The Executive Summary

Ubuntu: Inspiration to Work with, through, and for Others

2012-01-16T14:27:00.001-06:00

Naomi Tutu promoted the principle of “ubuntu”, during herkeynote speech at this morning’s Martin Luther King Holiday Breakfast inMinneapolis. She emphasized that we have not yet reached “the Promised Land”and we will not arrive there until we successfully address such issues aspoverty, social disparities, poor educational achievement, violence, and environmentalpollution in our nation and in the world. Unfortunately, many of us understandthe indicators related to those issues. Such understanding could lead todiscouragement and feelings of ineffectuality. But then, would such lack ofhope follow in the tradition of Dr. King?

To make progress, Tutu exhorts us to recognize that ourhumanity depends on other people. We become human by virtue of our connectionsto other human beings.

That constitutes ubuntu. It is a belief, a philosophy, thatwe all have multiple connections with others. Our individual well-being and thewell-being of the entire human race inextricably join together. Ubuntu suppliesus both with standards for positive behavior and with the self-assurance tolive out those standards. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu described the concept: “Aperson with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, doesnot feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a properself-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greaterwhole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when othersare tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are.”

Similarly, Dr. King inspired us to recognize that “Whateveraffects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to beuntil you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure ofreality.”

The poet, John Donne, offered much the same insight 400years ago: “No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of theContinent, a part of the main; … any man's death diminishes me, because I aminvolved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;It tolls for thee.”

As we move forward in 2012, let’s acknowledge that as longas someone suffers in our neighborhood, our city, our world, we all suffer. And,based on the wisdom of Naomi Tutu, let’s address the issues that confront uswith the recognition that it’s not “us and them”; it’s all of us on this fragileplanet together – collectively creating our society and defining what humanitymeans in the 21^st century.

Quoting again Naomi’s father: “We are made for goodness. Weare made for love. We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness.We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know. We are made totell the world that there are no outsiders. All are welcome: black, white, red,yellow, rich, poor, educated, not educated, male, female, gay, straight, all,all, all. We all belong to this family, this human family, God's family.”

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

Should Martin Luther King Day Be A "Holiday"?

2012-01-13T08:25:00.001-06:00

I wrote this last year and received many comments and questions (most of them positive). So, I'm bringing up these thoughts again, as we approach Martin Luther King Day. Should it be a holiday?

Depending on your definition of "holiday", maybenot.

For about 10 of the past 20 years, I've started MartinLuther King Day early, with the privilege of attending the annual MLK Breakfast,in Minneapolis. I've listened in personto luminaries such as Harry Belafonte (more than just a singer, believe me!), GeneralColin Powell, Andrew Young, Cornel West, Julian Bond, and others. In addition,twice, I attended neighborhood breakfasts, watching the annual event on a largescreen, alongside others from my Saint Paul neighborhood and from the broadercommunity. Each year, such events offer time to reflect on the principles andthe values which Dr. King espoused, the inspiration he provided to us in thesixties, before his assassination, and the continuing relevance of his words tothe challenges of the 21st century.

Nonetheless, in the nineties, as many organizations debatedwhether to offer their employees a three day weekend, or to retain MartinLuther King Day as a work day, I expressed some concerns. Might Martin LutherKing Day become no more than an opportunity for recreation, with no time spenton reflection about the importance of this great human being and about theeffect of all that he accomplished for our country?

Other holidays don’t have much effect on us, do they? Howmany of our nation's residents take time on Presidents Day to reflect on thepresidency and the importance of our Constitution, the Executive Branch, andthe separation of powers? How many use Washington's Birthday as an opportunityto remember the history and principles of the American Revolution, the original"Tea Party", the evolution from monarchy to democracy? How many pauseon February 12 to remember the man who led our country through the struggle tofree slaves and promote equality?

I suggested that we might produce more benefits by havingpeople report for work, but requiring workplace education and discussion of thelife and values of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Needless to say,such a provocative suggestion lacked political correctness; it garnered littlesupport.

My concern returns every year, including this one. Considerthis:

Several colleagues noted less traffic duringtheir Friday commutes. They guessed that some commuters had likely begun theirweekend early, turning it into a four-day occasion. Had people left for theweekend to visit the King historic site in Atlanta (an excellent museum; as youknow if you have been there)? Had they traveled to Washington, D.C., or to anyother place with special events this weekend? I think I know your answer.
This year, in contrast to the early years of theMinneapolis MLK Breakfast, some organizations which purchased one or moretables’ worth of tickets had trouble finding enough employees willing toattend. Why should someone get up and get out of bed at 6:00 a.m. on their“holiday”?

In fairness, Martin Luther King Day does bring out crowds tosome events in Minnesota – true to our deserved reputation as some of the mostengaged people in the country. (See www.mncompass.org) However, is it enough?

At the 2010 MLK Breakfast, the keynote speaker, Dr. JosephLowery, encouraged us to move from “charity” to “love”. He suggested that wenot just focus on occasional, episodic endeavors to work for the good of ourfellow humans, but rather that we apply ourselves continually to empowering allmembers of our communities to do more to increase our quality of life.

Doing what’s necessary to make this world a better placerequires more than taking a “day off” on Martin Luther King Day. It requiresmaking each of the 365 days of the year a “day on”, living out the values andvision of Dr. King, and encouraging others to do so. Let’s all make this thirdMonday of January 2011 a day to work hard to “transform the jangling discordsof our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood”. We all deserverelaxation, fun, and time with family and friends; but let’s do the work of theholiday, before we play.

Violence Among Humans: Up Or Down?

2012-01-06T16:37:00.000-06:00

“Car wash shooter has violent past” “Saint Paul man chargedin fatal shooting of woman, 21” “Police arrest two after man brandishes gun,officer fires” These stories appeared in the Local Briefing section of yesterday’sPioneer Press, along with the story: “Traffic deaths could be lowest in Minnesotasince 1944”.

The juxtaposition of good and bad led me to reflect onStephen Pinker’s assertion that violence has decreased since the dawn of thehuman race, and on Robert Jay Lifton’s counterpoint that perhaps it had not.

Based on as much historical evidence as he could amass onmurders, war crimes, torture, assassinations, human sacrifice, slavery, thedeath penalty for small crimes or for disagreeing with authority, Pinkerconcluded that violence has declined. The process of civilization has madehumans more humane: “The doctrine of the noble savage—the idea that humans arepeaceable by nature and corrupted by modern institutions—pops up frequently inthe writing of public intellectuals like José Ortega y Gasset ("War is notan instinct but an invention"), Stephen Jay Gould ("Homo sapiens isnot an evil or destructive species"), and Ashley Montagu ("Biologicalstudies lend support to the ethic of universal brotherhood"). But, nowthat social scientists have started to count bodies in different historicalperiods, they have discovered that the romantic theory gets it backward: Farfrom causing us to become more violent, something in modernity and its culturalinstitutions has made us nobler.”

Lifton demurs that this conclusion does not characterize the20^th and 21^st centuries which he has experienced. He seesAuschwitz and Hiroshima as defining events for our era. Moreover, he points towhat he terms “the emergence of extreme forms of numbed technological violence,in which unprecedented, virtually unlimited numbers of people could be killed.Those who did the killing could be completely separated, geographically andpsychologically, from their victims.” In disputing Pinker’s assertion, hestates: “Dr. Pinker and others may be quite right in claiming that for mostpeople alive today, life is less violent than it has been in previouscenturies. But never have human beings been in as much danger of destroyingourselves collectively, of endangering the future of our species.”

Certainly, some recent statistics do look better. As Compassshows, the “serious crime rate” in the United States has declined substantiallyover the past two decades. The state of Minnesota has experienced a similardecline. Admittedly, if you find yourself in the face of a threatening gun orknife, it matters little to you whether you are one of 5 people in thatsituation, or one in 25. Nor would Pinker’s statistics on the decline oftorture pacify the Afghan teen whose plight involving six months of confinementand abuse also appeared in the same day’s Pioneer Press. However fewer of ushave these experiences, than in previous generations (even if the modern newsmedia easily and frequently transmit horrendous stories about oppression by theTaliban and others).

In the end, I think, it comes down to how we treat oneanother, person to person, in our neighborhoods and communities, and to how weextend our connections to others across land and ocean. Building our socialcapital may not eliminate all violence in the near future, but it can prevent alot of violence from occurring, and it can give us the strength to recover andpersist in the face of violence. In our globalized world, our quality of lifeand our fate depend more than ever on how every one of us around the globe actsin concert to promote respect, value all humans, and build societies that meetthe needs of all. Local action is global action, and vice versa.

Harry S Truman stated “We must build a new world, a farbetter world - one in which the eternal dignity of man is respected.” Pinkermight consider Truman a cheerleader for evolutionary progress; Lipton wouldcite Truman's involvement in the bombing of Hiroshima as evidence that we have along way to go (if we can make it). With a mixture of optimism and realism, Ithink we can do well if we affirm our commitment to reduce violence,acknowledge the issues that we must address collectively as an interdependent humancivilization, and do the necessary work in our hearts, our communities, and ourworld, to remove those impediments which inhibit us from achieving peace in allits forms.

New Year's Resolutions: Who Makes Them? Do They Succeed?

2012-01-01T16:54:00.000-06:00

How many people make New Year’s resolutions? How manyresolvers follow through on their intentions? Do any characteristics of theresolvers or their situations predict “success”?

Surveys from the concluding two decades of the twentiethcentury and the first decade of the twenty-first suggest that 40 to 50 percentof adults in the United States make New Year’s resolutions. A Marist poll ofmore than 1,000 adults throughout the United States, this past November,revealed that about 38% thought they would make a resolution for 2012. Nodifferences appeared between men and women in expectations to make a resolution.However, a large age gap did appear: almost 60% of Americans younger than 45thought they would make a resolution, compared with only 28% of those 45 andolder.

Survey data, along with anecdotal evidence, suggest that commonresolutions tend to fall in the category of health improvement. They involvelosing weight, exercising, eating a better diet, reducing consumption ofalcohol or caffeine, and related behaviors. Saving money, getting moreeducation, and “being a better person” also received mention in the recentMarist study.

Norcross and colleagues authored an often-quoted study in2002 in the Journal of Clinical Psychology regarding the factors which lead tosuccess in carrying out New Year’s resolutions, appearing. They based theirfindings on data obtained in the mid-1990s, by following people who maderesolutions and a comparison group of people who did not make a New Year’sresolution but did set a personal improvement goal. First of all, theydiscovered that making a resolution does seem to help a person to make abehavior change. The resolvers more often persisted with their intendedbehavior change than did the nonresolvers. In fact, the percentages of resolverswho continued to implement their behavior change over time were: 71% for aleast 1-2 weeks, 64% for at least a month, and 46% for at least 6 months(compared to only 4% of the nonresolvers who continued their behavior changefor more than 6 months).

For those in the study who made a resolution and succeeded,what seemed to influence their success? Psychologiststend to look at this question within the context of self-efficacy (the abilityto produce results and influence events that affect one’s life), self control,and self regulation. The Norcross study, and similar studies, confirm what youmight expect: New Year’s resolvers who strongly believe that they have thepower to control their behavior and who believe that they can succeed inaccomplishing their behavior change actually end up succeeding more often thanthose who without such beliefs about themselves.

So, if you have made a resolution, I hope that you believestrongly that you can accomplish it, that you practice positive thinking (withno self-blame), and that you are ready to change. If so, research suggests thatyou will succeed!

Happy New Year!

Christmas and Research

2011-12-25T15:33:00.000-06:00

Searching the web for “Christmas” and “research” (Why wouldI do that?), as I drink some Christmas tea and munch on Christmas cookies. Thesearch evinces some very disparate types of connections between the two terms.So, I bring you these tidings*:

Tim Kasser and Kennon Sheldon, in their 2002 article “WhatMakes for Merry Christmas?”, in the Journal of Happiness Studies (yes, that’s a,peer-reviewed social science journal) wrote: “Despite the prominent andrecurring place that Christmas holds in many people’s lives, there issurprisingly little empirical research about the season. Consumer research hasprovided interesting analyses of its myths, movies, and media messages…,sociology has examined gift-giving rituals…, and anthropology has investigatedmeanings of the holiday in various cultures. Within the ﬁeld of psychology,what literature exists on Christmas mostly concerns whether psychiatricadmissions… and suicide rates… increase during the season. Surprisingly, wewere unable to ﬁnd any quantitative empirical studies that have endeavored tounderstand the experiences and qualities which are associated with happinessduring Christmas.”

