As I’m going to be out tomorrow morning for the 2007 Stepping Stones Research Briefing, this week’s News and Views of Note will be published a tad early.  Enjoy! 

See below for a round-up of what was news this week in the world of philanthropy, social change and women and girls in the Washington metropolitan region and beyond:

Capital Community News recently featured Grantee Partner Lydia’s House in an article, "Living in the Zone: Divine Inspiration Propels Ward 8 into Transformation," which describes the efforts of founder Patrice Sheppard and her husband, Pastor Eugene Sheppard, to bring additional business development and affordable housing to Ward 8 through the development of Trinity Plaza.  The article states: “When we first got here it was like the OK corral!” says Patrice.  "Today it’s obvious that the Sheppards’ efforts are transforming the appearance of the once infamous lot. The Zone is a highly visible building that adds a fresh, clean look against a strip of rundown store fronts and liquor marts."

On Philanthropy

Dollar Philanthropy’s Carol Kirshner spoke this week with Dr. Keith Taylor of the Modest Needs Foundation, raising a number of interesting issues and points around the meaning, potential and purpose of philanthropy, giving and compassion.  Taylor, who founded Modest Needs to provide small grants to individuals and families to prevent the downward spirol into poverty, discussed his perspectives on the cycle of poverty, economic security, donor involvement in philanthropy and re-defining the way people think about giving.  "Philanthropy is not just about empowering the individuals in need of compassion. It’s about empowering each of us to demonstrate meaningful compassion, as we can, with whatever we can afford to share.  And to me, that kind of empowerment, which tangibly affects both the donor and the recipient, is the only kind of power worth having."   

TIME magazine released its TIME 100–"the 100 men and women whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world," and a special section of 12 Power Givers, which are summarized for easy reading by OnPhilanthropy, which also asks the fun question, who is missing and who shouldn’t have been included?  Prompting me to note, simply, that Oprah Winfrey seems an interesting omission from the power givers section, particularly this year when she opened her school and caused such a buzz.  What do you think?

Hispanic Business’s article, "Building the Foundation" documents the deliberate movement behind the Destino Hispanic Legacy Fund and, by default, the rise of philanthropy "among Hispanics for Hispanics."  Locally, a similar effort is underway through the Washington, D.C. Hispanics in Philanthropy collaborative, of which The Women’s Foundation is a founding supporter.     

The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Give and Take is hosting a number of interesting discussions, including one asking whether diversity isn’t enough of a priority for foundations and another questioning the value of giving circles.  Then there is advice on the three quick steps to attract young people to charities.  I’ve no doubt that members of our community have a great deal to contribute to these ongoing debates and dialogues, and hope you’ll stop by and leave your two cents.  If you do, be sure to let us know!  

On Women and Work

The Huffington Post this week featured two interesting posts on the issue of women and work, including Jill Miller’s "Working Women Under Attack, Again," which documents her perspective on recent concerns about the future of the Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau and harkens back to those wage-gap issues that have been so oft-discussed of late.  Additionally, Maria Kefalas takes on Single Mama Drama and discusses the economic factors behind the "non-marital childbearing trend."

And that’s it for this week!  Don’t forget to drop us a line about your take on the news, the views or something we missed! 

See you next week, and happy Mother’s Day! 

When I first moved to Washington, I was invited by my friend, Dr. Johanna Mendelson-Forman, to The Women’s Foundation’s Annual Leadership Luncheon. 

I was SHOCKED and impressed to see 1,000 women in attendance.  I mean, it is Washington, and who stops working for lunch? 

Right then and there, I knew The Women’s Foundation was one of the best nonprofits in the city. 

And your efforts on behalf of women and children fit in perfectly with the values of Upstairs on 7th.

I was the founder of Dress for Success in Cleveland, Ohio. One day in February I received a check for $250 from a women’s boutique and called to see why, as February is a very weird time for a nonprofit to receive money. 

The owner told me that every month they do a "random act of kindness" for a nonprofit that benefits women and children. 

When I opened Upstairs on 7th, I wanted to do the same thing. 

If we can shop, we can give!

Especially with our skif sweaters this week!  Skif sweaters are all year round, come in lots of colors and styles, and are very well priced.  Everyone who has one, has another. 

