Today, I was most fascinated to come across a blog post at The Chronicle of Philanthropy titled, "Why Women are Held Back in the Nonprofit World."

I was even more fascinated to see that it was based on actual research, and not just the anecdotal tidbits and random theories I’ve long used with my friends to try to explain this phenomenon.

Which, based on our collective experience, and the experience of our friends and people we hardly know, we are fairly certain exists.

And clearly does, since now it’s on the Internet.  And in The Chronicle, no less.  And everything either on the Internet or in The Chronicle has to be true.  And if it’s in both, well, I dare you to argue.

But let me get to the point, before I italicize us all to death.

The blog cites research done by Futures Leaders in Philanthropy (FLIP), reported in an article called, "The Women’s Sector? Not Quite," which finds that:

• Women hold 68 percent of nonprofit jobs, but,  
• They are scarce when it comes to running the biggest organizations and they earn less overall than their male colleagues.  Also,
• Almost 85 percent of the chief executives at nonprofit groups with budgets of at least $50 million are men and,
• Men in all nonprofit jobs earn a median compensation that is 28 percent higher than that of women.

Dude.  Or dudettes, I should say.

Why?

Well, our friends at FLIP speculated, of course.  They came up with a few theories:

1. Women may fill the majority of nonprofit jobs because, if married, they feel less pressure to be the primary breadwinner, so they can give priority to their “feel-good” career goals.
2. In terms of wages, women who grow within organizations can find themselves on the bottom of the pay scale at each promotion, whereas men who come to organizations from the outside more often demand to be hired on their previous pay scales.
3. Nonprofit groups should do more to bring women into senior management positions for the good of the charity.  In a study of 353 Fortune 500 companies, it was found that companies with the highest number of women in senior management positions had a 34 percent higher return to shareholders than companies with the lowest number of women in such positions.

Interesting theories all.  And I have some to add (which The Chronicle encouraged, so it’s okay).

1.  The payscales and number of opportunities within the nonprofit world are a mirror of societal values–we value helping the homeless and free tax education less than we do celeb magazines and Coca-Cola, and therefore we invest less in it. 

Heck, we’re way more likely to contribute to the fight against AIDS when there’s a Red iPod attached, right?   

As a result, there are fewer opportunities and funds to go around, and where funds and opportunities are slim, women have always traditionally been the least likely to cash in.

2.  This is compounded by the fact that women, typically, don’t ask.  Which has been documented thoroughly in a book by that same title (which is worth a read) which explains that in many respects, women don’t earn as much as men in great part because we don’t ask or expect to. 

We have the best natural negotiation skills, but we, for whatever reason, are far better at using them on behalf of others instead of ourselves. 

So again, smaller pie, less to go around, so you use it on those who are more likely to demand a higher salary, what they’re worth against a fair market and the opportunities that match their skills: men. 

Women therefore are left holding the remaining positions and salaries.

3.  People in nonprofits are largely values driven.  That is why they’re there. 

But my sense from numerous discussions with women, including a recent one at a Women’s Information Network nonprofit networking event, is that women are more prone to be swayed by guilt in salary negotiations when confronted with the whole "contrast between what we could give you vs. what we could give the children or women or beneficiaries of our work" card. 

(I’d be very curious, however, to know, if that card is played more, on average, with women than men, but my anecdotal jury hasn’t turned up a decision on that yet.) 

And it’s possible, of course, that women play that card on themselves before the negotiation even begins–that we tell ourselves that to work in the nonprofit sector, or to do good, we are expected to make sacrifices.

Maybe men just don’t expect the tradeoff.  

In any case, if these trends continue, it seems that it will continue to be yet another–albeit subtle–way that women subsidize societal advancement and welfare.

But at what cost? 

What does a person that generally has an opinion about something say when she has the opportunity to say anything?

This is my first blog and let me start by telling you how I see myself.  I am presently the ever changing sum total of all things that have touched my life over many years.  I am a woman of color made up of a detailed mosaic of external and internal elements, much like this place we call Washington, D.C.

