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Do we really need nonprofits in America? : Five arguments for the sector’s existence
Are nonprofit organizations redundant? Can the for-profit sector solve all our problems and usher in a world where poverty, disease and deprivation are things of the past? I read an article on the Forbes website yesterday that argued for dismantling of the nonprofit sector. This piece by Mr. Freedman sought to show, using two…
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Travelers’ tips from Ibn Battuta – A fourteenth century itinerant traveler
If someone has traveled over 70,000 miles in the 14th century, by land and sea; one can safely assume that this person knows a thing or two about travel and life, in general. Added to this, if one happens to be a religious scholar, who has access to Sultans and Princes around the world, then…
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Not everything that can be Counted Counts, and Not Everything that Counts can be Counted: Notes from ARNOVA, 2013
I left Hartford, CT on Saturday after three grueling days of intense thinking and engagement at the 42nd Annual Association for Research on Non-profit and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), the Mecca for nonprofit theorists and practitioners. For over four decades the organization has been the meeting ground for anyone interested and engaged in this sphere.…
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How to overcome cultural barriers to philanthropy?
Doing good is not easy. In today’s globalized world, where different values, norms, cultural attitudes towards life are coming together and interacting there is bound to be friction, misunderstanding when it comes to what it means to do good, and the intentionality of the acts themselves. In the field of philanthropy, this is markedly so,…
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Teaching kids about Philanthropy – Talk about it or show how it is done?
On a recent trip to Dearborn, MI, this summer, I witnessed what could be considered the only model of teaching philanthropy for young Arab Americans. I met the team from the Center for Arab American Philanthropy (CAAP), an organizational affiliate of ACCESS in Dearborn, MI, the largest Arab-American philanthropic organization in the country. Titled…
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Is philanthropy inherently undemocratic?
I am reading Peter Frumkin’s Strategic Giving, a must read for anyone interested in understanding the current debates in the field of philanthropy and also teaching a course on Governance and civil society in the U.S. Together, these two sources are shaping my ideas about democracy, civic engagement and political theory. I will discuss the…
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My experience as a dictator
I was a dictator for half a day during a simulation in a Public Administration and Democracy course I took at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, where I was finishing up my MPA in 2010. I volunteered to be the General of a fictitious state, ‘Kush,’ which is landlocked between the mongrelized…
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Dinner with an M.B. supporter- Democracy in the Middle East (DIME) #1
As everyone was preparing for the end of Ramadhan in the U.S, I was busy moving into a new apartment, close to the mosque on North Main Street in Blacksburg. Among other things, this new location gives me access to the mosque and also a grocery store. I am thankful for this, and to test…
