had not gone to university, you would only make only Rp 1 million per month instead of a starting salary six to seven times larger.

If you have a job making only Rp 3 million, then I only make Rp 600,000 with which, if you calculate, is not enough for what I have given you. I am not telling you what job to take, but you have a debt of honor with which you shall pay me 20 percent of your income.

This is basic Sharia. I do not charge you interest but we share the benefits.

If you look at it from that standpoint, I give you one more option. You can buy my equity investment in you back. So if you look at it from a business investment standpoint, then people start to understand.

We at the foundation have to find ways to keep things turning and hopefully, 20 to 30 years from now when our first round of students are already making a lot of money, they would be giving back to the Siswa Bangsa Cooperative. The cooperative is not mine, but is for the students. I am not making any money out of this but at least the next generation has a chance to.

Your ideas on a treating educational support as an equity is impressive. What are your concepts regarding providing funds for small and medium enterprises through the foundation’s Mekar branch?

We are working on an online business-to-business system which will work like a stock exchange. On the one side, we have small businesses that have gone through a selection process which we feature online. Then, on the other side, we can get into angel funding. They can go online and tell which business they like. They can even start partial investments so they could have a diverse portfolio.

This way, you can get everybody involved. You [investors] do not loose money. You will make more than what you make in a bank and helping your countrymen by creating jobs. That is my ultimate goal.

Now, we have screened applications from the bigger projects that come through to Jakarta. That will give the angels more comfort that somebody is doing the screening. We will send the investments that are big enough to have a business plan to our Sampoerna School of Business so even our students can get involved in helping. That’s the whole ecosystem.

How do you measure success when it comes to doing social business?

In the case of all our initiatives, we find that the general public is not aware of the extent of the limitations of the current systems in place. Our culture is rich in the willingness to give towards community support. Thus, if the public were aware of the needs, I am sure that we can get more people to participate in the various programs that we do.

So, my measure of success would be one based on the level of public awareness, support and participation we can garner. Unfortunately, right now, most of our big donors are foreigners. This is not right. Indonesians should help Indonesians. We can’t always be beggars. It’s not sustainable. So we have to try to get local corporations to participate and then we have to get local individuals.

As a businessman, believe me when I tell you that maintaining social harmony, especially in the communities around one’s activities, becomes an invaluable asset to corporate operations and peace of mind.

And which directions do you see the Putera Sampoerna Foundation moving in the future?

As a guideline, all PSF activities must at some time become rated at the top of its class or sector, economically viable, sustainable and bankable.

Article source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/03/05/banking-equities-leadership-and-social-business.html

Barack Obama Understands the Changing Philanthropic Sector

• Paul Anderson
• in
• Politics,
• General Politics

• Follow this Topic

• 8 hours ago

Share on Facebook

Barack Obama is the first president to truly understand the evolving nonprofit sector. His administration has embraced the social entrepreneurship movement, tripled the size of the national service corps, and spent nearly every cent of his political capital passing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the most sweeping social program since the creation of Medicaid.

The ACA provides significant direct and indirect support to non-profits. The ACA provides non-profits with 25 or fewer employees with a sizeable tax credit (note: these tax credits expire when the law comes into effect in 2014). 

The ACA also creates the health insurance exchanges for individual purchasers of insurance. Right now, the individual insurance market is prohibitively expensive – especially if you have a pre-existing condition. It’s well-established that a lack of insurance access discourages entrepreneurship, but people often forget that it discourages social entrepreneurship as well. Let’s say you want to start a pilot program through the legal structure of a nonprofit or social enterprise (could be 501c3, LLC, or L3C). You’re much more likely to take that risk and put your ideas to play in the free market if you can acquire insurance at an affordable rate. The fear of medical bankruptcy is a powerful driver of behavior. The non-profit sector is transient, and sometimes an individual might work as a consultant or on multiple projects across multiple legal structures. The creation of the individual exchanges allows for flexibility and risk-taking.