I am Carole Johnson, born, raised and educated in Washington, D.C.  I am extremely pleased be joining The Women’s Foundation as their Senior Management Officer.

I recently took a sabbatical from work and used that time to evaluate my professional desires and to honestly target my career direction. Trust me when I say that was a huge undertaking and a truly rewarding and humbling experience.

What is the measure of a strong woman?  Is she married with children?  Holding down a high level position?  A leader in her community? Or is she a middle class woman who is happy with her life, family and friends? Is she one that speaks her mind, but supports and listens to the ranting of others?  Is she confident without being arrogant, and can people tell the difference, and does it matter?

I believe that we shall all find out.

I remember sitting in a staff meeting at another foundation some six years ago and the topic of why people work for nonprofits came up.  I sat there listening to the discussion and asked myself why I chose to work here and the underlying truth is, because it feels good!  Coming to The Women’s Foundation means that much to me still today. When I decided to go back to work, I targeted nonprofits because I wanted to know that I was contributing to something that mattered to me.  I look at it as giving back and that just makes me feel good.  Couple that with the ability to work with an organization that supports the needs of women is like a cherry on top of a huge ice cream sundae!

I believe in the mission and vision of The Women’s Foundation.  I support the desires of my colleagues to be a part of this ever changing organization and I look forward to feeling great at the end of the day when I know I’ve contributed on some level to our success.

I look forward to being a part of something great!  If you feel the desire to know more, feel free to contact me. 

While the nonprofit and funding communities have intensely discussed reporting on inputs and outputs for years, the evaluation community has been squabbling over outcomes, objectives, goals, results and impact.

Despite the confusing jargon and long hours spent pouring over data and writing the same report 10 different ways, funders and nonprofits agree that what they’re trying to do is answer a few simple questions:
1)  Is “x” better as a result of “y” activity(ies)?
2)  If “x” is better as a result of “y” activity(ies), what was learned in the process?
3)  How do we continue to learn and improve so that resources support what works?

That is evaluation.

Most nonprofit organizations are already doing some type of reporting on their outputs–that is, the tangible products that result from their program’s activities, such as the number of workshops held, the number of people who attended a training seminar, or pamphlets distributed.  Reporting on these tangibles helps to measure performance and accountability, or that activities happened and monies were spent as planned.

But nonprofits and funders are not just in the business of accountability.

We want to create change and demonstrate that inputs and outputs–the lingo most often used to describe this change–can logically link to change.

So how do we do this?

I was pleased to learn that Washington Area Women’s Foundation’s Stepping Stones is, for the most part, getting evaluation right according to a recent Stanford Social Innovation Review article “Drowning in Data.” 

Sharing the Burden 
As a public foundation, we are definitely sharing in the burden of evaluation with our Grantee Partners, and as implied in the article, are evaluating our own work through Stepping Stones by using evaluation in our own decision making.

Further, we are building cohorts of Grantee Partners to evaluate the overall effectiveness of Stepping Stones rather than each individual program. 

Yet, we are still requiring each program to conduct its own evaluation.

To do this we are partnering with Innovation Network, a leader in the field of participatory evaluation, to evaluate Stepping Stones overall, and to provide evaluation training and technical assistance to build the capacity of Stepping Stones Grantee Partners.

We’re not just doing this to lessen the blow, share in the agony, or enforce “our evaluation requirements” onto our grantee organizations.

Rather, by providing resources and capacity, our hope is that Grantee Partners are learning practical ways to incorporate evaluation into their structure because, let’s face it, evaluation isn’t going away anytime soon.

Standardizing the Standards
Unfortunately, it is hard to understand whether or not institutional evaluation capacity and structure are actually occurring when nonprofit organizations must be responsive to a variety of funders.  As a funder and nonprofit organization, we know first-hand what it is like to have to be responsive, but also have an opportunity to influence the field when it comes to discussing the challenges of evaluation.

There’s great hope in the “Outcome Indicators Project,” recently completed by The Center for What Works and Urban Institute, which identifies common outcomes and indicators for nonprofit organizations providing direct services in fields such as employment training, adult education and literacy, and community organizing, among others.