They are that good.

Stop by this week to see the spring collection, which is available to purchase.  You can also see the styles for fall, which can be ordered.

A portion of the sales of this event goes to The Women’s Foundation, and I’ll also be inviting my very generous customers to give in addition.  We are going to collect for The Women’s Foundation through the month of May, so stop by and visit!

Upstairs on 7th
Skif Trunk Show To Benefit Washington Area Women’s Foundation

Reception Friday, May 11th 8-30-5
May 12-20th regular gallery hours

I’ll admit, I had an unusual level of anxiety about participating in this year’s D.C. Cares Servathon. 

In fact, it wasn’t even remotely normal.

When I had gotten the invitation from WIN to join a group that would be cleaning up and painting one of the House of Ruth’s Washington, D.C. women’s shelters, it had sounded like a good idea at the time.

And then I started thinking about skills.

And how few I had to offer.

I began having flashbacks to a work-camp trip I’d taken with a friend’s church when I was young, and how we’d gotten into trouble for not really helping do anything.

We’d had some difficulty making it clear, I guess, that it wasn’t that we didn’t want to do anything, but that largely, we had no idea how to do anything.

We’d wandered around lost, trying to make ourselves look busy, while not actually being sure what we could or could not touch, or should or should not do to avoid messing anything up or cutting off someone’s finger.

Sort of like what I do now, in the kitchen at other people’s dinner parties or when visiting my mom, before she finally hands me a spoon and says, "It’s okay dear, just stir. Or perhaps you’d like to go balance the checkbook?"

We all have our strengths and skills, and for me, painting and yard work are not generally among them.

Largely because I’ve never painted, or done much in a yard besides rake or pick up a hedgeapple or two.  Or be called out by my mother to admire her petunias, wherein I would say, "Cool.  What’s a petunia?" 

I imagined myself standing alone, sort of wandering around touching tools while everyone else worked and said, "See that girl?  She’s not doing anything."

But, astoundingly, I found that I was actually useful, and had a great time. 

Not only did I meet a lot of fun, new people, but I learned how to turn soil, plant grass seed, weed and lay out mulch (after, of course, finding out what mulch is),

Not to mention serving as a self-instated project director for the drawing and painting of the four-square court for the kids.

I do, after all, have a particular flair and passion for four-square, having served as one of the longest fifth-grade champions of the "sport" ever known to the history of my graduating elementary school class.

So, as our work dried, and we stood back to admire the new four-square and hop-scotch courts we’d painted, and the cleaned up green space and freshly laid grass seed that had been–just a few hours before–a muddled array of weeds, trash and cigarette butts, I couldn’t help but thinking that this had proven to be a most productive day.

Because not only were there kids watching from the deck, nearly coming out of their shoes hopping around in anticipation of playing on the courts once they dried, but I’d learned another powerful lesson about the power of giving together.

Because it means that you don’t have to know it all to give.

Just that you have to be open to having something to contribute. 

And that through the giving, what you just might get is an expanded sense of who you are, and what you have to give. 

See below for a round-up of what was news this week in the world of philanthropy, social change and women and girls in the Washington metropolitan region and beyond:

A New York Times article explores how CARE, an international development organization, has leveraged the philanthropic interests of wealthy women over 35 into international efforts to improve the lives of women and girls through education, micro-enterprise and small development programming efforts. 

Salary.com released their annual figures on how much the labor of a working mom is worth, putting this year’s tab at $138,095 annually–3 percent higher than last year’s results.  Brings whole new perspective to the wage-gap discussions that have been taking place, when one also considers domestic and international "unwaged" labor, largely provided by women.  To further this discussion, last week Riane Eisler wrote in Alternet about "The Feminine Face of Poverty" and how she thinks it’s high time for leaders to consider addressing poverty through a lens that redefines "productivity" in economic indicators in a way that accounts for the unpaid labor provided by the world’s women. 

Susan V. Berresford, president of the Ford Foundation, offers an op-ed in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer challenging perceptions of a new intergenerational philanthropic divide that claims that new foundations are "entrepreneurial, innovative, ambititous and strategic" while long-standing ones are not.  "I am here to say this dichotomy does not fit reality. It does not capture the breadth of philanthropy’s scope and history, and it has the potential to damage our field," she writes.  Debate and discussion over this topic has since ensued among a number of philanthropic leaders, which is nicely summarized in a Tactical Philanthropy post, "Old vs. New Philanthropy."

