This is the question that we tried to answer in our recently released report, Beyond Charity: Recognizing Return on Investment, on how the nonprofit community impacts Greater Washington.  Beyond Charity reveals some of the many ways in which local nonprofits raise the quality of life for all of us, and are the lifelines to our most vulnerable neighbors.

What I would like to write about, however, is not our findings, but rather the reasons why we even launched the inquiry.

We already knew that when people give, they give with their hearts. But, does doing the right thing also make economic sense? Is an investment in a local nonprofit an investment in your community?

When the Nonprofit Roundtable first raised these questions over a year ago, we could not find any reports that attempted to document and add up evidence of nonprofit return on investment. The data that was available was either on the impact of a single organization or of a group of organizations on a single issue.

So, in partnership with the World Bank Group, we embarked on an effort to create a fuller picture by recording the return on investment of a wide range of nonprofits. We reached out to our 175 members – to more than a dozen area foundations and to dozens of other nonprofit organizations and experts. We imagined the power of a report that would sincerely begin to answer how nonprofits make a difference.

Washington Area Women’s Foundation was a big help and many of the examples in the report are of their Grantee Partners.

Of course, no one sets out to issue a report that sits on a bookshelf. Our hope is that Beyond Charity has multiple uses:

• To create a baseline picture of the difference nonprofits make across the District of Columbia, suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia.
• To deepen the nonprofit community’s own understanding of our value and the importance of tracking return on investment. 
• To create a common understanding among government, business, nonprofit and community leaders about the impact of nonprofits in order that we may work together more effectively on our region’s problems and aspirations.

We hope that as you read Beyond Charity, you are inspired to act.

Do you see a new opportunity to work collaboratively?  Are there community leaders who you believe really need to understand the impact of nonprofits and the expertise of nonprofit leaders? And, do you have your own example of nonprofit return on investment? If so, let us know!

Here’s our punch-line: when government, business, and concerned citizens partner with nonprofits - everyone profits!

Chuck Bean is executive director of The Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington.

Deborah Avens asks us to take a thoughtful, real look at our sisters next door on her new blog, Sister Table Talk.

Avens is the founder and president of Virtuous Enterprises, Inc., a Grantee Partner that provides programs and services designed to give women and girls of all walks of life the skills they need to succeed in academic, business, and work environments.

With its inaugural post put up yesterday, Avens invites us to consider how poverty seems to weigh more heavily on women than men, and how, in particular, this is due to the insufficient lack of access to affordable housing and healthcare.

And she’s doing so to provide a unique perspective on these issues–that of low-income women in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

A welcome voice and perspective, given the recent efforts to bring nonprofits, government and citizens in Prince George’s County together to build relationships, forge collaborative strategies and advocate for policies and practices that work for this unique area where only four nonprofits have budgets of more than $25,000 per year.

Avens’ new blog is therefore a much needed and welcome one to contribute to the discussion around the realities facing women in Prince George’s County, which are unique and often lesser known, as Donna Callejon found out during a forum there earlier this month.

Avens’ asks a serious set of questions in her first post, writing:  "What will it take to decrease or eradicate the growing ‘trend of poverty among low-income, headed families in particularly in Prince George’s County, Maryland? What will it take for the economical gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ to close? What will it take for policy makers to increase the livable wage so that people can live the true American Dream without constantly working to simply pay bills and taxes. What will it take for the general public to move with more compassion and less criticism?"

She reminds us that it will take a true understanding of the realities facing the sister next door–and surely Sister Table Talk will serve as a great resource for those interested in getting to know their sisters next door in Prince George’s County.

The Women’s Foundation is proud to have Virtuous Enterprises within its Grantee Partner community and applauds the addition of their voice to the important dialogue about how to make investments in women and girls work for the women and girls they work with every day.

Becky Sykes, Executive Director of the Dallas Women’s Foundation, wrote in the Dallas Morning News last week that when you help a woman, there’s a ripple effect.