Beyond these direct impacts, the ACA will ease the heavy burden of the uninsured on non-profit hospitals and health care providers. It expands Medicaid dramatically, reducing the need for direct healthcare assistance to the working class and poor. It funds community health centers in areas where health care access is a persistent social problem. A lack of health insurance access creates a multitude of social problems in the United States, as do discriminatory practices by insurance companies. Universal healthcare will solve many of these problems and may put some nonprofits out of business. That sounds harsh, but when you get to fold up your tent and declare “Mission Accomplished”, that’s a good thing!

Obama has come under fire for his proposal to cap the charitable giving deduction and end several silly loopholes like the ridiculous charitable easement for golf courses (?!?). A University of Indiana study suggested that this would lead to a 0.4% decrease in charitable giving in the first year and a 1.3% decrease during the second year. Individuals give about 73% of all charitable donations, so the actual impact of this change would be a drop of about 0.3% and 1%, respectively.

The important thing to remember about this policy recommendation is that it has no chance of passing outside of the context of broad tax reform. In a world where taxpayers enjoyed lower marginal rates but could no longer take advantage of the charitable deduction, I believe that we would see a net increase in charitable donations. And in a world where secretaries often pay less in taxes than their billionaire bosses, some might argue that this tax change increases economic fairness, which is a social goal for many.

Obama has also worked to promote national service and capacity building programs. His service initiatives recognize the potential for the service-oriented Millennials and the retiring Baby Boomers. His crowning achievement was the bipartisan Edward Kennedy Serve America Act, which expanded the Americorps from 75,000 members to 250,000 members. It also authorized the Silver Scholars program, under which individuals 55 and older who perform 350 hours of service receive a $1,000 education award that can be applied to college tuition or transferred to a child or grandchild.

The Serve America Act also authorized the creation of Nonprofit Capacity Building grants, which provide organizational development assistance to nonprofits. In a nod to the growing Social Entrepreneurship movement, it authorized the Social Innovation Fund (SiF). The purpose of the SiF is to see that successful initiatives are brought to scale in other communities. Obama also created the White House Office of Social Innovation which has been tasked with instilling a social entrepreneurship ethic (metrics, accountability, etc) into federal agencies, among other things. Finally, he established the Semester of Service program that provides $500 education awards to high school students who engage in service-learning.

Before you whine about paying volunteers, remember that these are modest education credits and that Americorps members’ compensation barely crosses the poverty line. Many Americorps members qualify for food stamps. Also know that complaining about modest compensation for community service disqualifies you from any complaints about limiting the charitable deduction.

Obama also expanded Bush’s faith-based initiative and gave it a slightly more secular outlook (in response to civil liberties criticisms). I have always been a fan of this program. It made it easier for faith-based organizations engaged in direct human services to seek federal funding and is a recognition by the federal government that faith-based service providers often do a fantastic job in addressing social problems. After all – the first charities were largely faith-based.

Finally, I am certain that someone could list hundreds of cuts to discretionary spending that impact non-profits, but it seems odd to blame Obama for these cuts. When it mattered, Obama passed billions in temporary expansions to discretionary spending programs through the Recovery Act.

On the whole, Obama has been good for the philanthropic sector, and it’s no surprise. This is a man who understands both the potential and flaws of the nonprofit sector, having worked as a Community Organizer in Southside Chicago.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Article source: http://www.policymic.com/debates/4857/barack-obama-understands-the-changing-philanthropic-sector

Barack Obama Understands the Changing Philanthropic Sector

• Paul Anderson
• in
• Politics,
• General Politics

• Follow this Topic

• 8 hours ago

Share on Facebook

Barack Obama is the first president to truly understand the evolving nonprofit sector. His administration has embraced the social entrepreneurship movement, tripled the size of the national service corps, and spent nearly every cent of his political capital passing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the most sweeping social program since the creation of Medicaid.

The ACA provides significant direct and indirect support to non-profits. The ACA provides non-profits with 25 or fewer employees with a sizeable tax credit (note: these tax credits expire when the law comes into effect in 2014). 