Melinda Gates shared the lessons she’s learned from 10 years in philanthropy, which was preceeded a few weeks ago by her comments on the important role women and girls play in changing the world.

We learned that fewer employers are offering health benefits and a new report, From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half by the Center for American Progress advocated 12 recommendations–many of which are directly tied to the issues impacting low-income women and their families.   John Podesta, CEO of the Center for American Progress, testified to the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support on poverty and the goals of the Poverty Task Force.  

And that’s the news for this week!  Now, onto your views–post a comment to let us know your thoughts on any of the above, or about any news of note that we’ve missed. 

And, above all, happy Friday!   

At Monday’s official launch of the DC Saves campaign, Colleen Daily, the executive director of Capital Area Asset Builders–a lead partner in the DC Saves campaign and a Grantee Partner–explained that a great deal of the work in helping people, particularly low-income people to build wealth, is not financial.

It’s about beliefs about money, far more than it is about money itself.

Getting people who haven’t grown up with money to believe the message that they can build wealth, she explained, is what it’s all about. 

And is often the hardest part. 

When she said this,  I couldn’t help but think back to last week’s Philanthropy Forum on Families, Money and Philanthropy: Building a Legacy Across the Generations, where donors and potential donors of The Women’s Foundation gathered to talk and think through–with speakers like Carrie Schwab Pomerantz, Loribeth Weinstein and A’Lelia Bundles–the legacy that money can have through philanthropy.

I must say, I didn’t expect the event to be terribly applicable to me, being without a family foundation or huge philanthropic legacy and all.

But what astounded me was that it was actually about everyone, and how much our families have to do with how we view money, giving and the everyday financial habits that build wealth or hold it at arm’s length.

Over lunch, sitting around my table, we discussed not strategy or programming, but rather our personal stories and lessons of money, wealth and planning for the future.

By the end of lunch, I was referred to as the Junior CPA, after sharing that balancing my mom’s checkbook and writing all the checks for her to sign, which I did along with my sister as of the age of 10 largely because we loved it, trained me to be the fiscal hawk I am today, making sure my accounts are in balance, that I’m not charging more than I can pay off and that my credit history is clean.

My engagement with my finances today came directly from my mom’s teachings that managing money wasn’t scary or overwhelming.  That even a kid could do it. 

Over and over, the stories came and reverberated, tales of single moms teaching their kids how to conserve on things from electricity to water, to role modeling good habits and how those translated into their daily lives today.  Some learned to stretch a dollar when their mom showed them how she stretched a casserole, and others learned that even when financial hardship comes suddenly and unexpectedly–due to divorce or death–that families can recover and rebuild.   

How in the lives of every woman at the table, their financial habits were almost an exact mirror of their parents’–and often, a single mother’s. 

Bringing home in a very real way what Colleen said on Monday, and what Pomerantz said at the forum.  That , “Money isn’t just about ‘the talk.  It’s about lots of little moments and exposures throughout life.”

Which begs the question of what happens when there are no lessons about money, or money isn’t talked about in a home, or it’s seen as something foreign and scary and uncontrollable.  A matter left to the fates, not financial planning.

That what we believe about ourselves and, in essence, our worth, has as much to do with what our bank accounts become, as who we become.

That teaching financial literacy goes well beyond building skills, to building new beliefs.   

As part of our ongoing commitment–in partnership with The Urban Institute–to providing information and resources related to the goals of Stepping Stones, please find below summary of recent research on issues of economic security and financial independence for women and their families.

This research is summarized and compiled for The Women’s Foundation by Kerstin Gentsch of The Urban Institute, NeighborhoodInfo DC.

Financial Education and Wealth Creation News

Subprime and High Interest Rate Mortgage Lending in the Washington, D.C., Region
By Peter A. Tatian
Urban Institute
March 27, 2007

Looks at the latest data on subprime mortgage lending and high interest rate loans from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) for the 25 jurisdictions that make up the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.

