Imagine having no middle school for your child. That’s the situation for many East Austin families. A new middle school not only fills that void, it creates an innovative learning environment that prepares these kids for college – not just high school but college.

Tomorrow night (November 5), Southwest Key will host an open house for the East Austin College Prep Academy. They’re very proud. And they want everyone to attend.

We had a feature about mentoring and middle school and drop-out rates in AISD in our latest issue (download it here). Frankly, the numbers scare the hell out of me. And if you plan to raise a family in Austin, they should scare you, too.

Great news: Not only can you do something about it, others are doing something about it, too.

Southwest Key has a weird name but you should get to know them because they are the largest Hispanic-serving nonprofit in Austin. They started this middle school where there was none, and it’s going to make a huge difference in Austin’s Hispanic community.

We talked to John Turner, the Interim Director of Communications for Southwest Key.

1. This year there were 90 sixth graders that started the academy. Next year you’ll have a seventh grade and then an eighth grade campus. Who are these students and what middle schools/high schools would they otherwise attend?

We are based in the Govalle/Johnston Terrace neighborhood in East Austin, a neighborhood that has not had a middle school for many years. As there is no local middle school, the students were being bused out to middle schools in other parts of the city.

 Our students come from 26 different schools in Austin and have chosen our school because it is based on the highly successfully YES college prep model that has been ranked among the top 100 schools in America by US News & World Report. 

 2. Why a middle school? Wouldn’t a college-prep program focus on high school students?

There’s a number of reasons why a middle school. We canvassed the local community and parents, and they overwhelmingly requested a middle school. Many parents found it hard to get involved with their kids education due to the busing, so housing the school in our community center made a lot of sense.

We also analyzed research about at what stage was the best place to start affecting education and the drop-out rates, and it was apparent that starting with middle school would have a greater benefit and impact for local kids and families. 

3. So at this open house tomorrow, what can we expect to see?

All of the classrooms and facilities will be open, visitors will also be able to talk to the principal Dr. Nellie Cantu, school staff about the curriculum and approach, and hear from Southwest Key CEO, Dr. Juan Sánchez, about our future plans to expand quality education alternatives in East Austin.  

(Editor’s note: I heare there will also be food and drinks….)

4. I want to support your work with this middle school/academy. What are some ways I can get involved?

We always need advocates and supporters for our approach, which is simply providing an alternative quality education for children in East Austin.

Volunteers are welcome for the many after-school and other support programs, (the Boys and Girls Club is also housed here), offering to host field trips for the students service projects, and donations of school supplies are most welcome too! 

For more information, please contact Victoria Gutierrez at vgutierrez@swkey or 512-583-2567.

ABOUT THE EVENT:  

Open House
Thursday, November 5, 2009
4:30-7:00pm

6002 Jain LaneAustin, TX 78721

MAP TO EVENT

Appetizers, wine and hors d’oeuvres, performance, and more!

 

I’m telling you, someday someone is going to write a book about Alan Graham, founder of Mobile Loaves and Fishes. No, a book isn’t right. Too flat.

They’re going to make a movie about him. He’s just that charismatic of a guy. But it’s beyond charisma; it’s the way he uses his brain.

Alan Graham has the rare ability to find the shortest path from problem to solution. You won’t spend 10 minutes talking with the man before he says something so fresh and so startling that the only possible reaction you could have to what he just said is, “Duh.”

Not in an “Everybody knows that,” way but rather in a “Well, shit, why didn’t anybody else think of that?” way.

For example, a couple years ago a short-lived ice storm hit downtown, closing office buildings and reducing traffic to almost nothing. The shelters and soup kitchens were closed, but people still needed food that day, probably that day more than others. Alan Graham got a phone call. Could he bring a truck down?

No, he couldn’t bring a truck down. But he could send some pizzas. How many pizzas did they need?

He called pizza delivery, made them a deal, and had several dozen pizzas delivered downtown. Couple hundred bucks. Lots of people fed.

Maybe that sounds obvious now, but who else thinks to deliver pizza to homeless people during an ice storm, when no one else can come up with a way to help them? Duh.

I just don’t have the time. And I’d be happy to assign them but I just don’t have the money. So instead, these stories sit and wait. Would you believe I mentally sketch out GivingCity stories all the time? Very frustrating.