This may not be the answer to the intense staff time and resources necessary to collect data and report, but it definitely helps address the heavy burden of developing logic models and data collection methods on the front-end of evaluation.

It also allows funders and nonprofit organizations to get closer to identifying more standardized evaluation and to incorporate evaluation activities into their organizational structure and program operations.

As a self-professed excellent student (I had my first Franklin Planner at 17 and used to like nothing better than getting a new Trapper Keeper ready for a new school year), I expected Philanthropy 101 to be a cakewalk.

I mean, isn’t that what 101 means?

Clearly, Professor Siobhan never got the memo, because she put us through the ringer (in a good way, of course, seeing as how she is my boss) today at the first of a series of philanthropic education workshops The Women’s Foundation is hosting for current donors. 

I knew this wasn’t going to be underwater basket weaving when the good professor handed us a worksheet with a ton of values words–from acceptance to peace to democracy to dignity to justice to opportunity to access (and that’s just the beginning)–and asked us to narrow the list down to our top three.

Three? 

Then, just when we thought we’d had enough, she did the same with a list of issues a mile long, including women’s rights, literacy, drug and alcohol abuse, environmental preservation, domestic violence, international development and employment training (Oh, and I’m not even covering a fourth of it.). 

Only this time she asked us to narrow it down to one.

One.

It was madness, I say.  Pure madness. 

But educational madness, I must admit. 

Philanthropy, she explained (as she has before), is as much about learning to say no as it is about finally getting to say yes.  (The technical term for which, Prof. S explained is, "the good part.")

(And yes, you will be quizzed on this later.)

While at times tricky, the discussion overall was a thought-provoking, welcome introduction to thinking about philanthropy from an individual perspective and how to begin thinking about how to link your individual giving strategy (whether you’re the $10 or $10K donor) with your values and a personal mission statement (argh, homework).

It was also an intro–because there were 11 of us, with very diverse values, issues and interests–to the difficulty, and reward, of moving from individual philanthropy to the power of giving together and the real challenges, benefits and transformation that can occur from doing so.

When people begin to really examine their giving, Professor Siobhan explained, they realize it isn’t all that simple or easy.  That giving thoughtfully is work.

As the discussion moved into sharing of our own individual backgrounds and experience with giving and philanthropy, I couldn’t help but realize that my first real introduction to being in a position of Big Giving was as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa.

Where even though I earned less than $200 a month, lived in a simple cement structure with no electricity or running water and cruised around town on a bicycle, I was comparably rich beyond measure.

I remember the day it occurred to me–after months of fielding requests to build a well, send this or that child to school, help this mother feed her family, pay for new desks at the high school (where kids were crammed four to a bench) and so on and so forth (seriously, on and on and on), combined with months of being the single most recognizable, sought after person in town–that I was as close to celebrity as I would ever be.

I get it, I thought.  I get why movie stars and the extremely wealthy just want to run and hide much of the time.  Why some with wealth would prefer to give anonymously, or quietly, at the very least.

Because no matter how much wealth you have, you cannot say yes all the time.  And when you say no, often it’s never really understood why.

People in my village never really understood that I didn’t pay for desks because I was choosing to pay school fees for specific girls so they could stay in school, or that I was deliberately funding the education of girls over boys for a reason. 

As much as I explained, no one ever really understood why I couldn’t do it all. 

I had so much, after all.  And it wasn’t like there weren’t poor, poor young men also deserving of an education.

But I had to make choices.

Maybe then, that was my Philanthropy 101.  And today was a refresher. 

But an important one, because as we discussed, every life stage and change can alter your giving priorities, issues and interests.

A re-introduction is never a bad idea, to make sure that your giving is on track with who you are–emotionally and intellectually.

"Because," said the Prof, "When the head and the heart come together to find their cause, their organization, their area of giving…that’s where the magic happens."

Indeed.

So, thanks Siobhan for the very cool workshop and discussion today.  I’m sure I’ll be writing more about it as I continue to think through what we discussed and shared, and I hope the rest of you that attended will join the conversation as well as share your thoughts and impressions. 