Spoken like a true international development specialist, often quoted as saying, "To educate a woman is to educate a family," or other statements that tie the welfare of women to the welfare of families, and, by default, entire communities.

But Sykes accurately ties this accepted aspect of work developing communities abroad to the work of women’s foundations operating in communities throughout the U.S. 

Because the same principles that apply internationally to developing communities and the status of women also apply here at home, even if they are harder for us to see. 

Sykes writes, "International development studies and projects have shown time and again that an investment in women – more than any other – is the fastest and surest way to affect an entire community.  Here in North Texas, we often mistakenly assume that the needs of women and girls are not as critical as in other, less fortunate communities. What a dangerously incorrect assumption."

Sykes notes the realities that make this true for Dallas, and our region is no different.  Our Portrait Project has shown that in the Washington metropolitan area:

• Women-headed households, especially those headed by single mothers, suffer disproportionately from the region’s growing poverty.  In the District of Columbia, 30% of women-headed families live in poverty – above the national average and the highest in the region.
• Women still earn less than their male counterparts. In Fairfax County, where the discrepancy is largest, men’s annual median earnings outpace women’s by $18,700. 
• In 2000, in the District of Columbia, women-headed families at the median income ($26,500) could afford to buy only 8% of homes in the city. Many families are faced with childcare expenses that consistently exceed earnings. For example, the estimated cost of childcare in Montgomery County for an infant and a preschooler is $15,329, more than one-third of the median income for women-headed families in that county.
• Despite the improvement in the rates of teen pregnancy, communities in our region still lag behind in infant-mortality rates, a key indicator of healthy pregnancies. The District of Columbia and Prince George’s County have the highest infant mortality rates in the region.
• The District of Columbia has a higher incidence (new cases) of AIDS among women than anywhere else in the country. The rate of new AIDS cases among adolescent and adult women in the District of Columbia is 10 times the national rate.

As Sykes explains, " When you see women in trouble like this, it is often an early warning signal of deeper, growing problems. Because, just as helping a woman has a ripple effect, so does letting her sink into poverty and disenfranchisement."

Luckily, there is another side to this story, one of communities coming together to invest in programs and work that supports women, lifts families out of poverty and creates stronger cities, neighborhoods and regions for all of us. 

And when they do, the level of impact and transformation they achieve can be astounding.

That’s the work of foundations and funds like The Women’s Foundation that are operating throughout the country and world. 

As Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations has noted repeatedly, "Study after study has taught us that there is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women. No other policy is as likely to raise economic productivity, or to reduce infant and maternal mortality. No other policy is as sure to improve nutrition and promote health—including the prevention of HIV/AIDS. No other policy is as powerful in increasing the chances of education for the next generation."

Just as these problems are not unique to countries and communities abroad, neither are the solutions.  The power of Investing in women is a principle that is just in true in Mauritania as it is in Maryland. 

Ready to invest in the single most effective strategy for improving your community?  If you’re in the Washington metropolitan area, learn more about The Power of Giving Together.

Elsewhere, visit the Women’s Funding Network to find a women’s foundation or fund near you.

I spent a few hours yesterday in Prince George’s County, Maryland, helping to facilitate a Voice and Vision session for Washington Area Women’s Foundation.

Although I’ve been on the board for seven years, I have been focused on pretty much everything except our programmatic work in an intense way. Don’t get me wrong, I can recite the stats and progress and impact and all that good stuff.

Like that the DC metro area is a "tale of two cities," with the highest paid and most highly educated women in America.  We’re the fastest growing city for women entrepreneurs, and we’ve got a woman presidential candidate living in our midst.

BUT, we’ve also got the highest rate in the country of new incidences of HIV in women, and 1 in 3 kids lives in poverty –more than 75 percent in households headed by single women. 

See, I didn’t even have to check my notes (or our research) to lay that out.

But yesterday, instead of talking about it conceptually, I was with some women in Prince George’s County who, themselves, have come through the fire and are now doing amazing work to help lift struggling women out of poverty, away from destructive behaviors and relationships, and to independence.

