Trash Removal

After I published my last post there was a google ad on my "successful post" page for a trash removal company. Coincidence?

The garbage in my alley

My daughter has my camera or I would post another picture of the garbage in my alley. After weeks of seeing the image in my June 13th post, one of my neighbors finally went out and gathered the pile of garbage into a neat line of about six large black bags. Since then the garbage trucks have been by twice but they have not taken the garbage. One of my neighbors said the garbage collectors said they only pick up the garbage from the black dumpsters and they would need help from someone from the neighborhood to lift all of the extra bags into their truck. Somehow, I guess, we are supposed to know when they are coming and be out their waiting for them.

In the meantime, alley scrappers have ripped the bags apart to go through them and the garbage, once again, is strewn throughout the alley.

Here is the dilemma. If I call Streets and Sanitation, they will ticket my neighbor who I know does not have discretionary funds to pay fines. I also don't want to be targeted as the neighbor who complains. So the garbage remains. There is another pile of garbage just like it a few houses down.

Walter Brueggemann on Preaching

"I believe that many preachers finally get around to their sermon in their fatigue from everything else, and if imagination is the key to good preaching, you cannot be imaginative when you are exhausted."

Pray for peace in Iran

Listen to the desperation in this poem from one woman, alone in the dark on a rooftop in Tehran. I pray today for freedom from tyranny and oppression in Iran. That God's shalom will prevail.

The worst question to ask a charity

Rosita Cortez, one of the people I follow on Twitter, linked me to this article by Dan Pollata on the Harvard Business Publishing blog. He writes about one of the most frequently asked questions that affects a nonprofit's rating with Charity Navigator, the Better Business Bureau, and the American Institute of Philanthropy. The question is "What percentage of my contribution goes to the cause rather than to overhead?"

His point is that because these watch dog groups make this the only question in determining an organization's effectiveness, they don't lead donors to consider the more important question, "Is the organization making a difference?"

How can that be, you ask? Well, the media, the watchdogs, and the sector itself have done an amazing job of training the public to think that the two things are the same, i.e., that if a charity has low overhead, it must be making a difference. Major studies on the relationship between organizational strength and impact find otherwise.

A strong organization needs a strong infrastructure. By continually forcing charities to scrimp on such things as operational management, fund raising, human resource development, marketing and information technology, misinformed funders are weakening the potential of nonprofits to diversify their funding base and ensure for the welfare of their staff.

Here's a link to another article from Bridgespan entitled, Nonprofit Overhead Costs: Breaking the Vicious Cycle of Misleading Reporting, Unrealistic Expectations, and Pressure to Conform, that makes a similar case. the authors write, "When nonprofit organizations are able to invest adequately in staffing and infrastructure-- “overhead”--they are better able to carry out their missions."

At Breakthrough we try to stretch every dollar. Funding for overhead is the most difficult to find and yet it I believe adequate funding for overhead is essential for us to carry out our mission effectively. Here's what I would suggest you do before you give to any organization.

• Visit the organization to witness their effectiveness
• Meet the leaders of the organization
• Ask to see an audited financial statement
• Spend time observing operations
• Volunteer so you get to know the staff and observe how they relate to the program participants
• Ask about the accountability structure of the organization and the involvement of the Board of Directors
• Ask how the organization measures outcomes

If you like what you see and you determine that you can trust the organization to use your donation wisely, give an undesignated gift so it can be used where it is most needed.

Skid Row LA

After awhile you tend to give up

This is a picture from my back door of the alley behind my apartment. It has looked like this for weeks. So why don't I clean it up? Probably for the same reason none of us on the block do. After awhile you get used to it, overwhelmed by it, and just give up. Maybe tomorrow.

Laughter is the Best Medicine

Interesting facts about Warren Buffet

Here are some very interesting facts about Warren Buffet, the second-richest man, who has donated $31 billion to charity.

He bought his first stock share at age 11 and he now regrets that he started too late!

He bought a small farm at age 14 with savings from delivering newspapers.

He still lives in the same small 3-bedroom house in mid-town Omaha, that he bought after he got married 50 years ago. He says that he has everything he needs in that house. His house does not have a wall or a fence surrounding it.

He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or security people around him.

He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world's largest private jet company.

Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 63 companies. He writes only one letter each year to the CEO's of these companies, giving them goals for the year! He never holds meetings or calls them on a regular basis.

He has given his CEO's only two rules:

Rule number 1: Do not lose any of your shareholder's money.

Rule number 2: Do not forget rule number 1.

He does not socialize with the high-society crowd. His pastime, after he gets home is to make himself some popcorn and watch television.

Bill Gates, the world's richest man met him for the first time only 5 years ago. Bill Gates did not think he had anything in common with Warren Buffet, so he had scheduled his meeting only for half hour, but when Gates met him, the meeting lasted for ten hours, and Bill Gates became a devotee of Warren Buffet.

Warren Buffet does not carry a cell phone, and he doesn't have a computer on his desk.

His advice to young people: Stay away from credit cards and invest in yourself and remember:

A. Money doesn't create man but it is the man who created money.

B. Live your life as simple as you are.

C. Don't do what others say, just listen to them, but do what you feel is good.

D. Don't go on brand names; just wear those things in which you feel comfortable.

E. Don't waste your money on unnecessary things; rather, spend on those people who are really in need.

F. After all it's your life, then why give chance to others to rule your life?

G. The best investment you can ever make, is to invest in the Kingdom of God.

Cause Marketing vs. the Virtue of Giving

Here's a link to an interesting article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy asking the question, "Does Cause Marketing Replace Virtue with 'Mindless Buying'?" Writer, Brennen Jensen, refers to an article by Angela M. Eikenberry, assistant professor in the School of Public Administration at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, in the Stanford Social Innovation Review,in which she makes the case that

"the short-term benefits of cause marketing—also known as consumption philanthropy—belie its long-term costs. These hidden costs include individualizing solutions to collective problems; replacing virtuous action with mindless buying; and hiding how markets create many social problems in the first place. Consumption philanthropy is therefore unsuited to create real social change."

