As we started to embark on our tour of The Children's Home's facilities, a familiar face called to me from a distance. As he walked closer to our group, I realized it was my friend JaVon who I often play basketball with. JaVon was a senior when I was a freshman (Class of 2013), played on the D1 basketball team, and returned to finish his Master's Degree at BU. A few weeks ago, I had actually been talking to JaVon about how he was spending his time post-graduation and what direction he was taking his career. He spoke passionately to me about the non-profit he was working at and how it not only allowed him to strive towards career goals and apply his education (he studied Urban Planning), it was also incredibly rewarding. It was so rewarding, actually, that JaVon made a point to tell me that the pay was not great and far below what someone with a Master's Degree can expect to make, yet he still loved the work and was so happy to be working there. Well I forgot exactly where JaVon had said he worked, but to my surprise on Tuesday, he apparently works at The Children's Home.
After seeing JaVon on Tuesday, I explained to him our project and he was thrilled to hear that the home could be getting more money and promised me that there could be no better place to donate the money. This recommendation means a lot for many reasons. The first is that JaVon is very experienced regarding non-profits. He has worked on service projects in recreation parks, in his hometown Boys and Girls Club in Harlem, and he does considerable work with special needs children. In short, JaVon has seen his fair share of charity. He is both educated and experienced. He knows a good non-profit when he sees one. Secondly, JaVon is working there for a measly wage and he has no long term commitment to the charity. He has told me he plans to return to Harlem by the summer time and his time at the Home will then be done. He will not personally benefit from our donation. Unlike an executive director or head of funding for an organization, JaVon has no reason to sell us on the home. His opinion carries much more weight to me than anything written in an RFP or said during a round table discussion or tour. However, let me note that both the round table discussion and tour left me very impressed.
For now, my conversation with JaVon has vaulted the home to the top of my rankings thus far. But, more importantly, it has instilled in me a new desire to tap into a resource we have not heavily considered: the opinions of the wage workers at the non-profits we are visiting. As I've said before, these workers can prove to be more reliable sources than the executive directors, CEOs, and RFPs. Their long-term success is often not tied to the organization. If they are willing to work there on a lesser wage and speak incredibly highly about the organization that certainly means excellent things for the organization. I want to find the most enthusiastic, meagerly paid non-profit workers and I want to listen to them tell me why their organization is great--and I'm likely to believe them.
I believe it is in our class' best interest to interview as many workers as we can. Or even just speak to them as we pass through the locations.
I'd like to raise a few questions for you all. Can we take all the executive directors have to say for truth? Or must we cynically take it with a grain of salt? Who are the most important people to speak to when evaluating an organization?
Please, share your thoughts with me.
Tim, this is such a great post! I enjoyed it so much, especially since I saw you talk to your friend JaVon while we were on the tour. I totally agree how speaking to workers is important in evaluating an organization. Speaking to workers is very important because we can get a very explicit point of view from them. Especially with the program grant, their wages could depend on whether or not we donate (although that is not the case here). However, if we base our evaluation with great emphasis on talking with the workers, we would see a similar trend between Children's Home and Catholic Charities thus var. At Catholic Charities, we didn't speak directly to any of the licensed psychologists (who are being paid around $12/hour, when the average is $19/hour), but what I took away from Vanessa was that there is a great amount of passion in the program. If the psychologists share this sentiment, they too are passionate, underpaid, program workers just as JaVon is. So, what distinguishes these two programs based on how passionate their workers are, their ability to speak truthfully about the program? How would we decide who to donate to? So, after that point, I think we should speak to participants of these programs. If we want to make a meaningful decision, we need to see if a program was actually meaningful to the people who live with the direct consequences of the program. This would be validation that the program is in direct alignment with the organization's mission. If we cannot speak to any of these people, then the closest we can get is the results reporting of the organization (knowledge/satisfaction-based surveys).
ReplyDeleteIn summary, I really enjoyed your post, and I agree with you in the fact that talking to workers and participants at the program level would guide us better rather than talking to administrators who is paid to sell the program to us!
I am so happy to hear that JaVon was just as passionate about the Children's Home as an executive trying to attain a donation might be! While I was not on the site visit that our class took last week, I have only heard great things about the Children's Home, and your post/encounter with JaVon just confirms all that I have heard. To answer your questions:
ReplyDelete1. Can we take all the executive directors have to say for truth? Or must we cynically take it with a grain of salt? I do believe that there is a fair amount of truth in what executive directors tell us. When we ask for the size of their programs, number of volunteers/employees, etc. these are hard facts that we can take with the most seriousness. However, it's when these executives start adding in biases such as, "This program has the ability to change the lives of many Binghamton youth/This program is the best in Binghamton," that is when we must be wary of what they are saying. I will use our trip to the YMCA as an example. While I really appreciated our guide's passion and personal antidotes, he seemed to be adding in too many personal biases into our tour. While it is great to know that he is passionate about the program, I did not want to hear that he wanted us to fund a specific program because it is the one that HE most identifies with. This is all opinion, and who is to say that he didn't just tell us these things to sell us on the YMCA.