Deborah Avens runs a non-profit called Virtuous Enterprises, Inc. Kim Rhim runs one called Training Source.  (Both are Grantee Partners of The Women’s Foundation.)

These women are doing God’s work for sure — against a fair number of odds and in an area that is somewhat forgotten in a metropolitan area where many people don’t really know the geography and demographics of their hometown.

Prince George’s County is the ultimate tale of two counties. While folks there don’t like to hear it said this way, these women - and others who were there - most definitely framed up the "inside the beltway" vs. "outside the beltway" dynamics of this county, which is the most affluent minority-majority (aka majority black) "municipality" in the world.

I feel lucky and proud to work with The Women’s Foundation and with women like Deborah and Kim.  They inspire me to keep investing in the future of independence - financial and otherwise - for women in our community.

Donna Callejon serves on The Women’s Foundation’s Board of Directors, and is Chief Operating Officer of Global Giving.  This blog was originally posted here before we subsequently stole it.  (With permission, of course.)

According to today’s Washington Post, there’s good news to celebrate for our region’s women and girls–a declining teen pregnancy rate over the past decade.

In Washington, D.C., Arlington and Prince George’s County, teen pregnancy and birth rates have markedly declined–along with those around the nation–and have inspired hope that programs aimed at young people–and especially young women–are working.

A few take-aways from the article:

• Investing in issues that impact women and girls works.  For everyone.
• To be effective, efforts require a unified effort across communities.
• Investing in messages and work that protects the health and well-being of women and girls does inspire marked behavior change.
• Efforts to truly impact diverse communities, such as Latinas, where rates are, unfortunately, still rising, requires approaches that view challenges, problems and program design through a culturally appropriate lens.
• Providing information and access to health care to young women leads to wise decision-making.

In all, a very hopeful picture about the power of investing in women and girls.

But there still remains much work to be done, particularly in our region.  In Montgomery County, teen birth rates crept up this summer.  Alexandria’s teen birthrate increased over the past decade, and experienced only a minimal decline in its teen pregnancy rate.  Rates among Latinas are rising.

Overall, however, a hopeful picture of how investing in programs, messages and people that improve the health and well-being of women and girls does lead to positive change that impacts not only those women and girls, but their families and entire community.

A great message to carry with me as I prepare for Thursday’s Leadership Awards meeting, where a group of volunteers who have been working for the past few months to evaluate and learn more about innovative, effective nonprofits that are impacting the health and safety of our region’s women and girls, will award eight of them with a Leadership Award of up to $10,000.

The news from this article is a great note on which to finish up our efforts this year–and to remember that the decisions we make about how we invest our money, and the organizations and issues that we support, do have a defining impact on the health of our community.

It’s nice to have a voice in work that’s really making a difference.

The Leadership Awards committee is just one of many ways that you can be involved in the work of changing women’s lives through The Women’s Foundation.  Learn more.

A new national poll has found that women are delaying having children because of the high cost of child care and preschool–which can run about $10,000 annually (more than my college tuition not that long ago).

For middle income women ($35-50K), the poll found that one in three said that the cost of child care or preschool made them decide against having a baby or delay having one. Those polled often had to give up buying appliances or other household needs because of the high cost of child care.

Some of the women polled are married and part of dual income households. I can’t help but think then of the burden of child care costs on the women served by The Women’s Foundation, who are primarily single mothers earning less than $35K a year in an economy with a very high cost of living.

i wonder what choices and decisions then face a woman with less earning power, less help and a greater financial burden to assume alone.

Here in Washington, D.C., according to our Portrait Project, 2002 market rates for childcare for a family with an infant and a preschooler was around $22,900 per year–or one third of the salary of a couple earning $77,000.