I think she makes a great point. Do we encourage more consumption in order to fund causes that have become causes because of consumption?

Faith Leaders Are Green Mapping Harlem

“Faith leaders are responding because we have a mandate from our faith to protect the poor and to protect human life… Sojourner Truth had her watch. Martin Luther King, Jr. had his watch. This is our watch, and on our watch, this is the issue. On our watch people are dying. Whole communities are being held captive to environmental injustices and it’s our mandate to do something about that.” -- Lisa Sharon Harper, NY Faith and Justice

Prison, Drug Crimes and Racial Disparities

Here are some facts posted recently by Protestants for the Common Good.

• The United States leads the world in the number - 2.3 million - and percentage of residents it holds in prison. One in every 38 individuals is involved with the criminal justice system through probation, parole, prison or jail.
  
• About 78 percent of Illinois drug offenders are African-American, vastly higher than their 15 percent share of the overall population.
  
• A Human Rights Watch study from 2000 found that Illinois ranked first in the country with respect to racial disparities in prison sentences for drug crimes.
  
• The number of African-Americans admitted to prison in Illinois for drug offenses grew from 1,421 in 1990 to 9,088 in 2000 - a six-fold increase. During this same period, there was virtually no change in the number of whites admitted to prison.
  
• This difference exists despite the fact that rates of illicit drug use vary little by ethnicity.

Is incarceration the new slavery?

The Importance of Preschool

Because my grandson was not talking very well at age three he was eligible for free preschool in Will County. My daughter and I talk all the time about what an incredible blessing it was that preschool was made available to him. He will start kindergarten next fall with a much better chance of success.

Unfortunately, in my community on the west side of Chicago and other low income Chicago neighborhoods, most of the children do not have this advantage. Recent research conducted by Community Organizing and Family Issues (COFI), found that 40 to 64% of preschool aged children in low-income communities are not in any early education program. The report, “Why Isn’t Johnny In Preschool?” is based on over 5,000 interviews in 19 low-income African-American and Latino neighborhoods across the city.

The Catalyst Notebook blog noted, "Factors that kept children out of preschool included lack of transportation, scheduling conflicts, immigrant families’ fear of deportation and a shortage of slots."

We were encouraged to learn that the students who participated in our Breakthrough Beginners program tested at 72% in the Bracken Kindergarten Readiness Assessment, compared to 17% for those in our after school program who did not attend Breakthrough Beginners. What a difference good early childhood education makes! We plan to open a licensed preschool in our new FamilyPlex facility scheduled to open in 2011.

School Attendance and Academic Success

Research conducted by the University of Chicago shows that a student's attendance is 8 times more predictive of failure than prior test scores.

This is especially significant for us at Breakthrough because we learned recently that at our local high school, John Marshall HS, the average number of days missed by students is 95 out of 180 days in the school year. Is it any wonder that in 2008, only 4% of the 11th graders at Marshall met or exceeded the state standards in the PSAE (Prairie State Achievement Exam)?

Here's a link to a Catalyst Notebook post about what not-for-profits should do to help students graduate. “There are a lot of really good programs out there,” said Elaine Allensworth, a co-director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research. “But if the people who work with kids don’t know how they are doing in class, they’re working blind.”

Garfield Park Preparatoy Academy

We are excited to welcome Garfield Park Preparatory Academy , a new contract school to our neighborhood. GPPA is the result of a two-year effort by the Applied Behavior Analysis Department to establish an elementary school that would improve elementary education in unique and powerful ways and also leverage the talents of Chicago School faculty and graduate students. It is slated to open in September and will share space with Faraday Elementary School, 3250 W. Monroe St.

PS22: You make me smile

NYC public school children singing Landslide by Fleetwood Mac



Who is that teacher?!!!

Bring Your Lunch

My message at River City Community Church on 5-24-09.

What the warm weather brings

Two people were killed in our neighborhood last night. The shooting occurred near Horan Park at Kedzie and Van Buren, where our Breakthrough kids play t-ball, soccer and softball. While most of us are happy to see warm weather finally descending upon Chicago, the sad fact is, when the weather warms up, the violence escalates. Please pray for the safety of our neighbors, staff and program participants and that God would give us grace as we minister to people who are facing extremely difficult situations.

Truth, Soul and Social Justice

Thanks to Breakthrough Youth and Family staffer, Robin Rankin, for linking me to this great Commencement Speech from John Legend, University of Pennsylvania, College of Arts and Sciences May 17, 2009.

The High Cost of Poverty

There was a great article in Monday's Washington Post about how expensive it is to be poor. The poor pay more for a gallon of milk, pay more for inferior housing, for transportation and health care. Prices at the corner stores are higher. You spend time waiting for the bus and at the laundromat. You spend money at check cashing and pay day loan joints, etc. etc.

Here's another link to an article from a paper in Texas that makes the point that the poverty line is set too low.

Consider the current U.S. “poverty line” amount for a single-parent family with two children. According to the Census Bureau, the 2008 amount was $17,346. Would this annual income cover a family’s basic needs?

According to the Economic Policy Institute’s Web site, this three-person family in the Kerrville area (rural Texas) must earn $31,320 annually to pay for key necessities, without setting aside any money in savings or investments.

Is this our country's way to keep the number of people living in poverty down? Just don't change the "poverty line" level even though prices go up?