2. Who are the most important people to speak to when evaluating an organization? I would most like to talk to the people who the organization has impacted. For example, while I enjoyed our Catholic Charities visit, I felt as though we were so removed from the actual counselors/counseled, that I did not get a real sense of what the program does for people. It is important to get a first person point of view of each program, not an outside party, who may be biased because they want our funding. That is why I hope to at least meet with a counselor from Catholic Charities prior to our final presentations, because their experience may provide so much more information than someone trying to get our grant.
I hope this answers your questions, thank you for a great post!
It is true that we cannot always take the director’s words as the truth and must be slightly skeptical of them. However, I do believe that we must use our best judgement to determine how much of what they say we can believe, since we can also not just automatically dismiss what they are saying. How they convey their organization might provide us with useful information even if it is only their level of passion that they have for what they do. In this respect, I believe the YMCA, as well as Urban League, have conveyed the most sincere regard for what they do. That is not to say that the directors of the other sites we have visited were not passionate about what they do, because I am sure most people in this field do it because of their genuine desire to help; especially due to the fact that even the directors do not make the most money doing what they do.
ReplyDeleteI think you raised an interesting point about reaching out beyond the directors to get opinions of others that might be more meaningful. In my opinion, for the sake of getting the most unbiased response, it is not the other workers that will provide this information. Speaking to other workers such as JaVon would surely give us a sense of their passion. However, they have developed relationships with the children and other personal ties to the organization that may make them more willing to want to support them (going back to the question of why we give). Rather, to get a full idea of the services that the organization has provided, the impact they are truly making on the children, and how successful their programs have been, I believe it would be more useful to interview the children, themselves, and families of the children who have utilized the organization’s services.
This was an intriguing read because I have never thought about the opinion of a worker when considering where our class donation should go. You make a great point! I also found it to be interesting and helpful that we were able to see your friend working at the organization because it adds a very personal connection for the donor. The fact that one of my classmates knew someone who has a passion for working at the Home and is a Master's degree graduate says a lot about the organization as a whole. I completely agree with you on that. Also, it is key to note who presents to us at each organizational meeting. Our first visit with Catholic Charities was conducted by the program director, the YMCA presenter was a salesman, the Children's Home consisted of 3 team leaders, and Urban League presented us with the program director and CEO. I think that the role that each person in these organizations serves does a prime job at identifying how they want to pursue obtaining our money. The fact that the YMCA chose a salesman to present to us rings an alarm in my head because his job is to obtain grants and everything - however, he did not know much about the program that the RFP listed. He seemed to just be selling us the YMCA and although it is a great organization, we do not really know where our money is going as he was not very informed about the program himself. I found that the organizations who presented their CEO/program director to us to be very respectful because that means they are taking our student's seriously. Similar to our discussion of Oasis before, it really throws the class off when non profits do not take students seriously. I am glad that more than half of the organizations that we chose presented to us in such a well manner. A side note, the Urban League also presented a DVD for us which I thought was such a sweet thought - but something that definitely separates them from the all the other organizations. The passion that each organization represented really distinguishes each of them from the rest.
ReplyDeleteTim, I found your post to be very interesting and insightful as it brought about a new way that we could evaluate organizations. This new way of evaluating organizations can help us and many other prospective donors make a more informed decision about where they should donate their money. Unfortunately, I do not believe that we can trust everything that CEO’s and executive directors say because just like any other business, they want us to think that they are the most amazing thing that has ever happened in this world so that we will donate to them. So, I may be cynic, but I do believe that when a CEO or director is praising their organization, we must be smart enough to look deeper into it and find out for ourselves whether or not their organization is actually as good as they claim. On the other hand, I do agree with you and your claim that speaking to underpaid and enthusiastic workers is very beneficial. The opinions of these people are beneficial because they actually see what the organization does and helps the organization obtain its goals. Also, since these workers may not work at the company for very long, they should not be too biased towards their company. With that said, I also think that anyone working for an organization has some form of bias towards their organization simply because they are a part of it. No matter how meagerly paid or how short of a time someone will remain at an organization for, they will still feel for their fellow employees and those who they are helping which will cause them to be biased. These workers will be much less bias which is why I do believe that we should speak with them; however, they are not the most important people to speak to when evaluating an organization. The most important people to converse with are the participants in the program and their family members. These people have had direct contact with the organization and program and can tell how much it has effected them. Family members can also see to what degree a program changed their loved ones life for the better or worse. Since these people have directly experienced the program and see the effects of the program every day, they are the most important people to speak to when considering an organization.