The ACA also creates the health insurance exchanges for individual purchasers of insurance. Right now, the individual insurance market is prohibitively expensive – especially if you have a pre-existing condition. It’s well-established that a lack of insurance access discourages entrepreneurship, but people often forget that it discourages social entrepreneurship as well. Let’s say you want to start a pilot program through the legal structure of a nonprofit or social enterprise (could be 501c3, LLC, or L3C). You’re much more likely to take that risk and put your ideas to play in the free market if you can acquire insurance at an affordable rate. The fear of medical bankruptcy is a powerful driver of behavior. The non-profit sector is transient, and sometimes an individual might work as a consultant or on multiple projects across multiple legal structures. The creation of the individual exchanges allows for flexibility and risk-taking.

Beyond these direct impacts, the ACA will ease the heavy burden of the uninsured on non-profit hospitals and health care providers. It expands Medicaid dramatically, reducing the need for direct healthcare assistance to the working class and poor. It funds community health centers in areas where health care access is a persistent social problem. A lack of health insurance access creates a multitude of social problems in the United States, as do discriminatory practices by insurance companies. Universal healthcare will solve many of these problems and may put some nonprofits out of business. That sounds harsh, but when you get to fold up your tent and declare “Mission Accomplished”, that’s a good thing!

Obama has come under fire for his proposal to cap the charitable giving deduction and end several silly loopholes like the ridiculous charitable easement for golf courses (?!?). A University of Indiana study suggested that this would lead to a 0.4% decrease in charitable giving in the first year and a 1.3% decrease during the second year. Individuals give about 73% of all charitable donations, so the actual impact of this change would be a drop of about 0.3% and 1%, respectively.

The important thing to remember about this policy recommendation is that it has no chance of passing outside of the context of broad tax reform. In a world where taxpayers enjoyed lower marginal rates but could no longer take advantage of the charitable deduction, I believe that we would see a net increase in charitable donations. And in a world where secretaries often pay less in taxes than their billionaire bosses, some might argue that this tax change increases economic fairness, which is a social goal for many.

Obama has also worked to promote national service and capacity building programs. His service initiatives recognize the potential for the service-oriented Millennials and the retiring Baby Boomers. His crowning achievement was the bipartisan Edward Kennedy Serve America Act, which expanded the Americorps from 75,000 members to 250,000 members. It also authorized the Silver Scholars program, under which individuals 55 and older who perform 350 hours of service receive a $1,000 education award that can be applied to college tuition or transferred to a child or grandchild.

The Serve America Act also authorized the creation of Nonprofit Capacity Building grants, which provide organizational development assistance to nonprofits. In a nod to the growing Social Entrepreneurship movement, it authorized the Social Innovation Fund (SiF). The purpose of the SiF is to see that successful initiatives are brought to scale in other communities. Obama also created the White House Office of Social Innovation which has been tasked with instilling a social entrepreneurship ethic (metrics, accountability, etc) into federal agencies, among other things. Finally, he established the Semester of Service program that provides $500 education awards to high school students who engage in service-learning.

Before you whine about paying volunteers, remember that these are modest education credits and that Americorps members’ compensation barely crosses the poverty line. Many Americorps members qualify for food stamps. Also know that complaining about modest compensation for community service disqualifies you from any complaints about limiting the charitable deduction.

Obama also expanded Bush’s faith-based initiative and gave it a slightly more secular outlook (in response to civil liberties criticisms). I have always been a fan of this program. It made it easier for faith-based organizations engaged in direct human services to seek federal funding and is a recognition by the federal government that faith-based service providers often do a fantastic job in addressing social problems. After all – the first charities were largely faith-based.

Finally, I am certain that someone could list hundreds of cuts to discretionary spending that impact non-profits, but it seems odd to blame Obama for these cuts. When it mattered, Obama passed billions in temporary expansions to discretionary spending programs through the Recovery Act.

On the whole, Obama has been good for the philanthropic sector, and it’s no surprise. This is a man who understands both the potential and flaws of the nonprofit sector, having worked as a Community Organizer in Southside Chicago.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Article source: http://www.policymic.com/articles/4857/barack-obama-understands-the-changing-philanthropic-sector