1. Giving Circles

Reportedly, giving circles are on the rise and proving to be very popular among donors. Examples of giving circles include groups like Impact Austin and the recently formed Futuro Fund.

But while they’re a great way to empower the giver and pool individual donations to make a bigger impact, the size of the donations limits the nonprofits the giving circle could consider. Impact Austin, for example, awarded five grants of $102,000 each. In order for a nonprofit to handle that amount of money, it needs to have the infrastructure in place, and apparently that takes a pretty sophisticated and established organization.

Does this matter? I think only if more donors join giving circles than choose to give as individuals. But I’m not sure. To write this story I’d start with Rebecca Powers who founded Impact Austin and who advises other giving circles.  From there I’d talk to development professionals of large and small nonprofits. The point would be to help you decide whether to join a giving circle and, for you nonprofit pros, how to win the grant.

2. Slacktivism

Another trend that bothers me, though I can’t figure out why. I’m not against them but I also can’t quite support them. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve done this myself. Examples of slacktivism include

• RT a Tweet from a nonprofit seeking volunteers or donations.
• Attending a Tweet-up or Charity Bash-type function where your intentions are really just to party
• Joining a Cause on Facebook
• 26 Miles for 26 Charities (maybe)

I’m all for people engaging in their community at any level, but I worry these simple, non-committal acts are a replacement for real engagement. For this story I’d interview some of the beneficiaries of these “party for charity” events, some development people on how much work it takes to create and manage a Facebook cause – and whether the return is worth it – and some of the organizers of these event to find out if they feel they’re achieving their goals.

I’d want to reader to come away with permission to engage in these activities but I’d want to make sure they understood the real impact of their action.

3. Social Entrepreneurship

What the hell is it? I’m reading, learning, talking, linking and just overall trying to soak in as much information as I can about this emerging trend. Apparently, the concept of genuine social entrepreneurship is still new to Austin, but there are lots of folks trying to create a bottom  line of social impact.

From what I understand, social entrepreneurs identify a social need first, devise a solution, then worry how to pay for it. Their bottom line measures social impact. As opposed to entrepreneurs who identify a market, create a product or service for that market, then worry about how to pay for it. Their bottom line measure profit. I think.

The point of the story would be to explain all this, offer some examples of social entrepreneurship here in Central Texas, offer some kind of five-step how-to become a social entrepreneur sidebar and explain why it’s so difficult to “sell” this concept to the nonprofit world and to consumers.

So many stories, so little time.

The good news is in 2008 30.7 percent of people in Austin volunteered. That rate puts the city at #11 among large cities in the United States. This is indeed a totally decent ranking.

The bad news is in 2007 35.3 percent of people in Austin volunteered, which put us at #5.

Did I also mention that in 2006 37.9 percent of people in Austin volunteered, which put as at #3?

In just two years we lost 7 percent in our rate of volunteerism. This is not because we don’t need more volunteers.

Why are we sinking? I know there are many people who are trying to figure that out so they can do something about it. All I know is, if we were dropping like this in our ranking of “best places for start-ups” or “best places for tech” more people would be doing some serious scrambling. Where will we rank in volunteerism for 2009?

It’s hard to write a thoughtful reaction to a film that left me so emotional. And I wasn’t the only one. There were quite a few beefy guys walking out of the theater with puffy, watery eyes last night, too.

But “Happiness Is” by Austin’s Andrew Shapter will do that to you. It’s not that it’s a sad film by any means. In fact, it’s pretty hilarious. Shapter interviewed some characters, for sure. The woman who admitted to thinking that happiness could be found in a solid-surface countertop sticks in my mind. (HINT: It can’t.)

What it is is hopeful because the message is this: Happiness is within your reach. It’s not something to strive for, it’s something you find within yourself. For proof, Shapter talks to happiness historians (they exist), scientists, and anthropologists. They’ve done the research and can pinpoint exactly when most Americans stopped being happy. (HINT: Rampant materialism, duh!)

Then, to further prove his point, he interviewed an incredible mix of people from all over the country – men, children, immigrants, scholars, artists, musicians, comedians, old people…. Though they all get there differently, eventually they all come to the same conclusion.