ReplyDeleteHey Tim, nice post. I'm glad that JaVon is doing something that he is passionate about and that he enjoys. I do not have any problems taking into account the opinions of wage workers at nonprofits. However, I am a little skeptical of placing too much emphasis on the words of workers. Let me explain why.
ReplyDeleteMy first issue deals less with the idea itself and more with your story. You talk about how you know JaVon, and how he is a great guy. He has been working in the field of philanthropy for a long time and so is very experienced. While that is good, it is very unlikely for us to know the average wage worker in most charities. When we ask someone their opinion on the charity they work for, we will not know their character.
A second problem that could arise would be a similarity in answers. A parallel that I've seen in the nonprofits we've visited (as well as JaVon) is overqualified workers, working for relatively little pay. To me, this says that these people care more about the work they are doing then about the pay. Of course this is admirable, but it also means that they might will see the charities they work for as good and deserving of our money. Still they may point out areas where their organization could be improved, or more effective.
Overall I found your post very interesting. I had not thought about asking wage workers their opinion before this. If we factor some potential problems then I think it would be great to ask wage workers their opinions.
I think this is a very interesting and important variable to consider, I'm surprised we didn't consider it earlier. Employees are the voice of a company, in this case a non-for profit, because they put everything into action and maintain operations. Employee happiness is important to the success of a company and a telling sign that executives care about them. Therefore, when evaluating an organization, I think employee opinion is vital. We may only visit an organization for a short time, but employees come in everyday and see the intricacies of the job. They see what needs improvement, what works, and can come up with solutions to problems. If we utilizes and value their opinion, we can gain further insight to the organization and use it as a tool to help us determine where our grant money should go.
ReplyDeleteSome questions that I would consider asking now (specifically to employees) are:
1) What do enjoy most about your job?
2) What are some work-related challenges you face?
3) Why do you come into work everyday?
4) Do you have any suggestions as to how the organization can improve?
5) If you could distribute our grant money throughout the organization, where would you allocate it?
Overall, I really enjoyed reading your post and am glad that you brought this topic up.
Tim, thank you for talking about this! I remembered you speaking to your friend JaVon and he seemed very prideful not only about the work he was doing but also the Children's Home of Wyoming Conference as a whole. I remembered he saying something along the lines that we were making a great choice by visiting. Seeing people genuinely passionate about the work about they're doing is so inspiring. As far as your questions go, I think that we should take what executive directors say as genuine, especially when considering hard facts they're telling us, such as numbers (whether it be in budgets, staff, volunteers, participants, etc) and activities offered. However, they can be biased when it comes to their organization if they say something to the effect of "this organization does the most to support Broome County youth and their families" because that is something a little more relative and it depends on what the criteria for what the "most" is. But that doesn't mean they they're lying about that, in their minds. It's like if someone has a child. Almost every parent thinks their kid is the most special ray of sunshine in the world and the best at everything they try to do because it's their child and they love them. Many executive directors do the work because they're passionate and love it, and therefore will often believe that they are at the best organization. So an organization being the "best" at something has to be proven to us to make us believe that is the case. I think that you bring up a really interesting point about talking to volunteers and workers at the organizations. This is because they tend to see the grassroots day-to-day and clients that many directors might not see every day. Furthermore, interacting with clients really gives a direct view of their needs and if they are being met as well as their growth through their time with the organization. I wish when considering organizations we could also spend some time with volunteers and entry-level workers in order to get a more complete picture about what they see in the organization. They would be able to give us a different perspective that would be very helpful when considering the effectiveness of the work they are doing day-to-day. I hope that directors also see their workers as a great resource to consider effectiveness.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting topic, Tim. I never really considered the worth of interviewing the wage workers of these non-profits before. I've worked as a wage worker for many different organizations. From what I've discovered from reading your post is that I actually have an extremely good idea of how the entirety of the organization is run. I probably have a better idea than many of the higher ups, only because I'm around every facet of how the higher-ups place their ideas into action.
ReplyDeleteInterviewing the wage workers would give us an extremely thorough understanding of the day-to-day workings of the organization. Also, many of them would probably give us an honest answer as to how they view the non-profit and their ability to carry out their mission effectively.
However, our class has time constraints, so it would be very difficult. But in terms of understanding an organization in our own philanthropic missions, interviewing the wage workers is a great idea.