Final Post

Well here we are. We have reached the end of the year – I am officially no longer a sophomore and my next official class will be aboard the MV Explorer (scary).
I was gone from class the week before, but I was in class for the last day and I’ll reflect on that. To be honest, I feel completely out-of-place. All the people sitting around me have so many qualifications I don’t feel it’s my place to speak up in class because…the conversations sometimes are just over my head. I did really try to pay attention and I think I was able to grow through this class and really put a staple on the amount of passion I have for the nonprofit sector, but still I feel out-of-place. Part of me just wants to drop out of school now and run away somewhere and start my life in a nonprofit organization, maybe work part-time in some awesome place. Point is, I think I need to start volunteering somewhere. I feel so ill-equipped when looking at my background, but that has only fueled me to try harder and to find opportunities.
There’s this really amazing quote by Mother Teresa that I think sums up my thinking about nonprofits and my wanting to work for them…in a sense:

“People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.”

Well with that I say Farewell. It’s been an awesome year.

Forgotten Blog: Post 6 – ART!

Here’s my deal with art. I loved (still love) it all the way until senior year – AP Art. Wanted to cry. The thing I dislike about art is that cruel art teachers feel it’s ok to pump out three (supposedly perfect) art pieces in one month while the student is still completing school. I think art should be loved and nurtured and worked on during bouts of inspiration. Not forcefully by an art teacher who is trying to mold you into her prodigy. Everyone has their own style and that’s it’s not always going to be what one person wants.
So I definitely need to step down from my soap box. I’m complaining because of my bad experience, but I really do believe that art can save lives, however, I don’t think it should be “taught” necessarily. that’s why I like these nonprofit art organizations because they give kids a creative vessel where they aren’t looking to get a grade. It’s a beautiful marriage.
Also, I’m really digging this ‘recycled art’ bit that people are coming up with. Like the ReArt festival Next Step Recycling is putting on in August and M.E.C.C.A. is all about recycling and exchanging too – whoo hoo. It’s a combination of environmental and art.

Forgotten Blog Post 4: International Nonprofits

So. Since I was going to write about international nonprofit organization and did most (some) of the research for it, yet didn’t end up writing my paper about it, why not make it into a forgotten blog post?!
Alas, I’m making up blog posts so here we go….
For international nonprofits I, of course, decided to look closely at New Zealand (big surprise). I, firstly, found out that they are called “Non-Profit Institutions” – and I can probably guess Sara isn’t too happy about that hyphen, but that’s what the Committee for the Study of the New Zealand Non-Profit Sector called for. Anyways I stumbled upon the International Journal of Not-For-Profit Law and found all of this very relevant information. The first nonprofits consisted of orphanages and Racing Clubs (horses). New Zealand’s history with NPIs is interesting because their native people, the Maori people, didn’t understand the institutions of nonprofits because they had always lived in a society that was described as an “economy of affection’ – this “institution” didn’t make sense to them because…well….isn’t that what everyone was suppose to do? They lived in a society where you helped everyone around you so there was no need for these organizations, says the Maori when they were first instituted. However, soon enough they realized the Europeans didn’t exactly share this “economy of affection” stuff….
There are five areas of criteria and to be in scope for the satellite account an organization much meet all five (however, within that rule there seems to be some flexibility).
The first criterion is to have an organization. They say this as “some degree of internal organizational structure; persistence of goals, structure and activities; meaningful organizational boundaries; or a legal charter of incorporation” (Statistic New Zealand, 2006). There are tons of little graphs depicting if the nonprofit is an “organization” basically testing to see if they are an organization or just an informal goup
The second criteria is to be Not-For-Profit (which is important in the nonprofit world, you know?). So, the organization can’t exist to generate profit or gain financially from this profit. In their graph they ask specifically “Are the members/owners/governing board able to gain financially” if it’s a no- you’re “in scope” if it’s a yes- you move to the next question: “Is the remuneration contractual”. If the answer’s no- you’re out of scope.
Criteria number three is set up to ask if the organization is institutionally separate from the government. The nonprofit cannot be a part of the apparatus of government and cannot exercise governmental authority in its own right. The point of this rule is to create an organization separated as an instrument for government for the benefit of an individual.
The fourth criterion is to be self governing. The organization must be able to control its own activities and not be under the control of another entity. This is so corporations or governments can’t control the movements of an organization for their own benefits. The last question on their graph to see if the organization is in scope (for this criterion) is “Are there govt appointees or corporate reps with veto power”. If no – you’re in scope, if yes- you are out.
The final criterion asks if the organization is non-compulsory. This means, as stated in the journal, “Non-compulsory means that membership and contributions of time and money are not enforced by law or otherwise made a condition of citizenship” basically stating that people are able to freely join – willingly to contribute voluntarily.