One of their conclusions, based on a review of the studiesthey could find: “the materialistic aspects of modern Christmas celebrationsmay undermine well-being, while family and spiritual activities may help peopleto feel more satisﬁed.” Good news, I suppose for those who celebrate Christmas.

They also stated something else about the history ofChristmas in America, which, if true, surprised me (and doesn’t it have to betrue if it appears in a scientific journal?): “The Christmas holiday hasevolved from an event banned in some American colonies to one that dominatesthe month of December.” (I hadn’t realized that some early colonists bannedChristmas.)

The search brought up Penn State University as the thirditem – fortunately, for something other than the sex abuse scandal there: “TheSchatz Center has a large Christmas tree tissue culture research program thatbenefits from access to walk in environmental growth rooms designedspecifically for plant tissue culture in the Biotechnology Institute.”Seriously, the preeminence of football can sometimes cause us to forget that,as the NCAA reminds us in their advertising, “most college atheletes entercareers other than sports.”

Actually, Christmas tree research is a much bigger deal thanI ever knew. At New Mexico StateUniversity, "The Christmas Tree ResearchProgram is the longest running program at the (Mora Research) Center. Inaddition to screening provenances of many native and non-native commercialChristmas tree species, this program played an instrumental role in introducingeldarica pine (Pinus brutia var. eldarica)to New Mexico. Work on both geneticsand plantation management has resulted in the shortening of rotation ages ofmany Christmas tree species in some cases by more than 50%.” Good news for theChristmas tree industry, I suppose.

Abramitzky and colleagues, in The Economic Journal (2010), assessed:“Is Hanukkah Responsive to Christmas?” They state: “We use individual-levelsurvey and county-level expenditure data to examine the extent to which Hanukkahcelebrations among US Jews are driven by the presence of Christmas. We documentthat Jews with young children are more likely to celebrate Hanukkah, that thiseffect is greater for reform Jews and for strongly-identified Jews, and thatJewish-related expenditure on Hanukkah is higher in counties with lower sharesof Jews. All these findings are consistent with the hypothesis that celebrationof religious holidays is designed not only for worship and enjoyment but alsoto provide a counterbalance for children against competing cultural influences.”

Unfortunately, researchers at New York University (my almamater) reported problems with an evaluation study of something called the “ChristmasGifts Aid Program”, such as: “Lack of Rigorous Methodology: Regrettably,this evaluation had to proceed without the required Randomized Controlled Trialon Christmas Gifts, which failed to be completed as planned. Project managersdid a poor job explaining the advantages of RCT participation to the ControlGroup. Lack of Targeting: The Christmas Gifts aid program was notsufficiently well-targeted to the poor. Recipientsof Christmas Gifts indiscriminately included well-off regions, groups, genders,and individuals. Lack of Net Flows: Evaluators found ChristmasGift recipients engaged in behavior that frustrated the aid program, withRecipients acting as Donors to their own Donors, reducing their own net aidintake. They explained their counterproductive behavior with non-standardconcepts such as “Tis more bless’d to give than to receive.”" I’m not sure Ifully understand what that means, but it is sad, isn’t it?

Emory University’s Theology Library has a resource page: “Inresponse to annual requests for information about the origin and celebration ofChristmas, we've compiled this resource page. The works cited range fromscholarly folklore studies to popular commentaries on modern observances.” Aworthwhile reference, if you seek that information. Similarly, the BaylorUniversity library web site “Provides some links to traditions, food, andcrafts; international in focus.”

Sam Houston University is planning new research efforts inthe Christmas Mountains. No relation to the holiday, of course, but if theirresearch on climate change pays off, it might be a present for all of us.

In any case, I’ll continue to eat my cookies, drink tea,wear my Charlie Brown Santa Claus tie, and enjoy the season. Merry Christmas to you;enjoy the holidays!

*The Merriam-Webster Dictionary “word of the day” for December 25, 2011, meaning “news”.

Crowd Science, for Improving Our Communities

2011-12-17T12:39:00.001-06:00

“Crowd science” has entered the realms of physics, biology,classical studies, and the applied social research we do here in Saint Paul.

Crowd science? The term refers to the increasingly common practicein which people pool information which they have gathered independently, andthen have access to all of the information which they and others have supplied.As a group, they can develop new understanding and produce products that theynever could have produced by working in isolation. In astronomy, for example,far too many galaxies and stars exist for any one individual to observe andanalyze. So, the field has shifted dramatically from individual astronomerssitting at their telescopes writing up their discoveries, to networks ofastronomers who share their information in a common database which all can use.

Crowd science can involve networks comprised solely ofprofessional scientists. It can also involve mixtures of scientists and thegeneral public, or even just the public alone. A November 20 article in thePioneer Press described how papyrologists (a new word for me), who hadstruggled for years to unlock the secrets contained in ancient papyrusdocuments, moved rapidly forward after devising a clever and innovative way toobtain the assistance of the public – who did not need to know classicallanguages – in the identification of images on the ancient texts.

Minnesota Compass illustrates these principles. No singleentity can possibly gather all the data necessary for understanding communities’quality of life with respect to health, housing, education, workforce, andother critical dimensions. However, after organizations specializing in thesetopics have independently gathered information, Compass can compile it and makeit accessible in one common location. Moreover, Compass can and does not onlysummarize trends and report them in summary graphs; it also enables access toraw data, so that everyone from an academic researcher to an amateurneighborhood social scientist can play with those data from all angles and maketheir own discoveries.

The Minnesota Department of Health, with its StatewideHealth Improvement Program (SHIP) initiative, created a version of crowdscience, in which Wilder Research energetically participated. SHIP involved thefunding and development of programs throughout the state, intended to helpMinnesotans live longer, healthier lives by reducing the burden of chronicdisease. The effort included creation of a system for evaluation of thoseprograms. Information on results from each site can therefore accrete in acommon data base, so that we can learn more from collaborative data sharingthan we could learn from solely independent review of each site’s results.Wilder Research staff worked with a variety of sites in the metro area and ingreater Minnesota, and we look forward to seeing how this crowd scienceendeavor can produce tangible outcomes in improving everyone’s health!

A good example of moving crowd science from information-gatheringto action occurred in our recently completed planning year for the Saint Paul PromiseNeighborhood. In that effort, we had six “solution action groups” who worked inparallel over a period of six months. Each group focused on the developmentalneeds of young people, in a different segment of life from birth to postsecondary education. They requested and reviewed information; they brought intodiscussion their observations and insights based on their experience and theevents in their own segments of the community. At the end of the process, weblended the independent work of the six task forces to create a cohesive whole,a community-based plan that addresses the life span of the neighborhood’sresidents, from prenatal to young adulthood.

In this Information Age, knowledge constitutes power.Harnessing information to create knowledge requires bold, innovative,cost-effective approaches (just like harnessing the power of the sun to createsolar power). Crowd science offers one new tool for harnessing information –enabling humans, individually and collectively, to do their part, supported bymodern information technology.

In addition, crowd science offers the opportunity to reduceone type of disparity that has existed throughout history. As the Pioneer Presscommentator noted, crowd science “may accomplish something else: breaking downsome of the old divisions between the highly educated mandarins of the academyand the curious amateurs out in the world.” (Will the committed staff of WilderResearch – inhabitants of the arcane world of social science – lose our jobs ifanyone can now draw “scientific” conclusions? Not at all. Our roles will evolvein an exhilarating way. More than ever, people who want to use information willrequire reliable sources of trustable information; they will need a system thatmakes that information easily and cheaply available (so that equal accessexists and multiple perspectives can figure into interpretation ofinformation); they will need coaching and advice on how to interpret thatinformation; and to obtain responses to certain types of questions, they willalways require help from experienced professionals.)

Crowd science: It’s modern, democratic, practical, andeffective. We’re excited to play our part in many such efforts, present andfuture, because crowd science, coupled with collaborative action, will enableus to move our communities forward.

Thankfulness in an Adverse World

2011-11-23T17:17:00.001-06:00

Should we give thanks this Thanksgiving? Unfortunately, myjob often confronts me with reasons to despair, including some of the economic trendsin our communities and the seeming inability of our political leaders to workcooperatively. On this uniquely American holiday, can we summon up any hope andexpress our thanks unconditionally for anything?

I become disenchanted – perhaps the word, disgusted, servesbetter – with those politicians who refuse to compromise and reach agreementsthat will benefit all of us, in tough times when we all need to sacrifice ourpet projects and issues. Of course, each side can document, probably back tothe time of George Washington, how the other side did something that causedtoday’s problems and which can’t be undone. That attitude of blame, rather thana “can do” attitude, demoralizes.

But then I’m thankful for living in a democracy. I’ve spent time living in a society wherepeople could not vote for their legislators; “political decisions” too oftenemerged from violence or threats of violence. I’ve watched on TV the turmoil in the Middle East, where people puttheir lives on the line to achieve rights that we take for granted in theUnited States. This makes me thankful tolive where I do.

I worry about several trends that threaten the long-termwellbeing of our communities and the standing of our nation as a whole:

The increasing disparitiesnationally and worldwide between different social classes, people of differentraces, and other groups
The fastest growing segment of ourpopulation in this country seeming to fall farther behind in readiness forschool at age 5 and competence for college or career at age 18
The effects of the recession onall of us, except perhaps the billionaires, who find ourselves in a strugglingsituation

But then I’m thankful for the growing network of people inthis country – some of whom I have the privilege to work with – who recognizethat the achievement gap, health disparities, and other emerging issues pose athreat to the greatness and vitality of our nation and who want to move forwardwith zeal and a common vision.

I guess I’m a deep-seated optimist; adversity won’t determe. I hope that you are too. I hope you can give thanks, whether to your God, toMother Earth, to Humanity, or whatever, because despite the trends, we have alot to build on if we act with good intention and respect for all.

Happy Thanksgiving!

What is the "real" poverty rate?

2011-11-21T09:16:00.001-06:00

A single person, living alone, with earnings from employmenttotaling $10,000 falls below the United States poverty threshold ($10,890 for aone person household in 2011). The Census Bureau classifies that person as “inpoverty.” But what if he or she receivesgovernment benefits, such as health care, with a value of $5,000 or more peryear? Should he or she still fall intothe “poverty” category?

And what about those families just above the poverty linewho, because of out-of-pocket health care costs or child care spending,actually have fewer resources left than those formally classified as “in poverty”?

These are more than just academic questions. Calculatingpoverty in an accurate, and meaningful, way enables us, first of all, toaccurately describe the well-being of our communities. It enables us tounderstand levels of need and to identify groups with higher than average risksof poor health, poor nutrition, poor academic achievement, and lower lifeexpectancy. Beyond that, however, an accurate calculation of poverty enables usto analyze the effectiveness of programs we have put into place to promoteeconomic development and to protect the vulnerable.

The poverty rate has served, since 1965, as the officialyardstick for measuring how many people live in the worst economic straits inthe United States. No major changes have occurred in its formula, despite someissues regarding its validity, such as:

· The original formula does not includenon-monetary resources in calculating whether a household falls below thepoverty line (the example above). This occurred, in part, because many of thebenefits programs we now have in this country had not evolved to their currentlevel in the 1960s.

· The original formula made reasonable assumptionsfor the 1960s regarding the proportions of a “minimum needs” household budget requiredfor food, housing and other expenses. (The amount of income necessary to be“above poverty” was calculated by taking the average cost for a minimum dietand multiplying that number by 3.) However, with changes over five decades in the relative costs of food, housing,health care, transportation, etc., should the Census Bureau revise thoseproportions?

· What about taxes? If a household has a gross income above thepoverty threshold, but after taxes, it slips below the federal povertythreshold, should the people in that household fall into the “in poverty”category?