There are a couple of things you should know about the film:

1. It’s going on a screening tour around the country, and they’re paying for that tour in DVD sales. If a quarter of the population in America saw this film, it could change this country for the better. Seriously. So if you can swing the DVD, buy it here: http://www.happinessisthemovie.com/blog/shop/

2. The film is being used to raise money for the sponsoring nonprofit. In the case of last night’s screening, the nonprofit beneficiary is Mobile Loave & Fishes, the organization that takes food out to the homeless and is run by the incredible Alan Graham. (He’s featured in the film.) You can support that organization here.: http://www.mlfnow.org/site/PageServer

There were hundreds of people at this screening last night. I wonder what they’re thinking today.

Our mission for GivingCity (when we can finally get back to it after all this ridiculous for-pay work) is to make it easier for donors and volunteers to connect with the best-fit opportunity for them. We want to help you navigate the nonprofit world.

But folks, I mean this in the nicest way when I say it … you still might have to do a little bit of work.

Take this recent conversation I had on Twitter with a person who was looking for a very particular nonprofit to donate to. I was happy to help point her in the right direction, as were many of her followers, I’m sure. But I think she was looking for the easy click. I mean, I think she’s become so used to communicating, connecting, creating, and in general, executing everything online that she’d forgotten about other useful means of communication, like the phone.

It can happen to anyone. The fact is, it should be much easier for donors to connect with nonprofits. If only you could Google the type of organization you want to donate to, and the exact match would pop up every time!

Unfortunately, the same people who deliver services to the people in need are the same people SEO-ing their homemade websites. Which of those two tasks do you want them to do better?

Have you ever been moved by a public service announcement? Have you watched a video on YouTube that inspired you to reach out to the community and do something?

We’ve all seen those little videos on YouTube, another website, or even television, and usually we’re alone in front of the screen. But there’s something powerful about a shared video experience, especially one in which the video relates to a cause or need in the community. And when a video reaches out to you with hope rather than need, it’s a wonderful thing to share with an audience.

That’s the idea behind Lights.Camera.Help, a new nonprofit film festival that will screen 12 documentaries, videos, and PSAs over two nights, July 31 – August 1. It’s the brainchild and work of David Neff, Aaron Bramley, and Rich Vazquez, Austinites with roots deep in the local film community and the local nonprofit community.

I posted earlier about their launch party in May, and you can read an interview with them and see photos from that event here.

You’ll want to get tickets for this event because it’s not just a screening, it’s a competition. Judges will choose the top video effort from among the 12, and donate the entire two-evening’s ticket sales to the nonprofit that’s the subject of the winning video.

Get tickets and see all the details at Lights.Camera.Help!

July 31 – Aug 1

Tickets $7 – $15

(Don’t forget to go to the wrap-up party on August 2.)

See this video for more information:

Thanks to Starfish Television Network.

This article first appeared in GivingCity Austin #3 magazine. To download the entire magazine, click here.

The data referred to in this article can be accessed via Greenlights here.

The data is in – the Austin community has more nonprofits per capita than any other city in Texas. Now what should we do about it?

We demand efficiency from nonprofits, requiring them to do more with less – and these days to do even more with even less. So when we see two or more nonprofits with the exact same mission, going after the same donations from the same people, we might wonder why they don’t join forces.  We might also wonder how they survive in this economy. Inevitably, the market will take care of it, right? Just as it does in the for-profit world?

Well, sometimes the market doesn’t  take care of it. That’s because nonprofits aren’t fueled by just donations, they’re also fueled by passion – which is sometimes all you need to keep your organization going. And thank goodness for that; we’d be in serious trouble if it weren’t for volunteers and underpaid nonprofit professionals. On the other hand, you have to ask yourself, as a donor or a volunteer, “Am I supporting a nonprofit that shouldn’t exist?”

Austin has more nonprofits per capita than any other city in the Texas. Which means we’re caring and entrepreneurial on the one hand, but probably frustrated and disillusioned on the other. When someone starts a nonprofit it means they feel there’s a need in the community that’s not being met And while one can appreciate their energy, it takes more than a 501c3 classification from the IRS to be an effective nonprofit in the long-term.

