From where I sit this assessment feels pretty accurate.
I see civil society, associations and others coming together to better coordinate and amplify efforts. But it still feels slow because it feels like philanthropy is frozen. Orgs that could be scaling up or taking on roles as coalition backbones are having a hard time for want of unrestricted $, making collective impact efforts harder to articulate let alone achieve.
Two thoughts: government funded NGOs are carrying out government projects that govt has outsourced (scientific research, community health clinics, in home energy audits, retrofitting lead pipes, etc.). Why does govt outsource many of its projects? Some do it because local community groups are trusted to reach individuals more effectively than govt bureaucrats or so that govt officials can say they cut public employees (Indiana, I’m looking at you).
What I wonder is whether we will see for profit entities step up and bid on these contracts at higher costs to taxpayers or will conservative-leaning NGOs take over scientific research and community health clinics and other govt programs?
Thanks Leslie for your comment. I think a primary reason government ourtsources is that it makes it possible to deliver the services at lower cost, and to not have to grow the civil service to administer the programs serving more people.
"Any civil society leader or board member who presumes that the relative levels and stability of federal funding that their organization may have enjoyed in recent years can be extrapolated to the years ahead is setting themselves up for a rude awakening." True.
The politicization of grants-in-aid through alteration of the "conditions of aid" and the like, well, that's been going on for a long time and there's no obvious reason why it would stop. (I am old enough to recall a Clinton admin official telling mee they were going to maximize their leverage by upping policy demands on grant recipients.)
The norms that undergirded grants have fallen away. Each new president now can be expected to do what he can to bend grant-recipients to his will. So, yes, perhaps it is time to rethink grants-in-aid entirely, and to figure out what that might mean for civil society.
From where I sit this assessment feels pretty accurate.
I see civil society, associations and others coming together to better coordinate and amplify efforts. But it still feels slow because it feels like philanthropy is frozen. Orgs that could be scaling up or taking on roles as coalition backbones are having a hard time for want of unrestricted $, making collective impact efforts harder to articulate let alone achieve.
Thanks Jason for this perspective.
Two thoughts: government funded NGOs are carrying out government projects that govt has outsourced (scientific research, community health clinics, in home energy audits, retrofitting lead pipes, etc.). Why does govt outsource many of its projects? Some do it because local community groups are trusted to reach individuals more effectively than govt bureaucrats or so that govt officials can say they cut public employees (Indiana, I’m looking at you).
What I wonder is whether we will see for profit entities step up and bid on these contracts at higher costs to taxpayers or will conservative-leaning NGOs take over scientific research and community health clinics and other govt programs?
Thanks Leslie for your comment. I think a primary reason government ourtsources is that it makes it possible to deliver the services at lower cost, and to not have to grow the civil service to administer the programs serving more people.
"Any civil society leader or board member who presumes that the relative levels and stability of federal funding that their organization may have enjoyed in recent years can be extrapolated to the years ahead is setting themselves up for a rude awakening." True.
The politicization of grants-in-aid through alteration of the "conditions of aid" and the like, well, that's been going on for a long time and there's no obvious reason why it would stop. (I am old enough to recall a Clinton admin official telling mee they were going to maximize their leverage by upping policy demands on grant recipients.)
The norms that undergirded grants have fallen away. Each new president now can be expected to do what he can to bend grant-recipients to his will. So, yes, perhaps it is time to rethink grants-in-aid entirely, and to figure out what that might mean for civil society.