And for the rest of you, I hope you’ll join us for the next session, Research 101, on April 19 at 12, where Siobhan will lead us through the key steps in researching and finding those organizations that are the best match for your giving values and issues. 

All current donors are welcome and are urged to R.S.V.P. to Tiffany Lightfoot (202-347-7737).  (And if you’re not a current donor now, why not become one and see what the power of giving together is all about?)   

Well, last week I raged, somewhat, about the lack of educational awareness among public schools on women’s history during National Women’s History Month. 

So, I did a little something about it.  Not much, but hey, it’s a start.

I decided to write memos to each school principal in my county.  Admittedly, this list ran long, so I picked about 10 out of the bunch.  I sent each of them a one-page, non-overwhelming, respectful memo asking if they encourage their teachers to teach women’s history in March, and if not, why not.

But, ladies and gentlemen, this blog is not about divulging the boring (But hey, it was my first time taking a stab at writing to strangers!) details of my memo…oh no, this is about my little personal realization that this is grassroots activism!

At The Women’s Foundation, one of our Stepping Stones strategies is “advocacy and leadership development,” and it’s interesting for me to see how my little project was, in some form, advocacy and leadership.

I could have sat around and complained all day, or I could take action and do something.

Which I did.

I guess it starts like that, just getting up and doing something. You focus on what voices you want to emphasize, how you’re going to do it, how you’re going to engage your audience, and it just keeps on rolling!

Unfortunately, the month is almost rolling out so my memo is a bit late, but regardless, the whole “taking action” thing felt great.

Who knows what I’m bound to start doing in the future.

When Jihane Achi from Piola restaurant in Arlington got in touch with us about hosting an International Women’s Day fundraiser on our behalf, explaining that she and her husband (who owns the restaurant) wanted to contribute 50 percent of the proceeds of all dessert sales on International Women’s Day (and the week leading up to it) to The Women’s Foundation as a means of giving back to the community, I knew that this could mean only one thing.

Field trip. 

Quality control is, after all, of the essence at The Women’s Foundation, and we do what we have to do.  No sacrifice is too great, no sugar rush too small. 

We made our trip after work on International Women’s Day itself and were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves greeted by servers who presented us each with a flower, and then proudly showed us the banner that publicized the fundraiser.  As we were served our complimentary mimosas to honor the day (after arms were twisted all around, of course), we all felt that Piola was not only making a generous contribution to the women of the Washington area, but also truly taking on the spirit of International Women’s Day by honoring every woman who walked through the door and making it a true celebration.

Who needs a parade when you’ve got this, I thought.  

The tone of the evening rang true with what Jihane had told me about the restaurant’s perspective on marketing and community.  "We could spend a lot of money on advertising," she said.  "But instead we’d rather take that money and expand our business by truly connecting with and supporting organizations doing good work in our community."   

A few days later, Jihane contacted us to share the good news that the fundraiser had raised nearly $600 for The Women’s Foundation, and had led to an increase in their total dessert sales of about 30 percent–a generous demonstration of their investment in the women of the Washington area, and their own business.

Staff were elated with the success of the fundraiser, and touched by the generosity and warm feel of the restaurant. 

They were not, however, surprised by the link between the fundraiser’s success and, well, the desserts. 

As Opa said afterwards, "Dessert was definitely my favorite part of the evening.  Profiteroles.  I couldn’t finish it, but it was delicious."

In sum, we’d like to extend our sincere thanks to Jihane and Nabil for their generosity, and for their investment in the women of the Washington metropolitan area and their community.  We’re proud to have the support of a young business venture led by two people who instinctively get the fact that investing in women is investing in communities, and that philanthropy can often be good business.

And to our readers out there, if you haven’t yet visited Piola (at 1550 Wilson Blvd, just off the Rosslyn Metro stop), take it from us, you should. 

Between the pizza and the profiteroles, it’s a sweet deal all around!     

