Week 4-Social Services

    This week's topic is social services. There are so many social services in our community, such as Red Cross, Goodwill Industries, and Salvation Army. We see all these social services bringing positive change in society. Social services is one of my most passionate field to work in because it outreaches to the elderly, poor, children, and the disabled. The nonprofit sector provide most of the social services in this country and I feel it makes the most difference in helping people. I find that the impact of social services are huge. They provide emergency relief, food and clothing during winter, housing units for homeless people, and rehab services. All these are good services and aid. The problem is with the social service sector is the idea of government paying and social services providing (O'Neill). The whole idea of welfare and social safety net is not working today. People are too depend on welfare to provide for them, where it should be instead providing "what is necessary" to society, not just getting money and providing. I agree that there are lots of people in need and should be help. The problem comes, where it become a band wagon and everyone thinks they need help even if its a small thing such as food stamp. I heard a story where people use food stamp to buy lobster (luxury food) instead of basic necessary food. This could be a extreme example but the idea is there is no check and balance for the welfare system.
    A topic I would like to talk about within the social services is elderly care and the issue of putting grandparents in retirement homes. I come from a Chinese culture where it is the duty of children when they grow up to take care of their parents and we often live with our grandparents. In the Chinese Marriage Law Article 20 it states "...children shall have the duty to support and assist their parents...If children fail to perform their duty, parents who are unable to work or have difficulties in providing for themselves shall have the right to demand support payments from their children." The Chinese children have a cycle of responsibility and honor, where when they are young the parents take care of them and they take care of their parents when they are old. American don't see this as their responsibility and they live their own lives once they mature into adults. I often hear from Americans that they move out when they start their careers or when they are starting their own families. I am not saying Chinese people don't move out but that their parents often follow it them to where they go. The family structure is always there and we don't live separate lives. The issue is where Americans don't take care of their parents when they get old and sometimes send them off to retirements homes. The government  and nonprofit sector provide so many elderly services, 6,740 firms (O'Neill), that could be cut back through the structure I talked about above. Grandparents should be living with their family instead of themselves and we wouldn't need so many retirement homes or elderly care. I do believe if the elderly are sick, can't take care of them, or has mental problem then they should be at a elderly facility. I know this is kind of controversy with what I am suggesting but its just a idea that could be use to save medical and welfare costs. Here is the pros and cons of grandparents living with your family:

Pros: Save money for the family but not going to retirement homes, someone to maintain the house, family unity and being close together, less sprawl (kids don't have to move out to buy new houses).
Cons: Often nobody is home to look after the grandparents, they could get hurt, loneliness.

So the question is whether this kind of responsibility is good for the American culture? I am not saying this should be a law by any circumstance but rather a new way of looking at family structural system and how we can help ourselves instead of government provide everything.

Here is the link for about the Chinese social system and the family structure. This will give you more background information and hopefully help you form your own opinions.
http://www.booksandideas.net/China-s-Social-Protection-System.html


Another issue that is related to the grandparents topic is child day-care services. Again the idea is to cut cost for families and provide for yourself. Me and my brother was raised by my grandma while both of my parents worked. I know that some families have stay home moms to raise children but those that don't could use this alternative. Since your grandparents live with you, they could take care of the children while you're at work. Obviously there are positive and negative aspect to this too.

What do you think? Does this idea work or can it work in some families? What are the social consequences of this?

Week 3-Charity

This week's post, I will talk about churches and charity giving during recessions. In the book reading, the focus was about religion in nonprofits. Religion is the largest part of this sector and there are about 375,000 organization. I am not surprised at this number because of the various churches around my community and how religious groups started so early in the United States history. I believe that church and state should be separate but at the same time I think churches should need to file IRS for statistic purposes. Government need to document certain statistics to help a community and asset the needs of those people. I think churches can provide useful information that would great benefit the local government though how much and what kind of information is hard to determine. One thing I found very interesting from the reading is that after any kind of violent acts such as September 11 terrorist attack or World War II, there has be an increase in religious affiliation. I see this as people wanting a sense of peace and spiritual haven after experiencing these traumatic events.

