This past August 29th, as we commemorated the 4th anniversary of Katrina and its aftermath, I was reminded of the Red Cross’s response to the storms. I was mindful of the fact that there were certain things only large, well-networked organizations could do.
But how often do we remember that small can also be beautiful and effective?
Small, community-based nonprofit organizations have a kind of loveliness that their larger, better-established cousins don’t often share. When these small organizations are effective, and when they’re run by dedicated leaders, their loveliness borders on the sublime.
What these organizations lack in scale, they more than make up for in their knowledge of their communities and their responsiveness to client needs. The staff members of these nonprofits—often overworked and underpaid—rely not on surveys conducted from a distance, but on the direct evidence of their senses to gauge their communities’ challenges and strengths. Because they have no other choice, their executive directors will often stretch their organizations’ dollars ’til they holler.
Over the years I’ve visited hundreds of these smaller charities. I remember a free clinic in which the receptionist quickly shifted between four languages as she spoke with people in a waiting room, sometimes pausing to translate electric bills or other correspondence. On a site visit to another organization serving the homeless, a staff member opened a door to show me the work station he had tucked carefully into a broom closet.
I believe we very much underestimate the roles these small, gritty, frontline organizations play in our communities. After a natural or man-made disaster, it’s often these small, community-based agencies that do the lion’s share of the work in helping families get back on their feet. For years since the advent of the levee failures, these organizations have been helping people return to their homes, acquire new job skills, and find healing.
They’ve been lovingly tending the flame of our social conscience.
There’s a tendency in nonprofit work to be a little too uncritical of the concepts we import from the business world. We sometimes get fetishistic about matters of “scale” and “replicability.” But there’s a kind of nonprofit beauty that doesn’t scale well. And there are people whose extraordinary vision and passion we’ll never be able to replicate.
Thanks for this post Albert – I’m starting a small non-profit arts org myself and need to be reminded that good things come in small packages. Sometimes I feel like my work might seem inconsequential because the group of beneficiaries is few in numbers -even though I know & the beneficiaries know that art for social regeneration is healthy & important. It’s an inspiration to keep going after reading articles like yours. Keep your eye out for BeesKnees Productions: The Nola Project – we’re hoping to work with disadvantaged kids to create an orginal play about growing up in New Orleans which will then be produced internationally!
Thanks for this important reminder, Janis. I staffed a small grants program for unincorporated entities (neighborhood associations and the like) back when I worked at the Boston Foundation and have aways wanted to do that work again — with eyes wide open, of course: there are challenges to doing it well.
I agree completely the role that small, gritty, frontline organizations play in contributing to a community’s resiliency is often under-estimated and overlooked. While I appreciate the work of the smaller charities, it is the work of contribution of those groups who fly under the non-profit radar screen – the more informal groups of community residents who come together active citizens to address issues on their own blocks – that I most admire and that is the focus of grassroots grantmaking. I wrote about the relationship of informal groups to community resilience on my blog (Big Thinking on Small Grants – http://www.janisfoster.blogspot.com) – see the post “What’s More Important Than a Well-Stocked Pantry, July 4, 2009).