Åhe, you can't see

I still need to get a digital camera, because looking at walls of text is undoubtedly boring. There are certainly lots of opportunities here in Guåhan, despite the fact that rainy season just started and every day entails a decent amount of foreboding skies.

Two awesome developments on the project front:

1. My project partner and I are nearly at the end of completing the first round of our project. Basically, our kids were able to interview an elderly person about her time during World War II with a minimum of boredom-showing (they are ranging in age from 4-10 years, after all, and a certain amount of fidgety-ness should be expected) for nearly 40 minutes, and they loved every minute of it. Most of all, I am really proud that I took the interview--done entirely in Chamoru--to my mother, and she listened to the whole thing in a wholehearted way. I don't think I've ever seen her be so interested in a strictly auditory thing, including my old radio show.

2. My project partner and I are trying to write another grant due July 1. I think this brings the total number of grants I've ever written up to three. I am seriously questioning, however, at what rate it is prudent to grow. Specifically, we're considering expanding our project's budget by nearly threefold, and only after about two months of in-depth planning and two weeks of actual implementation. My great fear is to devolve the way of other rapidly grown businesses and nonprofits, their capacities having been exhausted far too fast.

But then again, I'm not a huge business/financial/educational risk-taker. I do want to iterate, however, that I don't think conservatism (regarding risk) and innovation are mutually exclusive.

Bleh. Well, that was another stupendously interesting post. I gotta get some pictures.

First day on the project and I wasn't totally traumatized!

I got up at 5:30 this morning to take a few breaths before reporting for duty at 7am.

Keep in mind that the youngest person I've ever taught was 16 years old, and a fairly mature 16 at that. I approached this day with a fair amount of trepidation--both because I just don't have that much experience with kids and I'm deathly afraid of getting sick (from what I understand, schools are hothouses of disease--and this probably only slightly an overstatement).

However, I did learn today that kids are actually not that different than adults. Teaching them requires a slightly simpler vocabulary and attention to how long individual activities take. But kids have essentially the same sorts of issues that adults have--needing a teacher who smiles a lot, projects lots of energy and enthusiasm, and is constantly monitoring for feedback. In many ways, I think kids have a greater potential to pay attention because they don't have cell phones or Blackberries to distract them.

So, in short, it was a real pleasure to work with 9-year-olds and above!

And on the project development front itself, learning to work with someone new is always challenging, but I'm really optimistic that my project partner and I are going to come to agreement about how to develop curricula.

I wish I had a funny little story about teaching today, as this post is more "technical" than I would like, but as it were, no kid threw up, cried (during our lesson, anyway), or got punished... so I'll take that.

Another hiccup

The great thing about going to Guåhan is, naturally, that as I pursue this project (about which eventually I'll elaborate its specific purposes and methods), I get to learn Chamoru.

Unfortunately/fortunately, in the meantime I'll make lots of mistakes.

Our first one has to do with our name, which is a pain because we already bought the domain name for our future website. Basically, there are lots of different kinds of pronouns in Chamoru, and while I didn't use the wrong one, it's not quite a smooth translation. It's the difference, apparently, between saying "Hi! Our name is..." and "Hi! Us name is..." You'd get the idea from the second one, but a native speaker probably wouldn't use it.

Obviously, this raises the first issue if you're going to name your project/business in a language you're learning: be sure you've thoroughly vetted your linguistic stuff. We knew we should have, but seeing as everything hit at the same time (major deadlines for school, moving, thesis due, general nervous breakdowns), I guess a protracted conversation with native speakers didn't quite make the priority list.

In the meantime, I'm soliciting some ideas for a new project name for any Chamoru speakers who might read this thing (at this point, one of you). The next post will give you an idea of what I'm looking for.

A slight hiccup

Last week I spent approximately two full days actually using the Internet for work--namely, trying to figure out activities to engage the teenagers our project targets. Specifically, our project targets younger teenagers (like 13+) and develops communication skills, like listening, asking questions, and engaging in deep inquiry about complex concepts like history and truth.