Now, imagine paying my college tuition four times over each year as a single woman earning less than $35,000 per year–which is what a lot of women in our region are trying to do (as I recall, doing it once over for my single mom wasn’t exactly a cake walk). For a single woman in our region earning $26K per year (not atypical), childcare would consume 70 percent of her earnings.

Forget not buying an allowance at that point. What about food, and clothing?

And it’s not just D.C. Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties have the highest estimated childcare costs of all counties in Maryland, at $15,329 and $11,495 respectively for families with an infant and preschooler.

If you’re earning less than $35K, or even less than $50 or $75, and raising kids, that doesn’t leave a lot of budgetary wiggle room.

As Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham said regarding the poll, “The high cost of child care and preschool are causing women to make agonizing decisions. We need to invest more to ensure access to quality child care and preschool for all American families and cut crime in the process.”

Cutting crime isn’t the only thing that would be reduced were child care to be made more affordable and available in our area–and the nation. Without childcare, people–and particularly single mothers–can’t hold down their jobs.

Our Portrait Project found that there is an estimated 62 percent shortfall in the supply of regulated childcare to meet the potential demand in Washington, D.C.

Affordable child care is such a win-win on so many fronts. It may seem like a women’s issue, but really, it’s everyone’s issue, because it touches every facet of our lives, at pretty much every level of the economic spectrum.

This is why it’s one of the four focal points of Stepping Stones. Because women’s economic security, and the strength of our community, depends on access to such key basic services and needs.

As program assistant here at The Women’s Foundation, I get the opportunity to take in grant and award applications such as those for Leadership Awards, where I get a glimpse of what different issues nonprofits are tackling these days.

A good sprinkling address sex trafficking and other forms of human trafficking, bringing home for me how this problem is impacting our community. 

Law enforcement officials in Maryland report that one of the state’s fastest growing crimes is labor and sex trafficking.  WTOP reports about the extent of trafficking in Montgomery County, Maryland   In 2006, police uncovered a possible human trafficking ring in Loudon County, Virginia.  And in Washington, D.C., officials are working with local nonprofits to reduce the amount of sex trafficking.

Human trafficking, defined by Ayuda, a Grantee Partner, is "the recruitment, harboring, transporting, providing or obtaining, by any means, of any person for forced labor, slavery, peonage or servitude in any industry or site such as agriculture, construction, prostitution, manufacturing, begging, domestic service or marriage."

As defined by a number of nonprofit groups, human trafficking is modern day slavery. 

And a form of slavery we often think of as occurring outside of our country–let alone our region. 

Ms. Magazine just ran an article on this issue, and it is documented at the Tunnel of Oppression exhibit at the University of Maryland. 

It was at this exhibit that I became aware of the issue of trafficking, even though it has been going on for such a long time.

Polaris Project, another Grantee Partner, provides an estimate of more than 100,000 trafficking victims enslaved in the U.S.

It is sex trafficking specifically that interests me, largely because of its implications for women and girls.

The California nonprofit Captive Daughters offers a daunting estimated figure of two million women and children held in sex trafficking worldwide.

The sex trafficking industry, and I use the word industry because of its pervasiveness, seems to permeate in some way, shape or form all parts of the world. Daunting and astonishing are the only words I can use to describe my reaction to the research I find on this.

Captive Daughters talks about the Philippine’s tour packages. They are all inclusive, including one’s option to purchase sex from a female prostitute working as an entertainer.

PBS’s Frontline has a story on how five women, from Moldova, Ukraine, Turkey, and Hungary, were tricked (in some cases by their friends) into this abusive industry (in exchange for money), and finally managed to escape. The interviews with the women, available online, are saddening and disturbing.

What makes me really angry about all this, besides the pervasiveness and inhumane feeling the process must induce in its victims, is why it’s so prevalent.

It speaks to the priority of the almighty dollar, and the level of sexism, and devaluation of women and children that people still hold worldwide. Not that having more male or female victims makes sex trafficking better or worse, but the industry is disproportionately made up of women and children.