To address the poverty measure issues, Congress appropriatedmoney, in the 1990s, to study the accuracy of the poverty measure, and theNational Academy of Sciences formed a task force for that purpose. The task force confirmed the allegedweaknesses of the measure, and it proposed a new, supplemental measure based ona formula which, among other things:

Improved the definition of who is included andexcluded in a household when determining whether or not that household is “inpoverty.”
Added the value of government-provided benefitsto a household’s income (including in the calculation of total householdresources both monetary income and also the value of “near-money benefits” suchas nutritional assistance, subsidized housing, and home energy assistance).
Subtracted from a household’s total resourcesthe taxes (income, Social Security, etc.) which it pays.
Uses numbers and ratios that better reflectcontemporary costs, to calculate poverty thresholds for households of differenttypes and sizes.

So, what does this all mean? How does it change anything?Why is this formula just supplemental to and not replacing the originalformula?

Compared to the current official measure, the new measurereduces the number of children in poverty; but increases the number of elderlyin poverty. It shows fewer blacks, butmore Asians, in poverty. The new measureputs more city dwellers and suburbanites, but fewer rural residents, intopoverty. It shows less poverty in theMidwest and the South, but more in the West and the Northeast. (About half a million fewer people in theMidwest region of the United States fall below the poverty line, according tothe new measure.)

With respect to the national total, The New York Timesreported that an “alternate census data set quietly published last week saidthe number of poor people has grown by 4.6 million since 2006, not by 9.7million as the bureau reported in September.” The Times also offered the example of the State of North Carolina, inwhich poverty grew by 250,000+ by the official measure, but stayed flat withthe new measure.

Whether, and if so when, the new measure should replace thecurrent official measure is a question with many facets. Changing the measureis not solely an enterprise for economists and statisticians. The officialmeasure has connections to many policies and programs. That means money – theamounts that communities might receive, the amounts that individuals receivethrough benefits-eligibility. When financial implications enter the picture,nothing ever remains simple! In addition, the implementation of a new measurewould require some “education” among all potential users of information whowant to track trends: Agreement would have to be reached about how to describechanges from the past to the present and the future, when the rules formeasurement have changed.

At Minnesota Compass, we will continue, for the foreseeablefuture, to report trends based on the current official measure, but whenfeasible (if Minnesota numbers are available), we will provide some data fromthe supplemental measure, to round out everyone’s understanding of the truenature of economic conditions within our population.

If interested, take a look at the U.S. Census Bureau report, and/or takea look at what the Minnesota Legislative Commission to End Poverty by 2020 hadto say about some of these issues in their report.

Questions or thoughts? Feel free to call!

What do you think – Should the new formula replace the old?What’s best for our communities as we move forward?

Those 100 Objects, and Our Current Measures of Community Well-Being

2011-11-18T16:08:00.001-06:00

My blog about the British Museum’s “100 Objects” whichdefine history attracted the interest of a friend who dug a bit deeper andvisited the Museum’s web site and then wrote:

“What I found most interesting were not the specific objectsper se, but rather the types of objects and categories that the curators usedto group them.

The tools of human civilization really haven't changed allthat much, aside from technological advances. Currency, weapons, maps...

The categories were interesting to me, because they providea framework for evaluating the current state of our society:

· What is the current condition of our cities?(First Cities and States)
· How is the economy doing? (First Global Economy)
· What advances have we made in science andliterature? This could also be interpreted as advances in public education; arekids learning? (Beginning of Science and Literature)
· What is the current state of basic needs andfood security? (After the Ice Age...)
· What are we doing to teach tolerance? (Tolerance& Intolerance)
· What has happened to people’s faith, not only inspiritual leaders, but in our political leaders? (Rise of World Faiths)
· What are we doing to strengthen our communities;what will be our legacy? (Empire Builders)
· Who are the next generation of leaders, and whois forging the way? (Pilgrims, Raiders & Traders)
· What is the impact of status symbols and masscommunications on decisions that are made? (Status symbols, Mass Production,and Mass Persuasion)

Thus all leading back to the questions of: What is it that makesus human (Making Us Human), and how can we use our tools to create a world thatreflects the best of our humanity? (The World of Our Making)

Perhaps someday, much like trying to crack ancienthieroglyphics, our successors will try to recover information from massivecomputer servers that tell the story.”

Minnesota Compass tracks directly some of these categoriesused to classify and describe the course of human history (for example,education and the economy) – in order to understand how we continue (hopefully)to make progress in the 21^st century. Our recently launchedneighborhood indicators section offers insight into the condition of ourcities. Several elements of our work provide tools for understanding andaddressing issues of tolerance, of mass persuasion, and of empire building,even though we don’t measure these directly.

In addition, we seek to strengthen our communities by gatheringtogether in meetings and seminars with thousands of people each year andcommunicating through our website and publications with tens of thousands more.And, at no point in history, more than in this “Information Age”, does thereexist a greater need for a solid platform of credible, nonpartisan information,to which people can apply their creativity and act on their values to create abetter world for all.

From one’s own little perch looking outward, it might appearthat we inhabit a big, complex world. Yet from another perspective, we live onjust one very tiny chunk of rock in a universe expanding to infinity. We have aduty to keep that little rock in the best possible condition. The civilizationwe’ve created on the rock reflects human achievement; perhaps notequaled anywhere else in the vast universe, and perhaps never capable ofreplication.

Through Minnesota Compass and all of our work at WilderResearch, we want to take the many small steps with our partners that, incombination, will achieve progress for the human race.

Defining Our History and Ourselves (in 100 Objects)

2011-11-04T20:45:00.002-05:00

If you wanted to select a set of objects which illustrate howhistory has shaped us, or perhaps vice versa, what would you choose? Whatobjects, culled from throughout the course of time, define us as humans? Whatobject from the distant past would you place first on the list? What objectwould you place last, to represent the very present?

The British Museum took on the task, as reported in lastSunday’s New York Times, to “distill the history of the world” andproduced a list of 100 objects.

The oldest object of the 100: a stone chopping tool found inTanzania, considered “the beginning of the tool box”. A bird-shaped pestle,found in New Guinea around 6000-2000 B.C. evoked the comment: “The history ofour most modern cereals and vegetables begins around 10,000 years ago…It was atime of newly domesticated animals, powerful gods, dangerous weather, good sexand even better food.” The Rosetta Stone appears on the list, as you mightexpect, with the comment that “This dreary bit of broken granite has played astarring role in three fascinating and different stories:” … Greek kings …French and British imperial competition across the Middle East … and the“scholarly contest that led to the most famous decipherment in history – thecracking of hieroglyphics.”

What do you think that the 100 or so curators of the BritishMuseum, who spent 4 years on this project, selected as the ultimate object?Think about it; I’ll mention it in a moment.

My favorite (based on the Times article; I still wantto read the book) is the credit card. Perhaps nothing epitomizes modern day interconnectednessand globalization better than the curators’ selection of a Visa credit cardissued by HSBC. “This particular gold card is issued by the London-based bankcalled HSBC, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. It functionsthrough the backing of the United States-based credit association, Visa, andhas on it writing in Arabic – it is in short connected to the whole world, partof a global financial system, backed by a complex electronic superstructurethat many of us barely think about.”

That says a lot about why we must address local andregional issues within the context of our worldwide social and economicinterdependencies.

I liked the comment about a two-inch-square ivory label onceattached to the sandals of the Egyptian pharaoh, King Den. “The nearest modernequivalent I can think of to this label is the ID card that people working inan office now have to wear round their necks to get past the security checks.”The Head of Ife, from Nigeria A.D. 1400-1500 is striking. “It is one of a groupof 13 heads, superbly cast in brass, all discovered in 1938 in the grounds of aroyal palace in Ife, Nigeria, which astonished the world with their beauty.They were immediately recognized as supreme documents of a culture that hadleft no written record, and they embody the history of an African kingdom thatwas one of the most advanced and urbanized of its day.” A North American OtterPipe (Ohio, 200 B.C.-A.D. 100) juxtaposed modern values with the earlierdevelopment of civilization: “Although smoking is now largely seen as a fatalvice, 2000 years ago in North America pipe smoking was a fundamental ceremonialand religious part of human life. Different groups of Native Americans livedacross the continent, in ways much more varied than Hollywood westerns wouldsuggest. Those Americans living in middle America – the lands around the mightyMississippi and Ohio Rivers, from the gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes – werefarmers.”

So, what appears last on the list, to reflect 2010?

As the Times reported: “a plastic, solar-powered light aboutthe size of a coffee mug that came with a charger and cost $45. It canilluminate an entire room, enough to change the lives of a family with noelectricity. ‘It is a transformative object, one that sets people free,’ Mr.MacGregor said. ‘Once they have access to solar power, they have access to theInternet, then they have access to the world of knowledge.’”

Very true, with profound implications.

So, take a look at the article in the Times, if youcan. Read the book. Then, think: What would you select?

Say It Ain't So, Beverly -- Because Misusing Data Cheats Our Students

2011-09-13T09:23:00.000-05:00

Widespread cheating occurred in the Atlanta schoolsystem. Principals and teachers changedstudents’ answers on tests, so that their schools’ overall performance wouldlook better. Some whistleblowers claimthat the district terminated them for their honesty.

It’s shocking. The misbehavior of school district stafflasted probably ten years. Cheating occurred in 44 of 56 schools examined byinvestigators, who identified 178 teachers and principals as participants inthe cheating.

As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported: “SuperintendentBeverly Hall and her top aides ignored, buried, destroyed or altered complaintsabout misconduct, claimed ignorance of wrongdoing and accused naysayers offailing to believe in poor children’s ability to learn.”

These school district employees did not just cheat thesystem, in a misguided effort to artificially create a good image or to earn ahigher bonus. They cheated the children.

A great disappointment. I had admired the Atlantasuperintendent, Beverly Hall; in fact, I visited her district and spoke withher personally. She expressed an outcomes-oriented approach. She believed that allstaff, from the superintendent, to the classroom teacher, to the cafeteria aideand the bus driver, must understand the part they play in the education of achild, in order for the whole system to be effective.

Described in the New York Times as, a “Jamaican-borngraduate of Fordham University’s doctoral program, who began teaching in someof New York’s toughest classrooms”, she established a presence in Atlanta as a“forceful, erudite and data-driven superintendent”.

Beverly Hall stressed the importance of using data. Sheemphasized focusing on objective measures of whether students can read andwrite. Yet, for whatever reason, she drifted. The investigators concluded: “Whathas become clear through our investigation is that ultimately, the data, andmeeting ‘targets’ by whatever means necessary, became more important than trueacademic progress.”

Beverly Hall lost sight of the mission of the publicschools. She failed as a leader. Sheleft her post under a cloud of suspicion, if not in disgrace, in a city that,at one time according to the Times, “considered her a savior”.

However, I strongly caution against misinterpreting theevents in Atlanta and concluding that we should not strive to achieve clearlydefined outcomes and/or that we should not measure academic performanceaccurately and objectively. When newtest scores appear each year, controversy frequently erupts over whether andhow to use the scores (e.g., whether underperforming schools should be publiclyidentified, whether No Child Left Behind offers an effective approach, etc.) Wecan’t let these controversies over the use of data obscure the fact that weneed good data in order to improve the lives of our children.

Making organizations effective, transforming them toincrease their impact, stimulating innovation – all these require good, sounddata. Assisting a child to do betteracademically, improving the performance of a school, eliminating the achievementgap in an entire community – these all require good, sound data too.

But data simply offer a tool. Like any tool, data (includingacademic test measures) can be used wisely and appropriately, or ignorantly andinappropriately. Sound data are one, but only one, necessary ingredient in thesuccess of schools and other organizations.

I know a fourth-grade teacher in an urban school districtwho, on the first day of class each year, had many students arrive who couldperform only at a first or second grade level. By the end of the year, shecould bring some of them all the way up to fourth-grade achievement standards,but some only to second or third grade standards. Was she rewarded for all of those sheadvanced, or only for those who rose to fourth-grade standards? Unfortunately, the latter – which was verydiscouraging for someone with a dedication to teaching, along with the energyand competence to teach well. However, wecan’t blame academic testing. Theproblem is not that the school district tested and measured performance; theproblem is that district administrators often lack the wisdom and ingenuity tocreate a system that uses data wisely and that rewards teachers for fosteringacademic success, not just for the extent to which they elevate test scores tosome unrealistic threshold.