Final Project/Paper

My Research Question:
After meeting with Sarah on Wednesday to talk about my topic I finally feel I know what I’d like to research on. Basically what I’ll be writing on is the difference between international animal services – humane societies- and the US nonprofit sector for humane society services. I’ll be focusing on New Zealand and Oregon for my locations (because some laws are state specific) and the SPCA because my love for all of these subjects are infinite.
Passion?
Animals have always held a special place in my heart, probably a bigger spot than most humans. I think that animals have an uncanny ability to bring out the best in people while showing constant love and affection. I think that without their ability to speak regular old vocal language, you’re able to draw a closer connection because you have to watch their mannerisms to figure out exactly what they want (I’m cheesy- I know and accept this). And, I too have always wanted to work abroad because of my love for traveling and experiencing different cultures and people. Mixing these to inherent loves of mine seemed pretty obvious when I started to think about it. My dream job is to work for an animal focused nonprofit, but more specifically one that focuses on animal assisted therapy based on my belief that animals can basically cheer anyone up. Also, this would be whilst living in New Zealand and potentially working for the SPCA Humane Society there – it would be my own brand of heaven. When I was in the cook islands this last year, I met with people on Rarotonga working with the SPCA to alleviate cruelty to animals and their stories were inspiring. Ever since then I knew that I’d love to be in that sort of community while working with an animal nonprofit.
(bum bum buuum…Actually my dream job has a vacancy in New Zealand at the RNZSPCA in Auckland as a national fundraising and sponsorship manager. If only if only).
Some sources
Obviously the Royal New Zealand SPCA home page : http://rnzspca.org.nz/v
The American SPCA:http://www.aspca.org/
Gotta love wikis! : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_the_Prevention_of_Cruelty_to_Animals_%28disambiguation%29
(this, however, will be a great stepping stone for me to find practical “cut/dry” info for what I need)
Still looking for some law and regulations websites.

Some images to leave you with:

New Zealand

The SPCA

And just a really freaking adorable puppy

Slacking…? But Not On The Environment!

So, it’s true. I’ve been very terrible about my blog. At the beginning I was SO excited for it and did the readings closely. Now, however, I seem to being doing the readings as more of a “skimming” process instead of the full in depth evaluation (should I be telling you this by the way? probably not…). Regardless, I have a list of excuses but none would be a good excuse…there really aren’t good excuses for not doing homework. As my mother says “School is your #1 job”. I will say this though: I really dislike the book now. The more I read it the more upset I get that I have to read it; this might be a slight cause of my slacking. Although O’Neill lays out the nonprofit world very nicely, I feel like I’m not learning quality information because the statistics are from back in the 90′s. I can’t really get into the text because the text isn’t relevant to today.
Well I guess I can sleep easier because I don’t have to read an irrelevant “environmental nonprofit” text. Anyways- The Story of Stuff is an amazing documentary/website that really puts a damper on my life style! kidding….but true. It completely makes you reevaluate what you buy. My favorite, is of course, the “Story of Bottled Water”. I really enjoy things that can get an important point across simply and in under 30 minutes- some people only give a subject that much time to really impact them. Annie Leonard, I believe, has designed a remarkable marketing scheme in order to get her point across. Short. To the point. Based on truth. Awesome.
I read the Adbusters article named A Good Cause Gone Bad….why do I feel like this always happens? Good people get greedy, not all people, but a good some turn their backs on a once passion. I think of those people sometimes and wonder what the world corporate leaders and nonprofit mega millionaires were like as children. Did they share with the other kids? Did they have values when “a lot of money” was a dollar bill? Did they treat animals nicely? You know that a few had to be really great and innocent kids, so what went wrong.? Is money really the only thing driving these people to do unthinkable actions? Has environmental nonprofits really “lost their soul”? Obviously Christine MacDonald was not optimistic about the current predicament in this specific nonprofit sector, but I beg to differ. Although I have no solid evidence and I live in one of the most green cities in the country (so my opinion may be scewed) , I truly believe that more and more people are hopping on the green movement and paying more attention to the claims companies make. I feel (but maybe it’s because I’m doing it) that more and more people are questioning the things companies claim. Just as in “The Story of Bottled Water” showed, advertising is questioned (in the example of Fiji Water in Cleavland). So maybe things aren’t as bad as MacDonald leads us to believe….maybe…..just maybe….people are smart enough not to believe everything they see on billboards.

Edumacation

In class last Wednesday we spoke on the topic of Obama’s Education Plan. Now, what I got from it (which…could be wrong- I was suffering from a mono type virus so I was sleepy) was that Nonprofits were showing the blueprints of what he wanted to implement. Each one, from STEM, to College and Career Readiness, Effective Teacher and Leaders, Increasing charter schools and Longitudinal Data Systems all have great ideas. My thoughts on two of them….
Charter Schools: Whoooa! I wish I had something like this. I think school systems nowadays (actually just like most things) are regimented into a list of rules that are suppose to fit every child. But every child isn’t the same -doesn’t make much sense. I think charter schools work well because it ties in with the communities beliefs and lifestyle, however I can see where the problems would arise. By having teachers that wouldn’t have the typical training it might make teachers that went through schooling undesirable because they could be more expensive. However,I still think that without standard rules and regulations, that the school would produce children above “average” or “standard” because you’d have the opportunity to study in and environment that works best for you, so maybe the repercussions of teachers pay could be worth it.
STEM: Oh Bill Gates, you would have a implement that produces smart tech and science kids, but, I too, think that’s important. I pride myself on being a humanities, social sciences kinda gal – I do think that science, math, and technology are important for the furthering of information, it’s just not my thing. If it was taught better in school maybe I would have been able to learn it better. But, maybe I was just never meant to know science the way Mr. Gates understands it. Part of me feels that maybe the humanities and teaching social sciences is more important for human interaction, but to continue human interaction I guess you do need some kind of scientific understanding for medicine for example. I read an article last term that discussed that people were afraid of science and medicine because they didn’t understand it and that’s what made people so untrustworthy of companies involving science, medicine, or technology.

Other than that, the programs (maybe) being put in place seem to be making god strides to improve education…however, no one really knows the draw backs until it’s already too late. So we’ll see how this goes
I did do the readings, but private school talk really bored me. I didn’t really know what to write on the matter, so I just skipped it. I thought the discussion in class was much more beneficial just due to the fact that the class discussion was relevant to today and the book referred back to the 90s.

Sorrrrry.

My post has been postponed (pun intended) until my migraine subsides….hopefully by tomorrow I’ll wake up refreshed and not wanting to hide in a dark box.
Yay.