And isn’t this a theme?  Don’t women and children still disproportionately suffer from issues that help make them more vulnerable to trafficking such as poverty, hunger, and physical abuse locally as well as abroad?

Many of the women who get tricked into the sex trade are lied to and promised a new job in the new area they are being taken to. Deborah Finding, team leader of The POPPY Project, talks about what her project does to help female victims of sex trafficking, and steps we can take to reduce in the number of women trafficked.

For one thing, she says there should be greater public awareness. 

I agree, and find a perfect example of how U.S. media has a role to do this but doesn’t.  This week, I learned from CNN and MSNBC more about Lindsay Lohan’s arrest than anything else.

What about the grave issues that are eating away at the life and quality of life of women worldwide?  Why can’t we talk about these more? Why can’t the stories of those five women from the Frontline special be the hot topic of the news for two days in a row?

So, until the media does a better job of raising the voices and issues of women and girls, we can all start by learning more about how we can prevent and report human trafficking in the U.S.

There are individuals, groups, and great nonprofits in the U.S. and abroad educating on and working with victims of sex trafficking, but they need more support and recognition–and I’m left wondering how this will come about when there is so little information circulating about these realities.

My sense is that if this isn’t going to be a regular national media story, it falls upon us to continue to learn what we can, to act individually and support the local nonprofits tackling this issue, and to continue to support–together–the local organizations working to prevent and combat this phenomenon.

In our region, The Women’s Foundation is supporting Grantee Partners that are tackling human trafficking occurring right in our backyard.  They include:  Ayuda, Polaris Project (through their Greater DC Trafficking Intervention Program), CASA of Maryland and Tahirih Justice Center.

Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) (a Grantee Partner) just released a very cool new tool for our region: the D.C. Metro Area Self-sufficiency Calculator.

With funding from the Freddie Mac Foundation, WOW created the calculator to serve as "an online career and financial counseling tool that will help thousands of the region’s most vulnerable families move out of poverty and gain financial independence," WOW’s press release explains.

It works like this:  "The Self Sufficiency calculator is more than a tool; it offers concrete strategies in moving on a path to prosperity for the whole family while providing benchmarks and outcome information that will inform policy and practice from housing to workforce strategies…by helping struggling parents compute their earned wages and develop a financial savings plan to meet their families’ basic needs."

It will be made available, and used by, "several hundred local government agencies, nonprofits, libraries, and other organizations to help educate families about the cost of living in the District and throughout the region, how their current income compares to their specific self-sufficiency wage, and how to use the calculator to map out a plan for short and long term financial independence."

Women, and particularly single mothers, are the most economically vulnerable population in our region, and therefore have a tremendous amount to gain from this tool, and the research behind it. 

The use of this tool to link low-income women in our region to better paying, more stable jobs and to save towards their family’s economic security will no doubt greatly impact a vast number of children, families and our community as a whole in a positive way.

Now, that really adds up!

To learn more:
WOW press release
DC Metro Area Self-sufficiency Calculator
WOW Web site

Well, I didn’t successfully complete the one-week D.C. Hunger Food Stamp Challenge, but, I did learn valuable lessons and new personal insights. 

But first, full disclosure.  Why didn’t I finish?  I pretty much gave up.  I tried, but it was pretty tough.

The first lesson I learned was, if grocery shopping on a limited budget, it’s best to buy everything before the week begins. That way, it’s harder or better yet impossible, since there’s no money, to be tempted to buy high priced foods here and there throughout the week that you really don’t need.

The second lesson I learned is how connected I am with food, emotionally, physically, and psychologically. The fourth night of the challenge was the hardest. I went to bed feeling almost depressed because I couldn’t eat what I really wanted. The smell and taste was so close, yet so far.  Up until the fourth day, physical hunger wasn’t a problem, but that night, my stomach was feeling empty.  Ironically while I write this, an ABC Nightline commercial just aired about gastric-bypass surgery and referred to food “as an addiction.”