The Atlanta Public Schools lacked genuine leadership. The Atlanta Public Schools used datainappropriately. Again from thereport: “Data can be properly used as atool to assess academic progress. But data can also be used as an abusive andcruel weapon to embarrass and punish classroom teachers and principals or as apretext to termination. After hundreds of interviews, it has become clear thatDr. Hall and her staff used data as a way to exert oppressive pressure to meettargets.”

"This unfortunate incident highlights the need fortransparency and accountability throughout our education system," statedSecretary of Education Arne Duncan. "Having good information to measurestudent progress is an absolute bedrock requirement in ensuring that schoolsare preparing our children for success."

With sound information about children’s academic progress,along with information about other aspects of their lives, we can empowerschool staff; we can empower parents; we can empower communities. We canstimulate creativity as teams of staff seek to improve outcomes over time andas they receive positive reinforcement for innovations that increase success. We can raise awareness in our communities aboutwhat needs to be done, and provide a yardstick to understand our progress inimproving the education of our precious, young, community members.

Geoffrey Canada, a pioneer in educational reform and someoneI have also spoken with personally on a few occasions, has stated in variousways that, when he attends a presentation on the effectiveness of aneducational program, “the longer it takes them to get to the data, the worse Iknow the story will be”. He understands the importance of good measurement, buthe creates at the Harlem Children’s Zone a culture in which measurement occursto inform, to simulate new ideas for increasing the rate of success, and topraise accomplishments.

At Wilder Research, we enjoy empowering communities,empowering schools, empowering organizations – to achieve all that they canimagine, and more, through the effective use of sound research and high qualitydata. We live in an information world;let’s treat information as we would any valuable resource and use it wisely andappropriately to improve our quality of life.

Thinking and Acting Globally and Locally: Minnesota's Cities and Our Quality of Life

2011-08-10T17:10:00.001-05:00

“ 'The world isn’t flat,' writes Edward Glaeser, 'it’s paved.' At any rate, most of the places where people prefer to dwell are paved. More than half of humanity now lives in cities... "

So begins a review of a new book about cities.*

Cities have, for thousands of years, constituted for us humans major centers for the production of goods and services, for commerce and finance, and for the development of human thought through institutions of learning and through media. Not to mention the opportunities which cities have offered for cultural amalgamation – the blending of traditions, beliefs, political views – and for the appreciation of many fine and exotic foods!

Despite globalization, what happens in our immediate communities often matters the most to people. And it should – as long as we continually view local events in the larger contexts of our region, our state, our nation, our world. “Think globally, act locally.” has become almost banal. However, let’s not discard it. Let’s revise that expression in a way to inspire us to realize that, in this globalized world, we need to think both locally and globally and to act both locally and globally. What we do in our locality affects others throughout the world; what others do in their localities affects us – not just in the short term, but in the long term as well.

What trends are most important right now, in Minneapolis, or Burnsville, or Duluth, or Moorhead, or Owatonna? Perhaps the employment rate? What about the poverty rate? Or the crime rate? It’s a trick question, of course. All have importance for the future of our population. We must address each, and our approach must include local, national, and global action.

How do the various levels, from local to global, interact? And what difference does it make, if we want to improve our quality of life?

Take the environment, for example. If we don’t address global warming – a remote, hard-to-understand concept for most of us – life will become so difficult and hard to manage on the local level that none of our efforts to improve our communities socially and economically will have any chance of success. (We may not find ourselves in the position of The Maldives, a nation with a high probability of disappearing during the next 100 years, due to rising sea levels, but our situation will differ radically from the present because of climate changes local and global.) So, local decisions to build up (in cities), not out (in suburbs and rural areas), for example, can, if wisely made, help both to improve local housing conditions and to ameliorate adverse climate conditions in the long term.

For one more, take jobs. Our best-laid plans for local jobs development will reach a futile end, if our country does not resolve its debt crisis. That does not simply mean making a decision about the debt ceiling. It means the creation of a new consciousness among elected officials nationally regarding how we move forward with entitlement programs, defense spending, and the government bureaucracy. Without that consciousness, along with a new framework for government spending, the currently leaking ship, which is the U.S. national economy, will sink. Quality of life indicators will sink as well.

The issue of raising taxes and/or cutting spending is a discussion for another time. Regardless of what we do, we must nurture local investment and entrepreneurial talent while simultaneously creating national and global policies and conditions that will enable local enterprise to succeed. Thinking and acting globally and locally.

Our Minnesota Compass quality-of-life project now tracks trends at the state, region, county levels, and when possible, at the city-level (populations of 20,000+). Those of us who want to push for local progress can use Compass to examine trends at all levels. To view geographic profiles, go to mncompass.org and click on your region of the map.

* Review in The Economist, February 10, 2011, of the book, Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier. By Edward Glaeser.

Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood Moving Forward

2011-07-26T12:44:00.000-05:00

Hard work by hundreds of people, has brought our Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood planning close to the finish line. Now, an announcement by the U.S. Department of Education offers us the opportunity to apply for funding that will enable us to substantially boost our efforts to implement that plan and fulfill our dream to organize an effective network of partners who will work in concert to ensure that every Promise Neighborhood child thrives from cradle to career.

The 250 block Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood has more than 20,000 residents; about 7,200 are children. About half of the households with children have annual incomes of less than $18,000 per year. Among children in grades 3 through 10, about 40 percent perform at grade level in English and math. Just 58 percent of Promise Neighborhood children graduate on time from high school. So, it’s a good place to work to increase educational achievement, although not just because it has plenty of room for improvement. The Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood has many residents who are committed to the success of the neighborhood’s children and who appreciate the advantages of a diverse, centrally-located urban neighborhood, for raising children.

Most parents in the Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood believe that their children can receive a quality education in the Saint Paul Public Schools. Four out of five feel that their child is safe at school and in getting to and from school. However, about half of parents feel that they lack enough information about out-of-school-time opportunities and about opportunities for post-secondary education for their children. Many do not spend the recommended amount of time reading with their elementary-aged child; they need to figure out how to do so.

Those are just a few tidbits of the volume of information we gathered about the Promise Neighborhood. They illustrate the definite need in the neighborhood, to improve academic performance, but also the confidence, interest, and strength of parents who want to promote academic success, but need information or assistance to accomplish that.

As we move forward, Wilder is honored to serve for the first two to three years as the sponsoring organization for the initiative, at the request of the Promise Neighborhood Advisory Board. The planning year has included active collaboration among the City of Saint Paul, Ramsey County, the Saint Paul Public Schools, the YWCA, the Saint Paul Public Schools Foundation, the Frogtown Neighborhood Association, and the Children’s Collaborative. In the past couple of weeks, more than 30 groups and organizations have expressed a strong interest in joining the collaboration. That number will grow. This offers us a wonderful opportunity to make progress, and to build a continuum of support and encouragement for children from birth to college and beyond.

What are some hallmarks of this planning year? I would note two which make me proud.

We can be proud of the community participation which this year included. Two resident committees began their work in August of 2010, to help with project design. An Advisory Board, which includes neighborhood residents and the leaders of the City of Saint Paul, Ramsey County, and Saint Paul Public Schools met monthly, to oversee the project, and will meet weekly in August to complete our new proposal to the federal government. The community survey ensured that we had a comprehensive picture of the neighborhood’s children and their families – from parents’ own points of view. Two, large community meetings have also offered residents the opportunity to provide input. Our Solution Action Groups – six task forces of residents and providers who considered all the possibilities for effectively reaching children, to serve them and their families – have finished their work. They have made recommendations which will guide further Promise Neighborhood efforts in the neighborhood.

We can also be proud of the great data we produced, to enable residents and policy makers to understand the neighborhood. The community survey conducted by Wilder Research provided a scientifically valid sampling of parents in the neighborhood, including interviews with both English and non-English speaking parents. Many cities do not have the capacity to gather such rich information.. In addition, our work this year put a new system in place to track the results of the Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood – so we know whether we make progress.

Thanks for your interest. Stay tuned – and join us, if you can!

Preschool - More Evidence of Benefits

2011-06-12T22:55:00.001-05:00

Preschool – it has very positive effects, not just for children, but for all of us.

Newly released research has documented the long term effects of preschool involvement. Let’s keep this in mind, as we work to improve our communities, build the capacity of our workforce, and overcome significant challenges to effective education of our young people of today.

A research team, headed locally by Professor Arthur Reynolds at the University of Minnesota delivered more results from a long-term study of preschool children in Chicago. They reported on indicators of well-being up to 25 years after preschool attendance for more than 1400 study participants. Evidence established a link between preschool attendance and: higher educational attainment; higher income; better socioeconomic status; and increased health insurance coverage, as well as lower rates of justice-system involvement and less substance abuse.

This work adds to a body of research evidence that suggests the value of preschool for promoting educational attainment and improving social development among young people. It also offers evidence of the cost/benefit of preschool. As the Pioneer Press reported, “The average cost per child for 18 months of preschool is $9,000, but Reynolds’ cost-benefit analysis suggests that leads to at least $90,000 in benefits per child…”

Unfortunately, at present, nothing ensures that all children will take part in preschool education, and even if they do, nothing ensures that it will have the necessary quality to produce the strong effects noted in the research.

At Wilder Research, we have a number of initiatives addressing early childhood; we work in collaboration with many colleagues who want to promote the use of the most effective (and cost/beneficial) approaches to improving the early education of young children. We hope that our work will increase awareness and help to guide policy choices that will promote high quality early education. Even if we can’t increase resources for our youngest community members, we can use those resources in ways that will maximize positive impacts.

Our insightful friend, the economist Art Rolnick, has noted that investment in human capital must occur in order for economic development to occur, and that high quality preschool education may perhaps constitute the most impactful investment in human capital that we can make.

Stay in touch; let me know your thoughts….

Nonprofit Organizations and Innovation

2011-04-23T09:13:00.001-05:00

Nonprofit organizations have a high proportion of “disenfranchised” staff – according to research by Forrester Research, reported in the book, Empowered by Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler. Conversely, nonprofits rank low on staff who feel “empowered” and “act resourceful.”As a result, they do not extend boundaries to create and promote new ways of doing things; they do not innovate. Their ability to transform operations to produce greater community impact is close to nil.

Their study looked at “information workers” – anyone who uses a computer – which, in most nonprofits, constitutes the majority of staff, and virtually all staff in key positions related to management and to customer (client) service.

These findings, along with the assertions by Bernoff and Schadler, should trouble us at a time when we, in the public and nonprofit sectors, feel pressured to create new solutions that will enable us to do more with less. Most of us would like to see an increase in fruitful innovation in nonprofits. Bernoff and Schadler would contend that, to increase innovation, we must create more organizational HEROes – highly empowered and resourceful operatives. These are staff who can move an organization forward, meeting the mission, increasing the effectiveness of services for the people served, and enlarging the impact of the organization in its community. To suggest how the thinking of these authors might increase the number of nonprofit HEROes, I would highlight a few principles:

1. Fail frequently. With more than 30 years of experience working in nonprofit organizations, I know that, on average, nonprofits have an overwhelming fear of failure. Nonprofit leaders typically suspect that to fail at something means they will lose grant funds or lose donors or lose clients or trigger a compliance audit – or, if nothing else, that failure will hurt someone’s feelings. Yet successful businesses – and successful nonprofits (as, for example, the Harlem Children’s Zone appears to be so far) – acknowledge, accept, and learn from failure. They will describe it, sometimes joke about it, and use it to inspire further searching for effective innovation. Failing nurtures growing; failure to fail stunts growth.

2. Transform IT departments and other corporate and central administrative departments from NO- sayers into valued coaches and supporters of innovation. Organizations where front-line staff are encouraged to “do it themselves” and where staff have the autonomy to create their own solutions – Best Buy’s Blue Shirt Nation stands as one of the best examples – develop an adaptive advantage for serving customers and growing.

