Third Sector Connector Blog

I’m usually so immersed in the community benefit/nonprofit/NGO sector that it was fascinating for me to spend the entire weekend with leaders from the American South’s public/government sector. Coordinated by the Charleston-based think tank Center for a Better South, the non-partisan invite-only conference was held at Davidson College in North Carolina and included longtime Southern progressives, current policy wonks, media, academics and others who work not only in the general policy arena, but also in diverse areas such as budgeting, energy, governance, poverty, taxation, and service learning.

We kicked off the weekend with a panelist discussion from Winthrop University’s Adolphus Belk, UNC-Chapel Hill’s Ferrel Guillory and Governing magazine’s Richard Greene. You can see the live tweets from several of us, but I’ve pulled out a couple of the messages that resonated the most strongly for me and that are important guideposts for the nonprofit sector as well:

• Poverty is a common theme for all Southerners, with an average annual income of $32,000.
• High school drop-out rates are high. Only slightly more than two-thirds of Southern Whites graduate from High School and this drops to only 40% of Southern Latinos.
• Rural areas are particularly struggling as young generations of all races head to the more metropolitan areas.
• Thousands of manufacturing jobs have been lost and not yet replaced with a knowledge-based economy.
• Religion plays a critical role in Southern ideology and behavior both for Southern Blacks (83.6%) and Southern Whites (69%).

I must say I was surprised at how much it felt like I was sitting in a room filled with nonprofit/NGO leaders. Increasing poverty. Lack of education. Rural crisis. Disappearing jobs. Religion. Racial disparities. Just think about how many community benefit organizations are also focused on those issues, not just in the American South, but across the globe!

Next up was a panelist discussion on the topic, “Can the South lead today?” by former U.S. Congressman Glen Browder, Hendrix College’s Jay Barth, and policy consultant Mac McCorkle from Chapel Hill, NC. McCorkle mostly spoke about the history of Southern leadership, but the answer to the leadership question from Browder and Barth was a definitive “No.” According to the panelists:

• The South has resisted embracing diversity, and that’s reduced the South’s capacity for creative leadership.
• Authoritarianism fueled by resistance to change and the “politics of emotion” results in insular decisions that are community-specific instead of regionally focused.
• This authoritarianism means that not only can’t the South lead the nation; the South can’t lead the South.
• According to Browder, the South’s political brand is broken and tainted. “Having an “S” behind your name is worse than having a “D” or an “R.”

Hmmm. Anything sounding familiar? Barriers. Resistance. Reputation. Branding. Leadership. Same topics as we nonprofit folks discuss, with just a slight twist. In fact, for the entire weekend, I couldn’t help thinking of the “Sector Blur” trend that was highlighted in the just-released monograph funded in by the Fieldstone Alliance and the James Irvine Foundation. I should note that Browder and Barth later disclosed to me that they were intending to be provocative to spur us to action, and that the firm “no” was really intended to be a “not-right-now-unless-we-kick-it-into-gear-and-begin-by-looking-in-our-own-backyard” message.

So what to do?

Following thought-provoking lunchtime perspectives shared by H. Brandt Ayers from the Anniston Star and Warwick Sabin of the Oxford American, we set to work to design an “Agenda for a Better South.” Although not yet completed, we spent a full day drafting key recommendations for Southern leaders in the following areas: Job Creation/Employment, Education, Wellness, Energy, Taxes, Infrastructure, Governance, Social Justice, Community Safety. Once completed, the Center for a Better South is going to stamp those recommendations “draft” and broadly circulate them for feedback via a quick survey. Then once finalized, these recommendations will be widely distributed to Southern leaders, and likely will form the basis of the ongoing work of the Center for a Better South.

As I gathered my own thoughts following the weekend’s intensive session, I realized that regardless of what sector we focus on (including the private sector), we all have the same key priorities:

• How do we work together to cultivate and grow our next-generation leaders?
• How do we work together to improve education, health and job prospects?
• How do we work together to build sustainable infrastructure that will allow us all to flourish?
• How de we build cross-sector partnerships that are designed to create and drive a new future, not only within individual communities, but regionally, nationally, and across the globe?
• How do we lift each other up and support each other to become all that we can be?

Although I don’t pretend to have the answers, I can tell you that I was both honored to be part of the dialogue this weekend, and am excited about the possibilities, not only for the South but for all of us as the public sector and community benefit sectors continue to focus on what we need globally. I also find myself energized by the recognition that to truly build healthy, vibrant communities, the public and community benefit sectors need to link hands with the private sector and answer these questions together.

–LD

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