We asked five nonprofit advisors their views on the issue; these aren’t just nonprofiteers, rather they’re people in the position of changing the way Austin nonprofits work as a community. Here’s what they had to say.

Deborah Edward professor at the RGK Center, a nationally recognized philanthropy think-tank.

The idea that there are too many nonprofits in Austin is a refrain. But while we complain about it, a city like Boston boasts about it.

From our perspective that means we’re not thinking collaborations or efficiencies. We’re not taking advantage of opportunities. In business, these new ideas for a company come up, and you get investment bankers invested so they can see the idea, and in the end, everybody makes money and everybody’s happy.

But in the nonprofit world, we don’t have those investment bankers…except for these funders. They are in the wonderful position to respond to these new nonprofits and say, “Hey, why don’t you get together?” I bet you can find a number of funders that have experience asking two organizations to merge, but the lessons learned are kept within the family. They don’t have a forum to share those stories and encourage people to think differently about going from the initial idea of merging to creating a program that’s sustainable.

I think we need to map the different nonprofits visually in terms of access, value, and fees you can see distinct dimensions … but who’s going to make that happen? The funder’s in the position because he gets 20 groups that knock on his door, and he can do a better comparison than the groups on the ground. It’s not that he has the responsibility to do it, but he does have the opportunity.

Greenlights has done a great job of helps nonprofits discover opportunities for synergy. But otherwise there’s nobody driving the train. The Austin Community Foundation would be a great place, though traditionally it has been donor centered. The Community Action Network or the United Way have that macro view that could be enlisted to help with this. The zeitgeist is to say that there are too many nonprofits. The challenge is to flip that and say, “We are the best connected system of nonprofits in the United States.”

Matt Kouri, executive director of Greenlights, which helps Central Texas nonprofits by providing consulting, resources, and nonprofit training in areas from fundraising to how to start a nonprofit.

What’s most remarkable about this data we’ve put together is that it validates what I’ve been hearing from funders anecdotally – that we do have a disproportionate share of nonprofit organizations, especially compared to other cities of similar make-up. The data for Austin is not totally inconsistent with what we see in other communities. And we might have a disproportionately large share of nonprofits that don’t serve Central Texas solely or that serve all of Texas. But we share the belief with donors that having too many nonprofits is a problem.

That being said, there are some positive sides to having so many. It can mean that more is being done in our community and that there’s lots of innovative problem solving at work. But it can also mean there are some redundancies and inefficiencies in the sector.

The silver lining in this down economy is that it might force more nonprofits to realize that they can’t cut it on their own and maybe it’s time for them to make some hard decisions. That’s our hope. I can think of at least 10 different organizations now that really need to do it, and they’ve needed to do it for a long time, yet they continue to bang their head against the same wall every year.

As to who’s responsible for identifying and leading these mergers and collaboration, I think funders need to be careful. They aren’t at the street level. They can demand and expect results and impact but it’s the nonprofit’s job to make sure those dollars are spent accordingly. At the same time, funders can exhibit influence over their grantees, especially when they see logical opportunities for collaborations.

Greenlights is investing a lot of time into this issue this year. We worked with RGK to develop a continuum of steps nonprofits can take in terms of strategic consolidation. A lot of nonprofits are already engaged in some form of collaboration, which donors may not realize. But there needs to be a lot more, and it needs to move further down the continuum toward merger.

People who follow the nonprofit sector know that in 2010 it’s going to see some radical changes. We want to help make that change intentional as opposed to just happening to us.

Barry Silverberg , president and CEO of Texas Association of Nonprofit Organizations, a statewide organization that offers training and support to Texas nonprofits and individuals who want to start a nonprofit.

Personally, I don’t believe in the numbers games because they’re always a function of who’s asking the question. I’m also not concerned with donors who believe they are getting too many requests. I encourage them to make their requirements more clear.

I don’t believe it’s our responsibility to eliminate those choices. Obviously funders can openly decide the fate of the industry by not giving funds, but I don’t believe they’re in the position to say what a nonprofit should do to be more effective. I think the question should be, “How do we get nonprofits to be more effective?”

TANO believe individuals have the right and the means to create better possibilities to serve the community. We help people understand the issue and determine if the best response is to create a nonprofit. From there, we emphasize what it means to run an effective nonprofit.