My partner and I might be in for a slight curriculum adjustment, however, because we just got word that we're working with 8 to 12-year-olds. There are no words with which I can express the bone-crushing, nerve-rending trepidation now pulsing through my body.

1. We're working with expensive audio equipment. And we're checking it out to individual kids or groups of kids. Or at least we were. But I guess being a teacher is all about adjusting, eh?

2. I have never, ever, ever worked with children, except for the few months where I babysat a 9-year-old and his mouthy 11-year-old brother. But that gig didn't entail teaching and working with kids. It required me to have McDonald's on speed dial for delivery (yes, you can get McDonald's delivered in Manhattan) and say repeatedly, "No, not until your homework is done."

Oh. My. God.

Life after thesis-ing

I can see now how blogging can be a pain in the ass. It's not that nothing has happened to me over the past two weeks--it's that upholding the enthusiasm in regards to writing about aforementioned things is difficult to do.

Regardless, a major milestone has been accomplished. I finally finished my thesis on nationalism and education, and can now begin doing things like regularly cleaning my room, riding my bike, and doing laundry.

On the project front, my partner and I had a good meeting on equipment purchases and curricula development last Thursday. By this Friday we intend to get all of the necessary tech supplies for the project. Our collaboration on-island has coalesced a bit more. Today we also have another meeting with the head of his department who was interested in potentially publicizing our work. We are definitely going to hit the ground running when we arrive in Guåhan.

Last but not least, I've downloaded a copy of Genius in order to work on developing my Chamoru language skills. You can read all about the program, which utilizes an algorithm to maximize individuals' memorization skills, here.

Oh dear

As if donor suspicion regarding nonprofits weren't enough.

The New York Times Report Sketches Crime Costing Billions: Theft from Charities

And on the project front, I had a really excellent meeting without someone who had worked for foundations before and is now in the academic machine. He essentially told me to take my project for-profit if possible, equating the nature of nonprofit organizations to slavery. Strong words, but given his stance on nonprofits as an extension of the service industry, not necessarily a stretch, either. When I was an undergrad way back in the late 90s I was expecting to maybe swing around $23,000 for a starting position at a New York nonprofit--and this was after I had already donated nine months worth of time (about 540 hours) to one museum.

His advice regarding my ongoing problem of figuring out how to network with other nonprofits and gain informal kinds of technical assistance? Be straight up, transparent, and if worse comes to worse, play the student card and pretend I'm researching the organization.

Future topic: Founder's Syndrome. He apparently had tried to write a grant for an organization, and it turned into a tortuous process (I assume, given his facial expression) because of the founder's inability to cede control (and perhaps rhetoric) in order to persuade rich people to give the organization money.

Competition, nonprofit style 2

In this week's previous post, I asked a general question regarding nonprofit organizations' abilities to patent and sue on behalf of innovations they make. In also used "nonprofit organization" interchangeably with "social justice movements" and will be more careful in this post to make the distinction.

I haven't read INCITE's The Revolution Will Not Be Funded (yet), but did read Gerard Alexander's (2007, April 23) "The Nonprofit Industrial Complex" from the Weekly Standard. Alexander's conservative orientations lead him to critique nonprofits (or otherwise termed the independent sector) for their left-wing tendencies, but he makes some salient points, namely:

• Nonprofit endowments or foundations invest around $1 trillion annually
• Nonprofits are largely unregulated, either by government or stakeholders in the organizations, like clients or government (this critique coming from a neoconservative, no less!)
• Nonprofits can become unofficial extensions of government agencies
• Foundational influence can decrease over time given newfound corporate influx in philanthropic giving and changes in the nonprofit sector itself, with specific transitions for hospitals and educational institutions into profitable enterprises (i.e. Blue Shield, University of Phoenix)

I'm going to exclude universities from my discussion of nonprofits and intellectual property as it should be self-evident what that relationship is.

But I will still open discussion regarding intellectual property rights for the nonprofits I am especially interested in, like those involved in youth social programs. Tangentially, here's a good case study.