I felt that the “Giving in a Recession” article was really interesting in terms of why people give. The main motivations are people give because they care about others, it make them feel good, and that is what other expect of us. I feel that these are good reason why people give but people who gives only to make them feel good, aren't really giving at all. They don't care whether the money will be effective and they don't give out of their hearts. I agree with the article that most people would give less donation during a recession because people have less money to give and are trying to look out for themselves.

From the“Estate Tax and Charitable Giving” article, what I found surprising was that the estate tax is returning in 2011 and how it keeps getting lower. I think estate tax should have a higher tax rate because most of those people are wealthy and I can't see why they can't afford to pay it. I see it as a way for wealthy people to pay less tax and get more exceptions from these. I also found it surprising that people are paying less estate tax (half of 1%) than those back in 1977 (10.5%). I think it shows how people are not caring about society as much and only about themselves. People who make lots of money every year should give back as much to society.

In the blog post “Our Ineffectiveness at Measuring Effectiveness”, I found it really true and honest on how ineffective we are at measuring how effective charities are. I mean, lots of money are donating by rich people to all kinds of nonprofit organization but how many of that actually produces real changes in society. The responsibility should be on the donators to follow up and see how their money are being used effective and not just donate and let the organization handle it. The donator as well as the organization need to work together to measure the effective of how the money is being used. I agree that commitment is very important to seeing how effective an organization is and to focus on the right thing.

An interesting idea I got from all these readings was how do government and nonprofit encourage people to give donations without incentives. I see people who give donation only to get tax breaks as not really giving at all because you are expecting something in return. I view the idea of donation as giving something away for free out and expect nothing in return. Do any of you see another positive motivate to give besides tax exemptions?  

Introductory

  Hi, everyone. This is my introductory blog. The purpose of this blog is to talk about the nonprofit sector in the US and how it effects our daily life. I want to discover the nonprofit world, learn about it, and apply it to my studies. I will be blogging about my PPPM 280 class and be responding to readings, lectures, and class discussion. My blogs will reflect what I learn from my PPPM class and how I can connect those ideas to the professional world.
  I am a Junior at the University of Oregon. My major is Political Science and minor is PPPM. I am from Portland, OR. I would like to work in the government sector one day. I am taking this course because I am interested in learning more about the nonprofit sector. I am also taking this because its require for my PPPM minor and I feel like this course is helpful in my career field. I have somewhat experience working with nonprofit organization, specifically museums. I have work at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), Oregon Historical Society (OHS), and the UO History Museum. I am hoping to learn about the specifics of starting a nonprofit organization and how they influence government decisions.
  My reaction to the readings is that I found the history of how nonprofit started very interesting. The number of nonprofit organization in the US is huge and how much of the economy comes from that sector. I think the historical aspect of philanthropy plays an important role of providing money to nonprofits and how much money wealth American giving yearly. I found the theories part of the reading, also interesting because on how anthropology, history, and sociology plays a part on why people give. The theories show how people give for social reasons, such as helping the poor and less unfortunate or how people donate for political reasons to support certain issue such as gun control. Overall, I think each nonprofit organization in America represent different aspects of society and interest groups.
The class discussion topic was tax write offs and get deductions off your income. I feel that tax write offs are a good thing and it effects how people donate to charity groups and nonprofits organization. By not having tax write off and deduction off your taxes, people won't give as much. I think some people are giving, specifically for deductions because its a win-win situation, where they get to pay less taxes and give for a good cause. Also by having tax writes offs, it lets the individual choose where they want to give the money off, instead of the government. People would be more comfortable deciding where to donate their money instead of the federal government letting that money go to waste or other bureaucratic function.

First Blog

Hello, Bloggers. I am new here and excited to post some blogs about the nonprofit sector. Hope you enjoy my stuff and be positive about it. Thanks.