I think the nonprofit sector has a significant advantage in that people engaged in that sector are able to “do good,” and I don’t think we do enough to leverage that. There are probably too many nonprofits that are ineffective… because they ignore the stuff that could help them be more effective. I also think that funders need to strike a balance between the information they can gather quantitatively on the various forms they use, with the information they gather qualitatively. The fact is, some folks aren’t as good as completing a grant application – but they have a passion that’s unbelievable. That passion, if it’s combined with skill sets and competencies, will result in something effective if it’s guided and focused.

Janet Harman , founder, and Jenifer Esterline, program officer, KDK-Harman Foundation, a family foundation that focuses on education for economically disadvantaged Central Texans.

Harman : It’s a complex issue because at first glance one would say there are so many that we should consolidate and reduce. However, there’s a lot of room for creativity, so squashing that innovation would be a mistake.

We have actually brought several national nonprofits to Austin, so I couldn’t very well argue that there are too many nonprofits here.

I really think it’s the job of a lot of area foundations and organizations like the Austin Community Foundation and Greenlights, to point out where there is some opportunity to optimize by merger.

We reach out to other funders on a regular basis. In fact, we co-founded an education funders group, Central Texas Education Funders, a little over a year ago. We meet every other month and there are 30 members. One of the projects we’re working on is to put together a matrix of our fundraising efforts to identify the gaps.

Esterline: The model for Central Texas Education Funders is based on the Ready by 21 Coalition, which put together this matrix identifying common indicators, and we’re trying to create a similar one for the funding community. It would help us, but it would also help the nonprofits; they create about 15 different reports to different foundations, so we’re doing this to learn what they’re doing and how they can do it better. Then the other part of that is communicating this information.

As far as whether there are too many nonprofits in Austin, I would say that we are not overwhelmed with requests, but we are pretty focused on what we fund. In conversations among the education funders, we see that everyone’s funding the same nonprofits. They’ve been identified as effective and able to show their impact, so they rise to the top every time.

Everyone has the responsibility to collaborate and communicate. The new face of philanthropy is more transparent, more cooperative. A lot of our colleagues are embracing this because of people like Janet Harman who are young, entrepreneurial, and have a new way of thinking about philanthropy.

To see a list of existing nonprofit collaborations in Austin, click here.

For three years, Shelley Seale would travel to the orphanages of India, bags loaded with treats and toys to share with the children who had made such an enormous impact on her. After all, these were the same children who inspired the movie Slumdog Millionaire. Each time she got to know the children’s stories a little more, which compelled this Austin writer to compose a new book called, “The Weight of Silence: The Invisible Children of India.”

“I hope that people will see that even though this topic is serious and the stories often heartbreaking, it is not a depressing book or subject!” says Seale. “The kids’ hope and resilience amazed me time and time again; the ability of their spirits to overcome crippling challenges inspired me. The issues are tough, what has happened to a lot of these kids makes you want to cry – but the bottom line of their stories is a very strong, hopeful voice.“

I interviewed Shlley to find out what compelled her to travel, return, and make the children of India such a big part of her life.

What prompted you to travel in India and get to know these children?

In early 2004, I read an article in Tribeza magazine about Caroline Boudreaux, who had visited India three years earlier. She had happened upon an orphanage full of children living in incomprehensible conditions and had returned  home and started The Miracle Foundation, a nonprofit which raises money and recruits sponsors to help support the home. I began volunteering for the organization and sponsored a child, and Caroline invited me to go to India with a volunteer group. My first visit was in March 2005.

Was the situation what you expected?

Yes and no. When I arrived that first time, I assumed all the kids there were orphans in the true sense of the word – their parents had died. Instead I was shocked by how many of them had been “orphaned” by poverty; their parents had left them at the Miracle Foundation home because they were too poor to feed them, which in some ways seemed an even greater tragedy. I wondered when each of them had stopped wanting to go back home, or if they ever had. Afterward, there was simply no way to go on with my life afterwards as if they did not exist.