3. Make certain that management culture truly supports innovation that increases community impact. Virtually all nonprofit managers state that they want innovation. Some nurture creativity that leads to better services and better outcomes. However, despite good intentions and statements supportive of change, managers’ behaviors frequently do not reinforce innovation. Managerial bureaucracies can create so many levels of review that staff become disillusioned about trying to suggest a new idea. Managers sometimes place risk above all other considerations when presented with a new idea – which inevitably leads to rejecting many great ideas, because all great new ideas have a large amount of risk.

4. Celebrate attempts at innovation, no matter what their level of success. People need to feel encouraged for bringing up new approaches. Some new ideas will make a huge difference in operations and results; others will make only a tiny difference. Some, as we noted, will fail. Regardless, people have put time and energy into creating them. Occasionally, they have placed their reputations on the line. If we want staff to return with more ideas, we must reinforce their enthusiasm for improvement.

The authors note the difficulty of installing principles such as these in organizations. Enabling employees to do things on their own can seem unnatural; it can feel “like a virus invading the body.” However, not to support such empowerment can greatly limit an organization’s capacity to achieve what it has the mission to achieve.

Increasingly, the solutions to the issues faced in our communities require collaboration among individuals and organizations. Increasingly, the solutions require engagement with community members, joint problem-solving, and the creation of new approaches for community improvement. Nonprofit staff who engage with others must be HEROes, “highly empowered and resourceful operatives.” They must understand the needs, aspirations, and cultures of those with whom they work. They must be able to imagine, create, think on their feet, and make decisions on the fly, with the knowledge that their organizations will support them.

Can we move nonprofit staff from “disenfranchised” to “empowered and resourceful”? I certainly want to support such an effort.

Obesity - A Trend We Should, and Can, Reverse

2011-03-18T15:26:00.003-05:00

Imagine: You want to maintain a healthy diet, but you don’t have convenient access to grocery stores that provide a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, or you live and work where it is far easier to eat high calorie, high fat foods than to eat more nutritious alternatives. Regardless of your good intentions, you may gain weight, increase your blood pressure, develop diabetes, and die a premature death. That’s how social, economic, and other environmental factors influence your health.

In February, in collaboration with the InCommons initiative, we convened a gathering of people who want to empower communities to take control of their health. We shared knowledge with one another about the issue, and we specifically looked at three initiatives.

Columbia Heights School District created an “Edible Schoolyard/Outdoor Classroom” to educate students about good nutrition and to provide a welcoming gathering place for students and the community. The Neighborhood Food Project is a grassroots effort to increase access to healthy food in four neighborhoods in Saint Paul: Dayton’s Bluff, Payne-Phalen, Thomas-Dale/Frogtown, and Summit-University. Dakota County Public Health Department – concerned because of a report published by the New England Journal of Medicine stating that, because of obesity, this generation of children could be the first in the history of the United States to live less healthful and shorter lives than their parents – worked with Wilder Research to conduct a series of focus groups with parents and caregivers of preschool children, and then implemented evidence-based programs in over 200 child care centers to improve nutrition and increase physical activity.

InCommons has begun to connect Minnesotans so they can find and share credible tools, knowledge and resources to solve community problems. Lessons learned in one community can become starting points for addressing similar issues in towns and cities elsewhere in the state. Through InCommons, strangers can become powerful allies in support of common endeavors.

The United States ranks above almost all developed countries of the world in rates of obesity for children and adults. These are rapidly increasing. (See http://www.mncompass.org/health/index.php ) Addressing obesity (and many other issues) requires community will and engagement, informed by solid information on community trends and on what interventions can work to push those trends in a positive direction. Working together, we can make a difference. I encourage you to join our virtual gathering on InCommons and add your voice to making our communities healthier. Join us at:

http://www.incommons.org/en-us/node/3169/gathering

Health Care Policy Development: We can't just call names

2011-02-20T12:59:00.005-06:00

In a voice mail last week, a caller stridently informed me that “This is America.” This individual had read comments in my January 1^st blog, regarding health care. The caller stated: “You know, a federal judge in Florida just declared Obamacare unconstitutional.” Undoubtedly skilled in political philosophy, he then informed me of his overall conclusion: “This is not socialism; it’s not fascism. This is America.”

Although I had publicly presented my views, the caller, in the true spirit of free speech, remained anonymous and blocked Caller ID.

His narrow-minded, strident approach – laughable in some ways, sad in others – should concern us. The content of his view on health care does not disturb me, nor does his ignorance. Rather, it’s the style of attack, and the infectiousness of this style, especially if fueled by ultra-partisan, fear-mongering political commentators – that’s what’s scary, at a time when we need multi-partisan efforts to overcome significant challenges which our communities face.

His ignorance – we can dispose of that quickly. He failed to understand what the judge actually did. The Florida judge ruled unconstitutional the “individual responsibility” provision of the Affordable Care Act, which compelled the purchase of health insurance; the judge went on to state that this provision seemed so integral to the legislation that the entire act would have to fall. Other federal judges earlier ruled the opposite way, but the caller did not indicate how those rulings fit into his “this is America” thesis.

In fairness to the anonymous caller, I have reservations about requiring people to purchase health insurance. I do understand the logic of the requirement. Given market forces, it makes sense to require the purchase of insurance, in order to lower overall insurance costs for everyone. We’re stuck with that situation for as long as we fail to provide universal coverage for all. Nonetheless, as the Florida judge and at least one other judge have decided, mandating the purchase of health insurance might go too far, no matter how good the mandate’s rationale.

Disturbing, however – for those of us devoted to informing and working with the electorate and public officials, to promote wise public policy – is the caller’s immediate descent to the level of mischaracterization and “name calling” to draw attention away from rational debate over the issues: “If Paul supports health care for everyone, he must be a socialist or a fascist. Let’s marginalize his opinions with some distasteful labels and make sure nobody pays attention to Paul.”

I do not espouse a partisan view on health care. Universal health coverage for all Americans can come in Republican, Democrat, liberal, or conservative dress, for all I care. My goal is to optimize the quality of life for all and to do so in a collaborative, multi-partisan way. With respect to health care, that requires finding a means to ensure that all people in this country can go to sleep at night, comforted in knowing that they have the health coverage they need.

Why is this important? Notwithstanding any ethical opinions we might have regarding whether or not people deserve health care, the fact is that, among the developed nations of the world, we do not look as good as we should on health outcomes. Our rates of obesity and overweight exceed those of almost all other developed countries. People live longer elsewhere, e.g., in several European countries. Because of health care? Not necessarily; research evidence provides mixed findings, at least regarding the past. However, in the U.S., our fastest growing populations have the poorest health outcomes (higher mortality rates, higher diabetes rates, higher obesity rates), and they have the lowest rates of access to health insurance and health care. We must pay attention to this.

My response to the caller: I understand “this is America”. I have concern not about the status quo, and maintaining what is America, but rather about the future, and what will be America. To create the future we want in the 21^st century, our debate about issues has to rise above name calling; our progress must include multi-partisan give and take.

Should Martin Luther King Day be a "Holiday"?

2011-01-16T17:29:00.002-06:00

Depending on your definition of "holiday", maybe not.

For about 10 of the past 20 years, I've started Martin Luther King Day early, with the privilege of attending the annual MLK Breakfast, in Minneapolis. I've listened in person to luminaries such as Harry Belafonte (more than just a singer, believe me!), General Colin Powell, Andrew Young, Cornel West, Julian Bond, and others. In addition, twice, I attended neighborhood breakfasts, watching the annual event on a large screen, alongside others from my Saint Paul neighborhood and from the broader community. Each year, such events offer time to reflect on the principles and the values which Dr. King espoused, the inspiration he provided to us in the sixties, before his assassination, and the continuing relevance of his words to the challenges of the 21st century.

Nonetheless, in the nineties, as many organizations debated whether to offer their employees a three day weekend, or to retain Martin Luther King Day as a work day, I expressed some concerns. Might Martin Luther King Day become no more than an opportunity for recreation, with no time spent on reflection about the importance of this great human being and about the effect of all that he accomplished for our country?

Other holidays don’t have much effect on us, do they? How many of our nation's residents take time on Presidents Day to reflect on the presidency and the importance of our Constitution, the Executive Branch, and the separation of powers? How many use Washington's Birthday as an opportunity to remember the history and principles of the American Revolution, the original "Tea Party", the evolution from monarchy to democracy? How many pause on February 12 to remember the man who led our country through the struggle to free slaves and promote equality?

I suggested that we might produce more benefits by having people report for work, but requiring workplace education and discussion of the life and values of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Needless to say, such a provocative suggestion lacked political correctness; it garnered little support.

My concern returns every year, including this one. Consider this:

Several colleagues noted less traffic during their Friday commutes. They guessed that some commuters had likely begun their weekend early, turning it into a four-day occasion. Had people left for the weekend to visit the King historic site in Atlanta (an excellent museum; as you know if you have been there)? Had they traveled to Washington, D.C., or to any other place with special events this weekend? I think I know your answer.
This year, in contrast to the early years of the Minneapolis MLK Breakfast, some organizations which purchased one or more tables’ worth of tickets had trouble finding enough employees willing to attend. Why should someone get up and get out of bed at 6:00 a.m. on their “holiday”?

In fairness, Martin Luther King Day does bring out crowds to events in Minnesota – true to our deserved reputation as some of the most engaged people in the country. (See www.tccompass.org) However, is it enough?

At the 2010 MLK Breakfast, the keynote speaker, Dr. Joseph Lowery, encouraged us to move from “charity” to “love”. He suggested that we not just focus on occasional, episodic endeavors to work for the good of our fellow humans, but rather that we apply ourselves continually to empowering all members of our communities to do more to increase our quality of life.

Doing what’s necessary to make this world a better place requires more than taking a “day off” on Martin Luther King Day. It requires making each of the 365 days of the year a “day on”, living out the values and vision of Dr. King, and encouraging others to do so. Let’s all make this third Monday of January 2011 a day to work hard to “transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood”. We all deserve relaxation, fun, and time with family and friends; but let’s do the work of the holiday, before we play.

Top National News Events, with Local Implications

2011-01-01T17:08:00.003-06:00

What happened in our nation in 2010 that will undoubtedly have implications at our local level?

Merriam-Webster’s identified “austerity” as the word of the year. That single word may well encapsulate the major themes underlying my “top 7” list.

1. Health care reform: significant movement forward; a missed opportunity. On the positive side, the nation made progress on health care. An overhaul of the health care system did occur. New legislation makes care more affordable and eliminates restrictions based on pre-existing conditions, for example. This will help to reduce health disparities and promote greater effectiveness of care for everyone. However, failure to provide free, universal health coverage to all Americans puts us behind other first-world countries. In the U.K., where I lived for a year and visit frequently, everyone, from poorest to richest, goes to sleep at night secure in the feeling that they have health coverage. What a difference it would make if everyone in the U.S. had the same reassuring feeling. What if all of our children’s physical and mental health needs received attention, and did not detract from their ability to learn at school? I don’t care whether we adopt a Democrat plan or a Republican plan. My vote would go to a referendum to require Congress and their families to go without health insurance until all of their constituents have coverage. We could have free universal health care in a very short period of time!

2. National and state elections; the “shellacking” of the President. Voters delivered a message; the President, in his own words, said he was “shellacked”. With a House Republican majority (242 to 193) and a Senate Democrat majority (53 to 47), can we expect any bipartisan cooperation, or only endless, partisan stalemate? If the latter, we will have to do more on our own at the local level to promote education, jobs, and housing initiatives that will maintain our quality of life.

3. Economy perhaps gaining; jobs not. We seemed to begin to emerge during 2010 from a bad recession. However, job creation has not rebounded; unemployment remains high; the housing market has not recovered. (What little job growth we experienced in the first part of the year became insignificant in the face of cuts and a slowing of the job growth rate for much of the rest of the year.) Jobs are crucial; economic stability is vital for families. For many of the issues we encounter in education, for many of the problems that confront our communities – a healthy economy, including an adequate number of jobs, provides prevention and solutions. Efforts to improve our communities in 2011 will fare better if we can improve the economic infrastructure.

