GUEST WORDS-As a nonprofit Executive Director in Chicago years ago, I developed a strong dislike for coalitions and working alliances. Los Angeles taught me otherwise.
LA’s geography, the egocentric power of “neighborhood,” the enormity of harm and need our size and economic disparities spawn and the sheer number of nonprofits (literally 10s of thousands of them in greater LA) all contribute to a disjointed network which tends to be very local, focused just beyond the front door.
That fragmented approach has significant value, but it also creates a vacuum. The job gets done reasonably well at the local level, but the more global public policy concerns are often neglected. Initiatives to change public policies, practices and procedures which actually contribute to the very issues nonprofits address remain mostly absent.
Yet, in LA there’s solid evidence that when common interest nonprofits join forces to drive changes in public policy, they succeed. Over the past several years, the sizable nonprofit sphere which addresses homelessness has coalesced around a shared plan and a unified (though hardly lock-step) approach; the Home For Good campaign has had a strong impact on the way greater LA’s elected officials and bureaucratic leadership respond to homelessness.
A somewhat larger coalition recently fought – successfully – to defeat a proposed LA Ordinance which would have effectively banned group homes from most neighborhoods. Those homes are a vital part of the treatment resources which support mentally ill individuals, recovering addicts and, more recently, returning veterans facing multiple challenges, so the coalition won a good fight. Absent a working coalition and a coordinated campaign they surely would have failed.
Still, the coalition simply held its own, maintaining the status quo. Larger and more critical mental health policy issues include inadequate and ineffective outreach and treatment and permanent gridlock at the intersection of mental illness and street “crime,” where the County jail is the largest – and least effective – mental health facility we operate. Those systemic problems require a systemic approach.
Similarly, the surge of returning veterans has generated a variety of challenges – supportive housing, rapid and effective therapy and rehabilitation, unemployment. The concerns and the need sweep across the entire region.
A wealth of unpleasant evidence suggests that our foster care system is in dire need of reform. Our economy and our environment suffer enormously because affordable housing is massively out-weighed by the demand for it.
None are better suited to address these and countless other issues than the region’s nonprofit sector. Issue by issue, the sector has powerful data, experience and expertise. Each cause sector in turn can advocate for new or untried approaches and creative initiatives, proven solutions and demonstrated cost benefits.
By developing – and forcefully advocating for – strong, compelling concrete plans, common interest nonprofits are fully capable of making great strides forward All it takes is a campaign built on willing partners, solid support and the grit to get it done. It is never easy, but exercising the coalesced power of the nonprofit community is critical to the future of Los Angeles.
(David Hamlin is a partner at WHPR, an LA agency which focuses primarily on nonprofit media, communications and advocacy campaigns. )
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 11 Issue 86
Pub: Oct 25, 2013