On the morning of the third day, I was so irritable that I grabbed a cold cookie from a refrigerator and ate it within 20 seconds. I felt so restricted that I didn’t even warm it up like I usually do. I didn’t even like that particular chocolate flavor, but it was sweet, quick, satisfying, accessible, and free.

I pretty much knew that I was going to go back to the usual eating regime on the morning of the fifth day. I still can’t really imagine how people who are really suffering from chronic hunger, and people who don’t necessarily starve, but who can’t afford the foods of their choice, feel.

I think I took it so hard because it was such a fresh experience for me, but for someone who hasn’t had the foods of their choice for months, I wonder if there is a kind of desensitization to the whole thing of missing tastes.

All this wondering made me pull the late Elliot Liebow’s, Tell Them Who I Am: The Lives of Homeless Women, off my bookshelf.  I like this book because the information comes from his participatory observation of single, homeless women in emergency shelters in DC.  One of the main problems of daily living was health and diet.

“Obesity, stomach disorders, diabetes, food allergies, cardiovascular irregularities, and other disorders for which diet is integral to treatment made up another class of common health problems that resisted treatment by the very nature of homelessness…typically in shelters, few choices were available. Low-fat, low-salt, low cholesterol…and other low-this-or-that dietary injunctions were almost impossible to observe,” Liebow writes.   

Nobody, especially in the U.S., should go hungry, and/or be subject to affordable but highly unhealthy food. We have enough food in our stores and restaurants for everyone to eat sufficiently and healthy. This made me want to do a little research.

According to the nonprofit organization CARE:
•  More than 840 million people in the world are malnourished — 799 million of them live in the developing world;
•  Over 153 million of the world’s malnourished people are children 5 years of age or younger; and,
•  A lack of essential minerals and vitamins contributes to increased child and adult mortality. Vitamin A deficiency impairs the immune system, increasing the annual death toll from measles and other diseases by an estimated 1.3 million-2.5 million children.

That’s hard to digest (no pun intended), not because it doesn’t seem valid (I wish that were the case), but because it’s mind blowing.

What’s going on in the most developed country?

Looking at hunger stats at home (the U.S.) according to FRAC (The Food and Research Action Center):
•  At least 10.8 million people live in homes considered to have “very low food security.”
•  In my home state, Maryland, 196,000 households were considered “food insecure” from data gathered between 2003-2005. 115,165 of people in these households were WIC recipients (Women Infants and Children). Minimum wage in Maryland was $6.15 as of 2006. That is not enough for a woman who has a young child or children, and is trying to pay for decent housing, to live on.
•  In DC, the number is lower, with 31,000 households considered to be “food insecure” from data gathered between 2003-2005. 15,193 of people in these households considered food insecure are WIC recipients. The minimum wage in DC was $7.00 as of 2006.

These types of facts outrage me, especially when I hear about the kids.  That’s also what made it frustrating to quit the challenge prematurely–guilt from knowing that I have the privilege to return to my “regular eating” when many don’t.

On a positive note, a good insight I had from all this was that I should continue volunteering at the Pathways shelter I go to monthly.  I am a “dinner volunteer” for the smaller subcomponent of Calvary Women’s Services in DC, and in the two weeks prior to the challenge, I’d just started searching for different volunteering opportunities that might provide more direct interaction between me and the clients.   

Pathways houses about 10 chronically homeless women, some with mental disorders, and at the site there isn’t much talk between me and the women when I go to deliver food and prepare plates.  While I understand why they wouldn’t want to chat it up with someone they see bring some dinner in every once in a while, I really would like an opportunity that allows me to interact more, so I was thinking of not going anymore, and instead looking into reading for children in local hospitals or something.

After this challenge, while I can look for other opportunities, I know I can’t stop bringing the food.  The women always say they like my dishes, and the least I can do is send some hot, tasty, nutritious dishes their way.

Nobody should have to go hungry, and for me it starts on working on issues that affect the women right here in the local community.

For information on other ways to get involved in our community, Volunteer and Connect!