Subprime loans are those that have higher costs (such as higher interest rates) than prime loans. Subprime loans are designed for applicants with poor credit histories, high loan-to-home-value ratios, or other credit risk characteristics that would disqualify them from lower cost, prime-rate loans.

There is increasing concern around the country with the amount of subprime and high cost mortgages issued in recent years. Subprime lending has made credit available to households with low incomes or credit scores that would not allow them to qualify for prime-rate loans. Nevertheless, as is now becoming all too clear, subprime lending can be detrimental if borrowers who take out higher-cost loans later have difficulty repaying them and risk defaulting on those loans.

Click here for the abstract and introduction, or here for the full report.  

Jobs and Business Ownership News

Behind the Pay Gap
American Association of University Women
April 23, 2007

Shows that women earn less even when working in the same career field, likely due to sex discrimination.

• One year after college graduation, women earn only 80 percent of what their male counterparts earn. Ten years after graduation, women fall further behind, earning only 69 percent of what men earn. Even after controlling for hours, occupation, parenthood, and other factors known to affect earnings, the research indicates that one-quarter of the pay gap remains unexplained and is likely due to sex discrimination. Over time, the unexplained portion of the pay gap grows.
• The research also shows that ten years after graduation, college-educated men working full time have more authority in the workplace than do their female counterparts. Men are more likely to be involved in hiring and firing, supervising others, and setting pay.
• This pay gap exists despite the fact that women outperform men in school – earning slightly higher GPAs than men in every college major, including science and mathematics.

Minorities in Business: A Demographic Review of Minority Business Ownership
By Ying Lowrey
Office of Economic Research, Office of Advocacy U.S. Small Business Administration
April 2007

Provides information on minorities in the work force and minority-owned businesses, including statistics about the minority population, their labor force participation, age, education, occupation, work schedules, average personal and household income, business ownership, and business dynamics.

• In 2002, minorities owned approximately 18 percent of the 23 million U.S. firms.
• Black-owned firms had the highest growth rate for several measures between 1997 and 2002: 45.4 percent for the number of firms; 24.5 percent of total receipts for the group; and 16.7 percent for employer firm receipts. Asians also experienced growth in the number of employer firms, at 12.6 percent, and in annual payroll, 25.3 percent. The number of American Indian and Native Alaskan businesses grew 2.1 percent.
• Hispanics or Latinos constituted the largest minority business community and owned 6.6 percent of all U.S. firms, 3.7 percent of employer firms, and 7.4 percent of nonemployer firms.
• Percentages of minority women owning businesses rose from 1997 to 2002: 29 percent of Black employer firms and 47 percent of Black nonemployer firms were women-owned in 2002. In contrast, women owned 17 percent of White employer firms and 31 percent of White nonemployer firms.
• Owners use a variety of sources of capital to start or acquire businesses. Nonemployer firm owners generally use a less varied array of financing sources than owners of firms with employees. Higher percentages of male/female equally owned, male-owned, and White-owned employer firms than of other firm groups financed their startups or acquisitions through business loans from banks. Higher percentages of Black- and Native American-owned employer businesses, as well as equally men- and women-owned employer firms used business loans from the government or government-guaranteed bank loans. More than all other groups, Islander employers used personal and business credit cards to finance their startups and acquisitions.

For full report, click here. 

Social Security Spouse and Survivor Benefits for the Modern Family
By Melissa Favreault and C. Eugene Steuerle
Urban Institute
March 27, 2007

Examines the effect of earnings sharing—through which husbands’ and wives’ earnings records are combined and averaged throughout their marriage when computing benefits—as well as other changes to spouse/survivor benefits.

Social Security spouse and survivor benefits advantage single-earner families relative to dual-earner families paying the same total taxes. Our paper considers earnings sharing—through which husbands’ and wives’ earnings records are combined and averaged throughout their marriage when computing benefits—as well as other changes to spouse/survivor benefits, including caregiver credits and minimum benefits. All the roughly cost-equivalent packages examined improve adequacy and horizontal equity compared to current law. The earnings-sharing proposal, however, only reduced poverty with significant adjustments to the treatment of surviving spouses. The packages reveal tradeoffs among beneficiary groups, with particular tensions around work and marital status.

The abstract and executive summary are available on-line, as is the complete paper. 

