William Neuheisel

Last week, the location based social network, Foursquare, released its new Explore feature. The new feature centers around recommendations technology to help people answer the question, “what should I do?”

The recommendations engine carries some exciting possibility, and may even help break the flat-lining usage of location-based services. The app will mine your check-in history to glean information about your preferences, and locate ‘expertise’ within your friend list to help you discover new places, food, and activities you may enjoy.

As you can see from the category list though, there is one omission that should have been obvious: volunteering.

I’d love to see Foursquare help people discover great places to volunteer in their community. This would not only increase volunteerism, but would help drive innovation in the nonprofit sector, the same way that food critics and Yelp reviews drive improvements in the restaurant industry.

80 million Americans volunteer every year at roughly 2 million nonprofits. I hope Foursquare will not miss a major opportunity to enhance the activity that so many find so rewarding.

Culinary Job Training Students learn French cuisine at DC Central Kitchen

I was at a party this weekend when I met a friend-of-a-friend who does fundraising at an anti-hunger policy organization here in town. He was already familiar with DC Central Kitchen, and so we started talking about some of our newer initiatives, like our recent contract to provide school meals to 7 DC Public Schools.

I mentioned how cool it is that we are now able to hire several more graduates of our culinary job training program to prepare the meals on-site. His comment was that it must also present a challenging messaging problem for us—that people might respond badly to ex-convicts or ex-addicts being hired to cook for schools.

It’s a fair point. A lot of people start to get nervous when you mention the possibility that an ex-con or ex-addict might be cooking at a restaurant they would eat at, not to mention cooking in schools.

But to me, the issue was framed wrong. As stated, the focus of concern is that our nonprofit would have difficulty raising funds for ourselves.

The end of this line of thinking is that it would be easier to raise money if we glossed over this discussion. But the discussion of this issue is not incidental to our fundraising; it is central to our mission. The real problem is that our society can’t find ways to reintegrate people.

In order for us to make meaningful change, we have to challenge the stereotypes and assumptions (some silly and some more legitimate) that serve as hurdles to reintegrating people into our communities.

It is understandable to categorize ex-convicts as more dangerous and less trustworthy than the general population. The problem is that we have a huge blindspot. We see the inherent problem with placing these men and women in jobs at schools, but we fail to see where they would be otherwise.

If we fail to provide opportunities to get counseling and training and find good work, what do you think these people will resort to? And where?

They will go back to what they’ve always done. On the same streets where our children walk to and from school. They will not be magically isolated from children if we simply refuse them these jobs.

I’m not saying we should blindly trust anyone, but we do need to provide opportunities for these people to earn back a place in our workforce. We must find effective ways to train them, vet them, hire them, and trust them.

This discussion is one that I very much want to have. It’s an opportunity to change an entrenched social problem. It’s part of our organization’s most vital work. It’s why I love working in nonprofit communications and fundraising in the first place.

Brendan O’Neill wrote a great column last week about Bono’s antics at the G8 Summit and the harm that he is actually doing. I won’t rant here about the subject; the article pretty well captures how I feel, but I will share my favorite bits:

“Bono has become a one-man state; more than that, he’s a one-man cross-border supranational institution. He presumes to speak for millions, not on the basis of a democratic mandate but on the basis that he – mystically, magically, and because Africans are apparently too poor and destitute to speak for themselves – really, really knows what Africans want. Thus we have the utterly bizarre spectacle of a rock star putting pressure on leaders who were elected by millions of people to do what ‘I WANT’ in Africa.

“They used to call it colonialism when a white man from over here decided that he represented the interests of the black hordes over there. Now they call it ‘passionate and serious crusading’

For those of you who’ve spent any time around me, you’ve likely heard this before. But for those who don’t know this about me, I’ll repeat it: my grandmother is my personal hero.

For years she has worked tirelessly for several organizations in North and South Dakota fighting against domestic and sexual violence against rural and native women; helping to found or lead many of those agencies. She has logged tens of thousands of miles driving across the sparsely populated regions of the western Dakotas, going wherever she was needed to provide safe transport, or to advocate for victims of abuse. Her strength in the face of that crushing violence and abuse, and her overwhelming compassion are a continual source of inspiration for me. I love talking to her when I am down, because she always fills me with hope.

This weekend, she told me the story of Pretty Bird Woman House, a women’s safe-house whose board she serves on, and which was founded by her friend Jackie Brown Otter (whose sister, Pretty Bird Woman, was kidnapped, raped and murdered). Shelters like these are desperately needed in these areas, but due to a lack of funds, Pretty Bird Woman House was on the brink of closure. Fortunately, however, Amnesty International issued a damning report on violence against indigenous women. This report was picked up on by Daily Kos, which also mentioned the crisis of Pretty Bird Woman House (here and here).

Within hours, people who had read the Daily Kos blog set up a donation website and raised over $9,000 in 24 hours. As you can see, I’ve posted a donation widget to help support this fund raiser to help support this critical program.

Most people’s Grandmas bake pies and crochet. Damn, I’m lucky…