I had gone expecting it to be a sad place, an emotionally wrenching experience with these parentless young people. But those expectations had been turned on their head. Yes, there were stories behind each one of these children – many of them painful and tragic. Yet the man who ran the orphanage, and the house mothers, had made the kids their own in a community of sharing and acceptance. They were poor in wealth but not in spirit; limited in resources but not in joy and laughter. They gave me a complete unconditional love, for nothing more than showing up.

This kind of journey isn’t for everybody… is it?

Probably not. The specific type of trip I took with The Miracle Foundation, the volunteer trip to the children’s homes, is not the same as a sight-seeing vacation.

India is definitely a complete culture shock for someone who’s never been there, especially if you haven’t traveled in a developing country before. The poverty and hardship is stark and in your face. At times, quite honestly, I just wanted to look away and say I’d had enough. But the suffering remains whether we choose to look or not. They do not go away simply because we decide that to be a witness to them, to say I care about your story, is too difficult for us.

But still, like I said before, the moment you meet these kids, that all goes away. I have been on four different trips with all kinds of different people, some of whom love India and some who barely tolerate it, yet every single one of them fell in love with these kids and had the time of their life.  It’s amazing how this experience hooks you – I sometimes tease Caroline Boudreaux about putting something in the water. But the truth is, we go thinking about giving something back, and in the end it’s us who end up getting something amazing out of it. We are the ones who get rescued.

I guess sometimes it seems hopeless. There are so many children who need help. What do you think?

The truth is, each person can create incredible impact with even small actions. It’s a ripple effect, and I have seen it happen over and over, so many times I can’t even count them. Most of us could never sell all our belongings and go work in the trenches in India, but that doesn’t mean we should think, then, that we can’t do anything at all.

If you can change the course of the life of ONE person – still, that one person’s life is different and better because you impacted it.  I think that’s worth it. Don’t focus on the big picture, just focus on what you are passionate about, what you want to do. For me, I can’t constantly think about the 25 million kids in India who live in orphanages or on the streets – I can only think about the one who is in front of me at that moment.

What do you hope to accomplish with the book?

My sole purpose in writing the book was to give these millions of children a voice that could be heard by others in the world who, I was convinced, would be as moved by their plights as I was. And so, the main thing I hope to accomplish is awareness – followed by action. Some kind of action. I think the key is to discover what you are passionate about, what you have genuine feelings and caring about – and then do something about that issue. But just do something.

To learn more about the book, go to Seale’s website or purchase one from The Miracle Foundation. Note that for all books purchased through The Miracle Foundation, all proceeds are donated to them.

Rich Vasquez, Aaron Bramley, and David Neff

There’s a little more than a week to submit your entries to the nonprofit film festival, Lights.Camera.Help; the deadline is June 30, in fact. I highly encourage you to submit any film, YouTube video, PSA or series, and be a part of this first-ever film fest in Austin.

Austinites who launch these projects-with-a-cause continue to amaze me. Just when you think it’s an empty marketing trend, another social entrepreneur impresses you with their creativity, energy, and ideas. This is definitely the case with Lights.Camera.Help, founded by David Neff, Aaron Bramley, and Rich Vazquez.

I spoke with them at the launch party last month – here’s a quick, behind-the-scenes interview.

Dave Neff: We’re all kind of in the film industry in one way or another. And the whole idea is that we want to give validity to this films-for-a-cause genre.

Rich Vasquez:The great thing about video is it gives you a chance to engage a person with a narrative, but also with facts and figures. I think we can help people demonstrate what makes film different, how nonprofits are using it, and what they are using it for.

Aaron Bramley: So part of our original focus was that the winning film would get all the proceeds of the festival. We’re not actually spending much money, which is encouraging: People are stepping up to make sure this happens.

RV: We really believe in this, and it shows. Plus, I think they believe in it, too.

DN: I think Austin really values altruism. That, plus there are a high number of nonprofits here, and we’re a tech city and so much of this film and video stuff comes out of tech. So it’s a confluence of factors that are making this happen.

RV: We’re trying to catch up to that momentum.

Now all you have to do is submit. Check out these photos from the launch party and read more about Lights.Camera.Film.

Dana Shetto and John Turner

Jennifer Campell, Weatherby Swada, and Buffy

Mando Rayo and Layla Fry

Kim Righter, Ehren Foss, and Laura Maher

David Neff

David Shaw and Jordan Viatar