NOTE: Piola is an Italian based pizzeria-restaurant chain with locations in six countries: Italy, USA (New York, Miami Beach, Washington D.C. and Hallandale Beach), Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Mexico.  Each restaurant promotes International Women’s Day in its own way.  In New York, Piola also hosts a fundraiser for the local women’s foundation, the New York Women’s Foundation. 

While catching up on a little television this week, I saw some promos for a new documentary series about to start airing on the Oxygen network, wherein correspondent Lisa Ling will be asking, Who cares about girls?

The first part of the series, which will debut on Sunday, March 25th at 10 p.m. ET on Oxygen, will focus on the lives of girls whose mothers are in prison.  The next one will focus on child labor and prositution in India.

Each episode will look at the challenges and circumstances facing girls worldwide, as well as the efforts of those trying to help.

Sounds intriguing, particularly since girlhood these days, at least for me, has become a fairly confusing concept. 

It seemed so clear-cut when I was experiencing it, before girls at 12 started wearing clothing and makeup more revealing than I ever felt comfortable wearing at 25, and before Laguna Beach showed high school kids experiencing levels of drama, maturity and complexity in their relationships and behaviors than I have been able to muster at 30.   

Before I could walk into the Nordstrom’s juniors department with a girlfriend and find age-appropriate "going out" clothing, and have to turn to said girlfriend to ask, "Is this too revealing?"  Followed by, "Wait a minute, this is how 13 year-olds dress now?" 

"Yeah," she said.  "Wierd." 

We were brought up when 90210 was as racy as things got and we were darned near scandalized if anyone even considered going beyond kissing.   

(And where we could at least console ourselves, if we started to feel a little less pretty, or less exciting, or less dateable than the girls on television, that they at least weren’t real–unlike with Laguna.)

Now, I look at young women, and I don’t know how they manage amid all these mixed signals and expectations.  I watch Laguna Beach and find myself, at 30, completely intimidated by these kids, who are like, 16.

And I wonder, then, how do  young women negotiate this?   

Then there are the girls I worked with in Africa, who face totally different negotiations, like trying to acquire the skills to convince their fathers that they’re worth educating, or finding time (and lamp light) to study at 10 p.m., when they finally finish hauling water, cooking the family meals and caring for younger siblings.  Or maintaining the sense of self, and perseverence, to continue with school at all, when every aspect of their culture and family generally tells them that this is useless, that they’re not worth it, that an education, a career and self-sufficiency are not their place. 

So, indeed, my sense of girlhood is fairly confused lately, and filled with concern. 

I don’t know how girls these days manage, in many respects, and I’m very curious to see what aspects of this Lisa will cover, and how. 

And what will surface as the strategies that are working to give girls more hope, and enable them to tap into their fullest, most positive potential, despite all the crazy messages and signals they’re being bombarded with.

My hope is that the feeling I emerge with is not that the one thing girls share worldwide is vulnerability, or victimization, but hope, intelligence, resilience and the ability to stand up to whatever pressures might be pointing them in other directions.

I guess I’ll have to tune in to find out. 

And in the meantime, drop a comment to let us here at The Women’s Foundation know what your thoughts are on the issues and pressures facing girls these days–here in the U.S. or abroad.

If you were Lisa Ling, what angle would you cover?  What solution would you surface? 

What story would you tell, if you could tell the world about girls these days, and who cares?

As I conducted some research for National Women’s History Month, I read a sentence that reminded me about the lack of awareness and recognition of NWHM in our schools, and quite frankly, I got irritated.

Very irritated.  

The sentence explained that, “March, as National Women’s History Month, has been part of our cultural calendar for over a generation. Yet each year, we receive countless complaints about the lack of coverage of National Women’s History Month in the press, radio, and television. Further concerns are expressed about bookstores and libraries that often don’t even put up a poster or a Women’s History Month display.  Most discouraging is that Women’s History Month is often not even mentioned in the schools.”

I thought, “Hey, yeah, I have no memory of learning about NWHM in middle school, junior high school or high school!”

I’m sure staff at my schools had a few posters, and put a blurb somewhere in those monthly one-page newsletters, but there was no pedagogy of substance that lit students’ interest. 