4. Arizona immigration controversy. Arizona’s law, the strictest in the nation, requiring people to carry their registration cards, drew intense attention to the topic of immigration. Heightened attention can have many benefits, if informed by facts. Our immigration research and public seminar this year, with the Minneapolis Foundation, convened people who understand that, in our globally interdependent modern world, we cannot simply put up fences, literally and figuratively. We must understand immigration within the larger context of our changing demographics, our desire to remain competitive in the world economy, and the necessity of forming positive relationships with countries throughout the world. The future of our nation and neighborhoods depends on it.

5. “Racing to the top” in education (but not yet winning the race). In 2010, our federal government committed billions of dollars to promote the “race to the top”. Nine states and the District of Columbia won grants to develop new standards to promote student success, to develop data systems to promote and measure progress, to recruit and retain effective principals and teachers, and to turn around their lowest performing schools. “Waiting for Superman” broadened the awareness of the general public regarding the quality of our nation’s schools. However, also in 2010, international data showed that we’re slipping. The United States ranks far from the top in Science, Reading, and Mathematics – well below places such as China, Korea, Japan, Canada, and Australia, on all measures. On some measures, the U.S. could not outperform much smaller countries like Iceland, Poland, Slovenia, Finland, and Estonia. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan commented: “The United States came in 23^rd or 24^th in most subjects. We can quibble, or we can face the brutal truth that we’re being out-educated.”

6. Tea Parties. Whether you participated or not, whether you love the partiers or despise them, you must acknowledge that the tea party movement constitutes a strong, clear manifestation of what it means to live in a democratic society. The movement emerged, and then drew energy from the grassroots. It profoundly influenced the 2010 elections; it will continue to influence policy. We who care about human services and community development must recognize that the movement offers another dimension to the broader, less strident, and less partisan concern among voters of many different political persuasions that we must show tangible results from the money we raise in taxes and spend on programs.

7. Poverty rates announced as highest since 1994. The Census Bureau issued this announcement in September of 2010, for 2009: an overall poverty rate of 14.3% (43.6 million people in poverty in 2009, up from 39.8 million in 2008 — the third consecutive annual increase). We had higher rates of poverty in this country in the 1960s, especially among older people. Nonetheless, this is a new peak for the past couple of decades. Meanwhile, the Census Bureau reported that the number of people without health insurance coverage rose from 46.3 million in 2008 to 50.7 million in 2009, while the percentage increased from 15.4 percent to 16.7 percent over the same period. Let’s hope that changes in a positive direction, as a result of the 2010 health care legislation.

Austerity. By the way, you might want to take a look at the Merriam-Webster web site, if you’re curious about 2010’s top words. I used “austerity” in a speech several weeks ago – perhaps contributing to propelling it into first place. As the lexicographers explained: Topping the list is austerity, defined as "enforced or extreme economy." Lookups for austerity peaked dramatically several times throughout the year, as people's attention was drawn to global economic conditions and the debt crises in Europe, but lookups also remained strong throughout the year, reflecting widespread use of the word in many contexts. "Austerity clearly resonates with many people," said Peter Sokolowski, Editor at Large at Merriam-Webster, who monitors online dictionary searches. "We often hear it used in the context of government measures, but we also apply it to our own personal finances and what is sometimes called the new normal."

Happy New Year! I wish you the best; and I look forward to working with you on these issues that face our communities.

Social Change Powered by Data

2010-11-29T13:01:00.002-06:00

“You used to be a fun guy, talking about all the cute kids you were helping. Now, all you do is talk about data.” Geoffrey Canada jokingly referred to comments from friends, who noted the transformation in his behavior as he created an important new model for education: the Harlem Children’s Zone.

You might have seen Geoff in the American Express commercials on TV, or in the recently-released movie, Waiting for Superman. His approach to using information represents a new version of the old aphorism, “What gets measured, gets done.” Meaningful measurement can motivate, guide, and enable everyone who works on improving the lives of our children to understand what’s going right and what’s going wrong with the education of those children.

Harlem Children’s Zone has created what they call “a new paradigm for fighting poverty.” It has five core principles:

· Serve an entire neighborhood comprehensively and at scale.
· Create a pipeline of support. Provide support that starts with prenatal programs for parents and finishes when children graduate from college.
· Build community among residents, institutions, and stakeholders, who help to create the environment necessary for children’s healthy development.
· Evaluate program outcomes and create a feedback loop that cycles data back to management for use in improving and refining program offerings.
· Cultivate a culture of success rooted in passion, accountability, leadership, and teamwork.

The emphasis on outcomes, data, and the use of information for continuous improvement reminds me of the visit I had with Dr. Beverly Hall, the superintendent of the Atlanta Public Schools. As she told the story, two ingredients for her successful reform of those schools are: (1) making sure that everyone – from the teacher’s aide and the cafeteria worker to the principal and associate superintendent – understands his or her role in educating the system’s children; and (2) using data at all levels to set goals, monitor performance, and continuously improve outcomes (by improving every step that everyone takes toward meeting those outcomes).

Our Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood includes a unique and powerful approach to promotion of children’s success through community organizing, which builds upon data. Neighborhood residents, both adults and youth, designed a community assessment, to understand the needs of the neighborhood’s children and their families. Powered by that information, six Solution Action Groups, totaling 120 or so residents and experts, will identify how this community can support children’s success in school and in life, “from cradle to career.”

Challenges exist in Saint Paul, some of which Geoffrey Canada faced in Harlem, some of which he did not. One challenge, for example: of the 8,500 children 18 and younger in the Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood, barely a few hundred attend schools in the neighborhood. So, the approach to improving their educational achievement is not as simple as creating something at an existing site and expecting that it can help most children in the neighborhood. We will look at solutions which can address all children, some of whom are too young yet to attend school. Another challenge: organizing resources. We will have to produce significant community change without expecting that financial resources will increase. In fact, they might decline. Our approach will build upon the ingenuity of an empowered neighborhood to identify how the formal systems of education, health, public safety, and human services can realign, along with the community systems of families, friends, and neighbors, to create a new environment that supports our children.

Data powers all this: the data from our community assessment; data on educational performance; other data on community conditions. Data will provide the raw material for helping us determine where we want to go, how we will get there, and whether we have arrived.

More on the Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood, as time goes by. For now, I hope I’ve made clear how sound, credible information, placed into the hands of community residents and others who care about the well-being of our children, can fuel a process of highly productive community organizing, to improve the success of the neighborhood’s children in school and in life.

Comments? Please let me know.

Interested in learning more about the Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood? Check the web site:

http://www.wilder.org/promiseneighborhood.0.html

Interested in joining a Solution Action Group? Take a look at the description and the application on the website.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Promise Neighborhood - A Promising Prospect

2010-10-05T07:54:00.001-05:00

Why did the federal government give the Wilder Foundation a half million dollars for a Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood? Don’t Minnesotans already reside in the land of great promise? National publications often tout our state as one of the best places to live. Why do we deserve this grant?

On many indicators, of course, we do quite well. However, troubling signs exist. Students in some of our schools do very poorly in reading and math. (Actually, the students in very many of our schools do not do well in math.) In some of our neighborhoods, a third or more of all residents live below the poverty line; too many children live in poverty. The trend data show clearly that large proportions of our younger generation – the people who we hope will grow up and continue the success of this state, in work, in civic life, and in family life – lack the academic skills they should have.

The Promise Neighborhood model provides a cradle-to-career framework for developing a set of supports that will enable a neighborhood’s children to succeed in school and in life.

That’s why we applied for and received a Promise Neighborhood grant – to work with one community to organize its strengths and mobilize existing resources for the benefit of its children. Based on what we learn, hopefully all neighborhoods can become neighborhoods of great promise.

Where is the Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood? The Promise Neighborhood encompasses a 250-block area in the Summit-University and Frogtown neighborhoods in Saint Paul, which includes two public elementary schools, Jackson and Maxfield. Nearly 40 percent of the residents are younger than 18. Two-thirds of the residents live in poverty; eighty-two percent of students are eligible for free lunch.

What’s happening over the next 12 months? The Department of Education selected us as one of just 21 communities in the nation to carry out a “planning year.” The year includes a community assessment, lasting several months – shaped by neighborhood residents themselves – to understand all the characteristics of the neighborhood and the needs of the children and families. With the assessment in hand, we will bring neighborhood residents together in “Solution Action Groups” with educators, child development experts, and service providers to develop the best possible approach to supporting the neighborhood’s children. Finally, we will secure commitments from organizations to collaborate to provide cradle-to-career educational, family, and community resources and supports.

What happens after the planning year? If the planning year accomplishes its goals, then by summer of 2011, we will have constructed a network of organizations that will collaborate to provide services in the Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood. This, of course, will include the school district and the two public schools in the neighborhood.

How will we know if this all works? If successful, the first thing we should see – just a year or two from now, is that every child, even before birth, becomes a focus of community attention. Parents receive parent education. Infants and toddlers have access to health care and if they have health issues, these get addressed early, before those issues start to have negative effects on the child’s development and readiness for school. Preschoolers receive good care when their parents are working, possibly from child care providers, possibly from family, friends or neighbors. They develop in an environment in which they learn their numbers and abc’s, so that all of them, not just those with better incomes, can move ahead faster in kindergarten and elementary school.

In not too many years, we should see better school performance. While achievement tests do not measure everything, and we cannot focus solely on test scores to measure success, we should see reading and math scores rise, reflecting greater achievement among children living in this neighborhood.

Momentum has developed already. More than 30 adults who live in the community have completed the second of three meetings to shape the assessment. About 20 young people have had their own meetings for the same purpose. We’ve received calls from volunteers and from organizations who want to take part in the initiative. Our Project Director, Hamilton Bell, is actively reaching out to all who want to be involved.

I’ll have much more to say about this as the year progresses. I expect to learn a lot, and to have a lot of fun, managing this initiative. It has the potential to help us not just on 250 blocks, but throughout this region and our entire state. Stay tuned. If you have comments or suggestions, please let me know.

CSI is re-engineering how government works

2010-08-26T12:59:00.001-05:00

A CSI role for the Executive Director of Wilder Research? That’s correct. Something more important, though, than a mere role in one of the most popular television dramas of all time. Rather, an opportunity to shape the future of our state.

The Commission on Service Innovation launched its efforts last month, to provide the Minnesota legislature with a plan to re-engineer how government does its work. Over the coming months, we will ask: What quality of life do we want to create for our state over the next 20 years or so? How can we best shape government to support the creation of this quality of life?

Responding to these questions has more challenges than immediately meet the eye. State and local governments operate mostly in ways that fit the 20^th century. Until recently, they have usually benefitted from reasonably adequate sources of revenue to do so.. The 21^st century presents a different landscape. National and international environments have changed. The state’s residents have a different social makeup; they hold different preferences and expectations.

Economic and demographic trends, at state, national, and world-wide levels, have created a situation unlike anything that Minnesota and its regions have experienced before. For instance, globalization has established a new playing field for business. Economic forces and competitive trends throughout the world have as much relevance as the trends and competition locally. (Competitors that Minneapolis business people need to watch don’t live in Saint Paul, or even in Wisconsin. They live in places far away.)

The aging of our population will present challenges and opportunities unlike anything ever seen anywhere in the world. For some counties and regions of the state, the “old-age dependency ratio” has begun an upward trend that will result in one person over 65 for every two persons “of working age.” What does the change in this ratio mean? It means that, for every person who is likely to be retired, we used to have four or five people in the labor force, receiving paychecks and paying taxes. Now, we will only have two or three. You can see very quickly how the burden on those workers will increase.

The state faces severe revenue shortfalls in the foreseeable future. Government must work smarter and more productively, as one of several steps to compensate for those shortfalls.

At the same time that these social and economic challenges have arisen, we have changed in other ways. Technology has created opportunities to organize work more creatively and efficiently than in the past. Communication with, and engagement of, the population can occur in new and powerful ways. Younger generations especially (but not exclusively) have come to rely on online access to resources, services, and information; for them, the use of social media has become second nature, whereas it might have seemed like science fiction even just 25 years ago. People of all ages expect 24/7 access for retail purchasing, banking, travel reservations, and other functions that previously could occur only in-person or by phone during much more limited times of day.

