• What role do non-profits play in our society? Do social service non-profits replace core government functions?

I have worked in various nonprofits since I was 16 years old, but it is only recently that I’ve been confronting this question of whether the work I’m doing and the mission of every non-profit organization is necessarily and inherently in the public’s benefit. One of the core issues for me when facing this question is: who gets to decide what program areas exist, have funding, and are culturally prominent? In the case of government services, constituents have a direct recourse through the democratic process to voice their opinion, vote those who priorities they don’t agree with out of office, or punish politicians for failed policies. Through activism, lobbying, voting, etc. communities can put issues on the table and force equitable services. In the nonprofit sector, most of us only have a small amount of money with which to “voice our opinion”, and in many cases this is vastly overshadowed by big, private money choosing their own priorities. For instance, Silicon Valley is sinking money into “disrupting” public education—efforts which have been mostly harmful so far—whether we as taxpayers or donors support what they’re doing or not, they have billions in private money that we can’t necessarily stop them from using.

It’s encouraging that this debate is becoming livelier in the social sector as evidenced by Tris Lumley’s article in this week’s readings. I am, however, skeptical about his optimism. The three factors he lays out that have the potential to change the system to make organizations more accountable to their constituents (feedback, collaboration, and technology), seem too abstract and less-than-ubiquitous to be truly game changing. Technology in particular is often seen as a panacea these days to our social problems and often comes up far short, whether its Uber or any millions of failed apps that were going to “change the way we live”. I think community feedback is the strongest factor he presents—change in the social sector has to come from the bottom-up, not be manufactured from the top down.