Child Care and Early Education News

KidBits: Using data to drive better outcomes for children and youth
DC Action for Children
March 28, 2007

A report meant to fuel efforts to improve conditions of children, youth and their families across the District of Columbia.

• Offers a snapshot of data in six key areas: school readiness, school success, healthy children and youth, youth opportunity, children and youth in stable families and youth transitioning to adulthood.
• Shows that poverty is growing, and becoming more concentrated in the areas of the city where there are the most kids.
• Offers several key recommendations to local policy makers:
  o End child poverty in the District of Columbia.
  o Create a citywide public awareness campaign to help parents understand the importance of routine,  preventive care and kept appointments.
  o Aggressively address the growing truancy issue by expanding the current court initiative to more schools and institute real time and immediate notification of parents and other caregivers.
  o Add HPV and herpes to the list of reportable sexually transmittable diseases (STD) and provide treatment at the city’s STD clinics.
  o Direct additional resources to young people not in school and not connected to other services and supports with a specific emphasis on Wards 7 and 8.
  o Create and implement comprehensive plan to end child abuse and neglect.
  o Direct resources for prevention efforts.
  o Recommit to implementing the city’s Effective Youth Development Strategy.

For full report, click here. 

Health and Safety News

How Well Do Health Coverage Tax Credits Help Displaced Workers Obtain Health Care?
By Stan Dorn
Urban Institute
March 26, 2007

This testimony addresses three topics: health coverage challenges facing displaced workers; the strengths and weaknesses of the HCTC program in helping these workers retain health coverage; and policy options to improve the HCTC program so it can be more effective in meeting the health coverage needs of workers who lose their jobs because of international trade.

Health Coverage Tax Credits (HCTCs) have been generally ineffective in providing health care to displaced workers for several reasons:

• The credits are used by only 11 percent of eligible workers.
• The coverage for which credits may be used often leaves out the health care that workers need. When job loss is followed by a gap in coverage of 63 days or longer, plans can deny treatment of the worker’s known health problems. Moreover, many states offer only plans with high deductibles that make care unaffordable for workers with limited incomes. Also, such plans often exclude or severely limit such basic services as prescription drugs, maternity care, and treatment of mental illness.
• In some states, HCTC plans increase their premiums substantially for enrollees who are older, female, or have health problems.
• When a displaced worker turns 65 and qualifies for Medicare, the worker’s spouse loses HCTC, even if that spouse is too young for Medicare and has no other coverage.
  HCTC’s shortcomings can be addressed successfully through program changes like the following:
• Increase the size of HCTCs to pay at least 75 percent of premiums.
• When beneficiaries have low household income, provide supplemental credits that lower worker costs to no more than 10 percent of premiums.
• Eliminate the requirement that workers must enroll in qualified coverage and pay full monthly premiums before the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will rule on their eligibility for HCTC.

The summary of testimony and the complete testimony are available online. 

Other News and Research

Kids’ Share 2007
By Adam Carasson, C. Eugene Steuerle, Gillian Reynolds
Urban Institute
March 15, 2007

Reports on trends in federal spending on children from 1960 to 2017, looking across over 100 major federal programs, including tax credits and exemptions.

This study reports on trends in federal spending on children from 1960 to 2017, looking across over 100 major federal programs, including tax credits and exemptions. Children’s spending increasingly shifted from broad-based programs to programs targeting low-income or special needs children over the 1960 to 2006 period. Thirteen major programs enacted between 1960 and 2006, which include Medicaid, the earned income tax credit, and Food Stamps, comprised 65 percent of federal spending on children in 2006. Overall, federal children’s spending increased in real terms from $53 billion in 1960 to $333 billion in 2006, or from 1.9 to 2.6 percent of GDP. Yet as a share of federal domestic spending, children’s spending declined from 20.1 to 15.4 percent. Meanwhile, spending on the automatically growing, non-child portions of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, nearly quadrupled from 2.0 to 7.6 percent of GDP ($58 billion to $993 billion) over the same time period. Over the next ten years, children’s programs are scheduled to decline both as a share of GDP and domestic spending, because they do not compete on a level playing field with these rapidly growing entitlement programs.

Click here for the executive summary or here for the complete report.