These changes in our circumstances and needs make it imperative to produce innovation in the ways that we serve ourselves through government. I look forward to creating a small but hopefully significant product that will help to shape the future of our state; and I look forward to doing so with colleagues on the Commission from business, from foundations, from employees’ unions, from education, from government, and elsewhere. It’s a rare opportunity to bring great collective expertise into the same group to move ahead boldly and creatively for the benefit of our state’s residents.

Immigration, the Need for Rational Discussion

2010-07-23T16:41:00.001-05:00

Why have we witnessed the recent upsurge of commotion and concern about immigration?

A few facts deserve mention.

First, just about everyone on this earth is an immigrant or a descendent of immigrants. Virtually all land masses have received their human populations from elsewhere. It’s just a question of how long ago that occurred. I recently visited the Museum of Natural History in New York. If you’ve visited, you have probably seen the very impressive map which shows the flows of people, from continent to continent, beginning in Africa thousands of years ago. Even our American Indian people, the most native of any of us on this continent, descended from tribes who originated far away.

Second, a century ago in Minnesota, the proportion of our population comprised of immigrants far exceeded the current proportion. For example, the “non-native” residents of Minnesota made up 26% of the population in 1870; they made up 20% in 1920. Immigrants built Minnesota as we now know it – not just the urban Twin Cities, but the many cities, towns, and communities throughout our state, which contain streets, roads, and places often named in commemoration of distant homelands. During the 1980s and 1990s, the proportion of residents born in other countries reached its lowest point (about 2-3%). Today, immigrants make up about 8% of the state, and are a growing proportion of many areas of greater Minnesota.

Third, hostility toward immigrants is nothing new. Jews arriving in New York City from Europe in the late 1800s experienced frequent disdain from existing city residents. “Chinatowns”, which now attract tourists, served in many cities as protective enclaves from intense persecution of Chinese people. The Know Nothing movement of the mid-1800s spawned a national political party unsympathetic to immigrants. In Saint Paul, Swedes, Irish, and others initially faced much discrimination when they first arrived. Swede Hollow of the 19^th century exemplifies a situation of immigrants living in squalor due in large part to discrimination.

The Arizona law has prompted much of the most recent, visible controversy. In truth, I sympathize with anyone in Arizona who has suffered as a result of criminal activity perpetrated by illegal immigrants, or for that matter by citizens and legal immigrants who profit from the drug trade, for example. However, illegal activity should not define the debate. I don’t generate my opinions and recommendation for the health care system, based on the behavior of bad doctors; or for the legal system, based on the behavior of bad lawyers. We can’t let illegal behavior cloud our sight and damage our ability to understand trends and develop creative visions for the future.

In any case, the Arizona hullabaloo will pass. Underlying discomfort, often not outwardly expressed, plays a larger role. Why this discomfort? Why – especially if we all can point to our immigrant heritage – do we encounter a lot of tension in our communities related to immigration?

I’ll offer my interpretation; you may have your own. I would suggest that different members of our communities become uncomfortable for different reasons. Some people hold dear an “ideal” conception of life as it once existed. (In fact, such idyllic life probably never did exist, but that does not matter.) They witness different cultures, see institutions change, and wish for “the good old days.” Some have the concern that new arrivals will take their jobs and/or increase the demands on government service systems. Other people simply fear change and resist change; any change makes them uncomfortable. For other people, racism or xenophobia impedes their capacity to think and act. For others, a combination of these and other factors explains their reactions.

Rational discussion – based on current context, short-term perspective, and long-term perspective – must prevail. Trying to change or resist the patterns of migration, established over thousands of years, is equivalent to trying to change ocean currents or the tides. It can’t be accomplished in the long term. Indeed, it should not be accomplished. These patterns are neither good nor bad; they are simply reality. In the shorter term, we need to recognize that businesses need employees for production and consumers for consumption. Our communities need active, caring members; they need families with good parents. Individuals and families who arrive in Minnesota, whether from New York or New Delhi, offer today, in the 21^st century, opportunities for the state to thrive – just as offered by those many Minnesota immigrants of the 18^th, 19^th and 20^th centuries.

To promote rational discussion, we presented a webinar, which you can view – to hear about how immigration is changing the current Minnesota landscape. It contains information, along with commentary from three community leaders from throughout the state. More important, you can see the larger body of information about immigration, on which the webinar is based. Go to www.mncompass.org Click on the immigration tab.

As always, we welcome your questions, comments, and suggestions.

Homelessness -- Can we "cure" it? Should we care?

2010-05-31T12:33:00.002-05:00

In Minnesota, a state blessed with resources, should we have 13,000 or more people who are homeless, nearly half of whom are under age 21? What if we could solve the problem for a thousand homeless people, at a cost of $1.75 per year, per state resident? I know that we want “no new taxes”, but might such an investment have some value?

Minnesotans can take pride in the fact that we have initiated efforts to end homelessness. Without such efforts, we would likely find ourselves in a worse situation. However, as Wilder Research has reported, many homelessness trends have moved in a bad direction.

Is this issue intractable? Is the cost of a solution insurmountable? I performed some “back of the envelope” calculations to help think about this.

A portion of the homeless population just needs housing. Some low-income, low-skilled adults fall into this category; so do some women and children fleeing domestic violence. With a place to live, they can handle their lives without intense supportive services, and just with the normal sort of assistance that all of us need at significant transition points in our lives.

What might housing cost for 1,000 homeless people, who need no special supports beyond housing? Assume a housing cost of $750 per month per person. Calculate the total yearly cost; divide it by the number of residents in the state of Minnesota (5,446,420). You will discover that we could house 1,000 homeless people – who just need a place to live – for a cost per year of about $1.75 per state resident.

Many homeless people, of course, require supportive services; they cannot live on their own. Suppose that supportive housing costs $1,500 per month. Do the math again. You will discover that we could house 1,000 homeless people – who require supportive housing – for a cost per year of about $3.50 per state resident.

Is that an insurmountable cost? Not really. Although I do realize that resources are finite, and if you use the “just pennies a day” formula with every possible good thing to spend money on, eventually resources will exhaust themselves. However, the will to do something may have greater importance than the amount of available resources.

Homeless people must have the will to improve their life situations. Many of them have that will. They have the same desire and drive as anyone can; they pursue exactly the same goals as middle and upper income people. Yet barriers get in their way, including low income, severe mental illness, poor credit histories.

In addition to these individual barriers, structural barriers create place severe limits on what people can achieve. What do we mean by structural barriers? Very simply, if 110 people needed housing, but only 100 places were vacant, 10 people would not have housing, regardless of their abilities and determination.

Analysis by one set of economists** suggested that just a small increase in the vacancy rate (an economic structural factor) can produce a major decrease in rates of homelessness in a community. Why? Well, understandably, a greater number of available units, in combination with likely rent reductions, will enable some low-income individuals and families to afford housing.

So, as we seek to end homelessness, our strategies must focus on both structural and individual factors.

What does it cost us if we do not address homelessness? Well, homelessness increases chronic health problems; homeless teens have much lower graduation rates than do other teens. Again, you can do some math. In the Wilder Research 2009 survey, 42% of homeless adults had used a hospital emergency room during the previous six months. At $1,000 or more per visit, costs add up. National data suggest that the cost of not receiving a high school diploma averages $260,000 over the course of a non-graduate’s lifetime. (Remember, the individual incurs those costs, but so do all of us in the form of lower productivity, lower tax receipts, etc.)

The Family Housing Fund found that “the cost of supportive housing for a chronically homeless family is less than half the cost of public services required if they remain homeless.”

We can make choices; we do have resources. We can make a dent in this problem, if not solve it.

A recent study in the sporting world showed that penalty kick takers in soccer matches score their point 92% of the time when the score will produce an immediate win for their team; but they score their point only 60% of the time when the point will simply tie the match. That shows the power of psychology. Might we take a similar approach to social policy? If we feel we can succeed, if we have that will, we produce a much greater likelihood of success.

I encourage you to take a look at the results of the recent research on homelessness on the Wilder Research web site, www.wilderresearch.org.

**“Homeless in America, Homeless in California”. Quigley, Raphael, Smolensky. The Review of Economics and Statistics, February 2001.

Respecting Different Perspectives -- Demanding Hard Evidence

2010-05-06T16:50:00.001-05:00

“We need an educated citizenry that values hard evidence.” “The practice of listening to opposing views is essential to democracy.” Barak Obama’s opponents, supporters, and those in-between should find inspiration in his speech to the graduates of the University of Michigan this past weekend.

Obama encouraged members of our nation to “learn what it’s like to walk in somebody else’s shoes”. If the liberal media commonly nourish your thinking and shape your opinions, pay some attention to the conservative media. Most of us mix with people in networks of familiarity and comfort. We should extend that zone, discovering the perspectives that others hold. No doubt at all that we could gain some valuable insights that might enrich our ability to work with others and to improve our communities.

Obama also quoted from Daniel Patrick Moynihan – advice which we at Wilder Research have taken to heart over many years: “Everybody is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

Yes. We like this point of view at Wilder Research; we hope that you do as well. We can’t know everything; but we must agree in common on what we do know, and then use that information as a platform for discussion, decision-making, and further action. We should insist that those who promote a specific course of action or a remedy for a problem build their case on a clear, nonpartisan, acceptable base of the most complete, up-to-date evidence – whether they want to recommend an approach to mental health treatment or the best way to confront the Taliban.

Can you rely on a drug or other treatment which a professional has prescribed? Only if it has received thorough testing and endorsement through valid, unbiased research. Do local, state, and federal social programs, for which we have paid billions of dollars, actually work? Do such programs have a positive return on the major investment we have put into them? Some certainly do work; some have a large, positive cost/benefit. Others, however, have never received a true test; we don’t understand their full value (or lack thereof).

In a world where sound bites can shape the public’s image of the world, where everyone can become his or her own publisher and distributor of “information” and opinions, and where groups with vested interests have powerful tools to selfishly coerce us to move our thinking in their direction – it becomes more important than ever to insist on really knowing the facts – facts which Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives can accept, even if they use those facts to draw completely opposite interpretations and conclusions.

A Lifelong "Fight for Justice"

2010-04-20T22:26:00.004-05:00

“She waged a fight for justice” – stated the headline in the Pioneer Press for its story about Katie McWatt, a longtime Saint Paul community leader. I first met Katie in about 1978, when I became involved in some initiatives in the Summit-University area. The neighborhood also had the moniker, Selby-Dale, which conjured negative images for many, especially those who lived outside the city and did not understand the true nature of city life and specifically life in this neighborhood, with its rich traditions, strong family networks, and of course, its leaders like Katie McWatt.

Katie can certainly serve as a model for the community leadership initiative which we are currently crafting with the Bush Foundation. Its purpose is to inspire and empower grassroots community leaders to make progress in their communities.

I think of her when I think of John Gardner’s contention that:

“Most leadership today is an attempt to accomplish purposes through (or in spite of) large, intricately organized systems. There is no possibility that centralized authority can call all the shots in such systems, whether the system is a corporation or a nation. Individuals in all segments and at all levels must be prepared to exercise leaderlike initiative and responsibility, using their local knowledge to solve problems at their level. Vitality at middle and lower levels of leadership can produce greater vitality in the higher levels of leadership.”

What qualities of Katie might other community leaders – those working at the level which Gardner says can have such an effect on our vitality – want to emulate?

Awareness of self – perhaps first and foremost. She knew exactly who she was and what she wanted to accomplish. This provided a set of values which anchored her and sustained her through difficult situations. In addition, she visibly lived and communicated those values – something which effective leaders must do.

Selflessness. She did not self-promote, but always acted for others, for the community, even when it meant taking risks. Leadership, visibility in the public eye – these can bring about strong temptations to act in self-serving, arrogant ways; but Katie did not succumb to such temptations.

Vision. She dedicated herself to a future ideal. This served as a constant guide, influencing what she did in everything from working on community improvement through institutional channels such as service on boards (Hallie Q. Brown is the place where I think I first met her), to less conventional activities such as nonviolent protests, in the spirit of Martin Luther King.

Use of information, communication, networking. She based her efforts on a sound understanding of what was really happening in her community.