Other countries, for example, were able to replicate the core business model of this agency. The core business model, however—a marketplace-style mode of matching donors and project proposals—was contingent on software that could produce matches and facilitate the proposal fulfillment process. I have no idea how sophisticated or expensive this software was to develop, but I am sure that the donation by Yahoo! of technical assistance (months of volunteering by engineers) amounts to a significant outlay of time, expertise, and would have been completely inviable without the donation. This agency, modelled as the primo example of social entrepreneurship, seeks to become self-sufficient through a user's fee paid out by donors, but I am not sure to what extent the agency currently is self-sufficient. I will be interested as the woes of this recession play out.

Indeed, anyone in the nonprofit world should be so concerned.

Competition, nonprofit style

The program planning took a backseat role this weekend as I rushed the first draft of my thesis to a self-imposed deadline today. The good news, as far that headache is concerned, is that I have a lot data and ideas with which to work. The bad news is that I'm at 70 pages, I have a few more ideas to develop, and the department sets an approximate page limit of 50 pages. Part of me wants to continue just to see if it's possible to get an honorary doctorate for being prolific--but then again, I guess every lame-ass blogger would be eligible as well.

On the program front, I did have an awesome meeting with a program director today, seeking answers to questions about curriculum development. But here's the issue: given the funder limitations out there, how do nonprofits compete with each other?

The first answer is that those who do not write enough grants or who suck at programs/management just fade out.

The second answer is that some nonprofits (like those modelled on emerging social entrepreneurial frameworks) have innovative programming and therefore have some sort of first-mover advantage in securing funding.

The third answer is that some successful nonprofits are able to outsource their work through subcontracts to sustain other nonprofits that are not yet as "developed" or even incorporate smaller nonprofits to grow.

The answer I'm interested in, however, relates to the innovation and the intellectual property rights that a successful nonprofit might have. Since I do curriculum development, I want to get some ideas from organizations that are already established. Some of these orgs are set to publish their curricula and sell them, either to sustain programming or offset print costs. But at the same time, for a pilot project that simply does not have the start-up capital to gain technical assistance, I am really shy to ask, "Can I look at your work and take a few ideas?"

Culturally speaking, within the nonprofit world my first reaction is that workers are generous with their knowledge and skills given the lack of profit incentive. But philanthropy is increasingly directed by donors and competitive. Additionally, with the professionalization of grassroots movements and the exponentially growing field of "consultancy," is it possible that those involved in social justice movements will become just as assertive in claiming ownership of their methods as those in the corporate world? Could it be possible to patent and sue on behalf of a movement's techniques?

The start of March madness (not basketball)

Having secured that aforementioned grant, now is the time to not only finish this master’s thesis which has been dogging me for at least six months now, but also to start program planning. I intend for this project to be a full-fledged program—partially because my inherently neurotic nature demands a pretty organized and logical follow-through and partially because I’m terrified to land in Guåhan and flail around physically, emotionally, and professionally.

So from here on out a few of my posts are going to be related to the maturity of my project and my reflections on the coming challenges.

To date: I’ve had one meeting with my project partner and we’re working on a logic model and mission statement. Today I wrote three emails outlining our current needs (lesson plans for listening, interpersonal skills development, leadership training) and hoping to schedule appointments with other organizations who either share our social justice goals, target populations, and/or mediums of projects (i.e. video, the web).

What’s a logic model? This is a chart that project planners use. Let’s say you want to start a project that addresses a social problem, like poverty. A logic model compartmentalizes the ways that you’ll tackle this problem. It shows you what kinds of resources/INPUTS you already have (money, facilities, staff), the ACTIVITIES you'll do to attack an aspect of the problem (provide social worker counseling sessions), some ways you'll measure the scope of what you're doing (listing how many sessions a social worker might have in a month and with how many clients), and some OUTCOMES (clients get hooked up to health and food pantry services). There's another box for IMPACT, which measures the long-term success of a project. An example of an appropriate impact here would be the eradication of poverty. Logic models show how a process works and where there might be problems in the implementation of that process, as well as reveal inconsistencies in the process and problem.

Here's an example of a logic model.