Sadly, I don’t think it was until the beginning of my undergraduate years that I learned about NWHM, and Native American History Month, in depth. 

It’s one thing to designate vital contributions of a group of people to one month, but then to barely teach it to our youth is another.

As my mind reflected on earlier years, and my television played an MTV marathon of Exposed (a very cheesy show where a woman goes out with two potential dates and later reveals to them that they have been hooked to a lie detector test), I wondered, “Couldn’t the producers at MTV have been just a little more pro-active considering the countless number of young people that tune in after school everyday?  Couldn’t they have shown some special on the first female videos that got played on their network?” 

Maybe their early education lacked substance like mine.  For now, I’ll conclude that instead of the real reasons.

McDonald’s has a 365Black campaign to advocate Black History Month every day, which is great.  But why not also have something like that for NWHM?  365Black provides a new tidbit every day on black history.  It’d be nice if they did that for other histories, too. 

I started thinking about more little things, like how a great quote on International Women’s Day in the paper was neatly tucked in the bottom left corner of the paper.  And how the women’s basketball information in my school newspaper was frequently relegated to the back pages.

I remembered, The Mind Has No Sex: Women in the Origins of Modern Science, by Londa Schiebinger and recalled the many historical contributions women made to science while they were excluded from public recognition for them. Maria Merian was a leading entomologist in the 18th century.  Maria Cunitz, Maria Winklemann, and Maria Eimmart (that’s a lot of Maria’s) finally received a little recognition for their scientific contributions, after Copernicus and Galileo, of course (even though the Maria’s finished their work first). 

The contributions of women in the fields of astronomy, mathematics, botany, science, the arts, and so on and so on make it all the more ludicrous to relegate a month to women that isn’t even reinforced in many schools.  (This is, of course, just as other groups don’t receive their dues.)

I read The Mind Has No Sex in adulthood.  I wish I had known facts like these earlier.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great to designate a specific time for the country to honor the achievements of a group, but I think it’s fair to say that women’s history isn’t taught to kids or observed as it deserves to be–in March or at any other time.

All children deserve to gain knowledge on the successes women have made and continue to make on a basic level, beginning in their early educational years.

This weekend I thumbed through a book on the benefits of secondary education for girls in Africa, and learned that many times, teachers extract female students from class to perform cooking duties, run errands, and clean.  Of course, this is a different culture, but the pattern of educational institutions failing to pay their due respects to women prevails.

I’m not trying to sound like someone who blames our schools completely for my own lack of knowledge. 

I, as an adult, am responsible for learning new things.  There comes an age where we become pro-active, but it makes a difference when our schools disseminate the correct lessons early on.  And, of course, all schools aren’t like my schools; plenty of my peers had a rich education on their culture and history early on.

Nevertheless, we can’t count on MTV or McDonald’s, even though they cater to many young minds of America, so we need the schools, where kids are from morning to evening, to talk about this.  Accessible and quality secondary education is vital, because schools hold the key to our future.  They are a powerful vehicle that can make HWHM something to remember.

So what will I do to reverse the bad cycle my home schools generate?  I am not off the hook to do something.

More on that in the next installment…

The theme for yesterday’s International Women’s Day celebration as established by the UN is, “Ending impunity for violence against women and girls.”

I am not sure what impunity means when it comes to the daily realities of women and girls living with violence.

Ending impunity seems even more abstract. 

I see “ending impunity” and I stop reading, stop short of women and girls and start to wonder what does that really mean and who decided that was the right language to use? 

It felt like a committee to me, a committee charged with the marketing objective, thinking about themes, compromising on language to make sure everybody agrees.

Perhaps even righteously so.

But it doesn’t work. I get stuck on impunity and never get to women and girls, never get to the fear and the consequences of violence.

What about just ending violence against women and girls, or preventing violence against women and girls?  What about using language that is less about ideas and more about action? 

Let’s learn about ways to prevent violence, not just punish it, and share what works within and across our local and international communities. 

Themes can serve as a call to action; language can serve as a call to conversation. 

And marketing?  Well, marketing is our way of claiming a little bit of space in a busy world thrumming with information.