Reasons to be Cheerful

I seem to have been doing a lot of cheering over the past few days. Here's why. First, someone drew my attention to Gara LaMarche's keynote address at the Better Business Bureau of Metropolitan New York Symposium at the end of February, called 'Building for Capacity for Maximum Impact', available here. GLM is, of course, the relatively new boss of Atlantic Philanthropies, a significant funder of nonprofit evaluations (some of which yours truly has worked on). In it, he is candidly critical of much of what has passed for conventional wisdom in the field of evaluation, which is rather remarkable not least because AP itself has promoted much of that wisdom, with its love of logic models etc. GLM steps back, and takes a common-sense view of the whole business; it's well worth reading in full. But for a flavour, try this: he says -

I propose a three- year moratorium on logic models, theories of change and the like that use geometric shapes and arrows, particularly when arranged in a circular or oval form. I’ve never seen one of these that is not absurdly reductionist. I just threw that in to upset people, particularly those among my own staff and consultants. But if it results in a world with fewer Power Point slides, I feel I will have accomplished something important in my time on Earth.

...and this -

...remember that the lessons of business, the experience of the private sector, have much to teach non-profits but many limitations as well........ I would argue that most enduring successful business ventures must also have social value, but it’s also true that you can be successful in making money, at least for a while, by riding roughshod over community values – look at Wal-Mart’s impact on small business in small towns and rural communities, or the rapacious gains of certain extractive industries. Social investments, on the other hand, can’t be measured only in dollars and cents, and the bottom line has many components.

Which brings me neatly to my second reason for cheering which is Michael Edwards' new book, Just Another Emperor?, which dares to take on the philanthrocapitalists and their largely unchallenged conventional wisdoms. He unpicks what he calls the hype surrounding philanthrocapitalism, and examines the evidence (or lack thereof) which underpins it. But he does it in a constructive and balanced way; this is not mere polemic. This short book (92pp plus extensive endnotes) is essential reading for philanthropoids interested in social change and social justice.

Now, cheers usually come in threes, and there is a third reason for cheering, albeit one which isn't a close fit with the core purpose of this blog, but what the heck, it's my blog and if I say it goes in, it goes in. I've just read Obama's race speech in full and found it amazing - it's the sort of speech Bartlet would give (and we West Wing fantasists constantly had to remind ourselves that, sadly, that was fiction). Of course, it might not help him win the White House, but all praise to him for delivering it - read the full text here. With such a man in the White House, who knows what might be possible?