We should all aspire to develop these qualities. It’s what can make our communities great places to live. As I mentioned in a previous blog, it’s comforting to know that, in their own ways, leaders like Katie McWatt have commitment, have a vision, and are getting it done – with results that benefit not only those of us who live in Saint Paul, but those of us in this entire region, of which Saint Paul makes up an important, vibrant part of the center.

Progress for ALL - Making It Together

2010-03-30T09:43:00.002-05:00

Do Minnesotans systematically look at the needs of our communities, collaborate to address them, and make progress in moving our quality of life in a positive direction? If forced to respond yes or no, I would have to say “no”.

Don’t misinterpret that “no”, however. Examples do exist of excellent work involving people across sectors and across communities (such as those featured in Minnesota Compass’ “Ideas at Work” sections). However, the complex challenges of today and the imperatives of tomorrow require that we do much more, and do it smarter.

What gets in the way of broad-scale community improvement? In some instances, lack of vision or accountability. In others, limited solutions result from convening just the usual suspects, with little invitation or accommodation to involve new voices. In other cases, partisan rancor and self-interest impede decision-making based on examination of unbiased research and the fostering of civil discourse..

Wilder Research wants to change that. Our Compass initiative seeks not simply to inform, but to inspire and to catalyze action in our communities to improve the quality of life. In addition, the Wilder Foundation’s Board has encouraged Wilder Research to do more “Community Research and Leadership” – that is, to bring people together around significant community issues, provide data as a guide, and see if we can create a common sense of purpose to improve our communities and resolve our issues in creative ways.

Now is clearly the time to move from data to action. If we act effectively – and I think we can – we will see the trend lines change for the good!

Over the coming months, we plan to convene groups to address the following:

School success. Why? Well, for example, about 3,600 children could have received high school diplomas last year from Saint Paul Public Schools, if they had not dropped out and if all graduated on time. Only about 1,960 did so, resulting in a graduation rate of about 55%. How can we focus our attention, to move this rate up to perhaps 65% in the next three years? How can we raise it to close to 100% by 2020?

Reasons vary as to why our children do not graduate; no single approach will get everyone through school. However, similar to proven methods for eliminating health problems, or reaching public health goals, we can address the issue in “chunks,” bite off as much as we can chew at any given time, and work to make incremental improvements year to year.

We want to bring together anyone who can play a role in moving the school success numbers in the right direction, and get us all to identify and implement action each of us will take to reach our goal.

Care of our aging residents, and care of their caregivers. Why? Well, for example, about 70,000 persons 60 and older in the East Metro have limited ability to accomplish normal activities of daily living. How many receive the formal care they need?

Most of these individuals receive some amount of assistance from a family member, relative, or other associate. How many of these informal caregivers receive the support they need to prevent or ameliorate the mental and physical health problems that develop among those who shoulder the burden of caring for an older person?

We want to bring together anyone who can play a role in helping to make sure that older adults and their caregivers receive the support they need, and get us all to identify and implement action each of us will take to reach our goal.

Youth development. The Twin Cities region has about 385,000 young people, ages 10-19. This group receives much attention related to its educational progress. However, their time spent out of school—with families, after-school programs, hanging out with peers, volunteering and working—also influences their development in powerful ways. Yet, the community does not typically focus on “youth development,” in a fashion similar to the focus on “early childhood development.” In addition, formal health care and other systems sometimes forget these kids, or don’t know the most effective ways to serve them (which can be all the more serious as a result of the typical teenage reticence to bring problems to the attention of adults, until those problems get worse).

Along with some foundations and other advisors, we will assemble information about this group. Then, we’ll discuss with anyone interested what the next best steps might be.

The vitality of our nonprofit organizations. Hundreds of nonprofit organizations currently face common challenges. Change is inevitable in the current social and economic environment. Challenges to sustainability exist for many. Can those of us in the nonprofit sector collaborate more effectively? Can we stretch resources, to work more efficiently and maintain our impacts, despite declining resources?

We plan to bring nonprofits together, in different settings, to see what creative approaches we might develop, to work together more efficiently, economically, and effectively. Increased resources will not be the answer. Creativity, ingenuity, willingness to change old styles of behavior – those will be positive, adaptive features that will move us forward. We expect that, if we can create the right circumstances for dialogue, together we can create many innovative and unexpected initiatives for improving their ability to continue having an impact on our communities.

If you have thoughts or suggestions, please let me know. I also recommend that you take a look at Eric Schubert’s thoughts in this past Sunday’s Pioneer Press. You will see words like “ideas,”“shared voice,” “civility,” “credible data” – all features of the convening we want to do. And, if you want to explore an "Ideas at Work"section in Compass, take a look at Education, or at any of the other topics.

I look forward to working with you!

Good Bye Ron, Hello Many Other Rons

2010-03-18T15:58:00.002-05:00

“Do you want a ride, Dr. Paul?” The death of Ron Maddox, a few weeks ago, brought those words to mind – words he would shout on many mornings during my first years of working at the Wilder Foundation – whenever he drove by and saw me waiting for the bus, to travel to the Wilder Building on the corner of 5^th and Washington in downtown Saint Paul (current site of the Ordway Theater). He, of course, had a Council member’s office at City Hall, a short distance from the Wilder Building.

The Pioneer Press story about his life characterized him as “a nonstop eruption of ideas, plans, gimmicks and projects for his beloved city.” (If you read Joe Soucheray’s recent column about Ron, you noticed that “eruption” was a literal, not figurative, description of his exchange of words with Norm Green at The Saint Paul Hotel in 1991.)

I frequently disagreed with Ron, either on the substance of his position or on the style of his approach. However, we had a respect for one another. He or his aide occasionally would call with questions, in the hope that I might enable them to see a new solution to a challenge they had to address. While they didn’t always accept my conclusions or agree with my advice, they always expressed appreciation for the insight, and they acknowledged the likely validity of my facts.

Several of Ron’s qualities deserve mention, for those of us dedicated to the success of Saint Paul. For one, he had a true, strong commitment to Saint Paul. He loved our city, believed in it, and dedicated his life’s efforts to the betterment of our residents. Many others in Saint Paul demonstrate this commitment, even though they have not entered into the public eye in the way that Ron did. I’ve witnessed their efforts in the city’s schools, which my children attended (one still does), on citizen work groups and task forces (multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-generational, in which residents joined together for the common good), and in other activities that have offered us the opportunity to work for our city.

Another of his positive qualities: a vision. He recognized the importance of constructing a vision – to inspire others and to provide a direction, a common goal to orient people’s plans. The importance of vision, along with the value of the people who have it and communicate it, has struck me over the years, as I’ve met with groups as varied as the Aurora-St. Anthony Block Clubs (now evolved into a Development Corporation), the East Side District 2 Community Council, University United, and the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce, and many more too numerous to mention (which, of itself, testifies to the energy of our city’s residents). Some of the groups which power our city have developed from grass roots; all rely on volunteers, even if some have paid staff. Among all of them, we can see people with vision and an entrepreneurial spirit, who want to create a better future for us and for future residents.

And finally, one of Ron’s attitudes: “get it done”. Like any effective leader, he recognized that discussion works to a point, but then action must prevail. If you read the newspaper account of his life, you noted how he stepped in on many occasions when things were stuck, and he pulled them through to an effective conclusion.

The city has many Rons. I’ve mentioned above how I’ve witnessed them; I won’t name any, for fear of leaving someone out. It’s comforting to know that, in their own ways, so many residents have commitment, have a vision, and are getting it done – with results that benefit not only those of us who live in Saint Paul, but those of us in this entire region, of which Saint Paul makes up an important, vibrant part of the center.

Why Art?

2010-02-16T13:02:00.000-06:00

A new art exhibit, “Remember Where You Come From,” goes on display soon at Wilder Center.

Why do we display art? Our first and fourth floor “galleries” provide venues for rotating exhibitions by local artists. What value does art bring to an organization dedicated to improving the quality of life in our communities, especially for the most vulnerable?

You may have your own answer. Mine appears below.

Art brings variety to our senses. Typically, it decorates our environment with beauty. Sometimes, it confronts us face-to-face with ugliness. An environment with art stimulates and provokes any or all of our senses and creates impacts on our bodies and minds.

Art expands understanding and imagination. A book about poetry, which I read long ago, described a good poem as “a new door to an old, familiar room” – perhaps an apt metaphor for all art. Art brings new perspective on everyday personal and social issues, thus opening our eyes to new ways to improve our lives.

Art liberates. Artists rarely confine themselves to convention. They push the boundaries of current thought. They frequently question the legitimacy of common cultural beliefs and practices. Totalitarian governments typically have great disdain for artists; our freedom very much depends upon and reflects our art.

Art is therapeutic. The artist finds fulfillment and meaning in creation, which provides renewed energy to overcome physical, mental, social, and spiritual obstacles in life. The viewer can find fulfillment and meaning as well, either by interpreting the artist’s messages or by recasting the artwork in light of the viewer’s experiences and perspectives.

Art creates connections among human beings. A formal opening for an exhibit convenes many people. On a daily basis, interaction occurs by happenstance – two or more people happen to arrive at the same place, looking at the same piece of art; they engage in conversation (about the art or about something else).

The purpose of the Amherst H. Wilder Gallery is to present works of art that foster connections and conversations that broaden and deepen our understanding of ourselves and of one another.

That statement succinctly indicates why we feature art in our building. We should never doubt its importance to our mission. As we end this first decade of the 21^st century, social and economic trends have created a collision between increasing community needs, but stable or declining resources to meet those needs. Solutions for our communities, our nations, and our world require creativity, imagination, and energy. For our part, we have the goal to convene and engage members of our community to work on the issues we face. Art inspires, supports, and motivates us in that endeavor.

(We cordially invite you to attend the formal opening and reception of our newest exhibit – on Thursday, March 4, from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. at Wilder Center.)

More Thoughts about Education

2010-02-05T10:06:00.002-06:00

On Thursday, at a seminar to advance an initiative to develop “Learning Campuses” in Saint Paul, several speakers offered comments which stimulated my thinking:

Patrick Bryan, Principal at Jackson Magnet: “Educational success is not just academics. It is academics plus resilience, the ability to set goals, self-confidence, curiosity, a sense of meaning …” He suggested the motto: “Every kid, every day, after school.”

Mary Kay Boyd, Board member of St. Paul Children’s Collaborative and long-time educator: “Systems don’t always understand what’s happening at the ground level – for example, they don’t always understand all the things that families do to educate their children…We can’t just transplant models that worked somewhere else and expect them to work in Saint Paul. We’ve got to create what works for Saint Paul.”

Kathy Lentz, Greater Twin Cities United Way: “Learning is a continuum. It starts prenatally. It includes reading by grade 3, good out-of-school activities, academic and involvement activities. We have to align and integrate all that we do for all of children’s lives.”

Nan Skelton: “We really need to plan for 2020, not for what we see today. It’s important to understand all the trends, not just those we associate with education.”

John Mueller, St. Paul Federation of Teachers: "This spring, at our conference, there will be many opportunities in the program for teachers and community partners to dialogue."

Clearly, more people recognize that learning occurs over time; it involves a combination of formal and informal experiences. All of us are both learners and educators. It will be exciting to see what develops.

Obstacles to College Access - One Solution

2010-02-03T21:34:00.001-06:00

“Any country that fails to encourage and develop the talent in each individual through its public school system will suffer greatly, because the quality of a nation depends on the collective wisdom of both its leaders and its citizens.”

Bruce Alberts, the Editor-in-Chief of Science Magazine offered that thought – addressing an issue of major significance for our nation and others: A college degree has increasingly become significantly important – not just for individuals who aspire to better jobs, but for our society which needs a competent workforce. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 80% of “growth occupations” will require a college degree. Yet obstacles to learning, for low income students and students of color – whose numbers have increased greatly – have impeded many of these young people from achieving their potential and reaching college.

So, I took special note of recent news from Admission Possible. This Saint Paul organization identifies low-income young people with talent and motivation and assists them to earn admission to college; it plans to expand to as many as 10 cities. Both this program and the issue it addresses merit our consideration.

Wilder Research evaluated Admission Possible in the mid-2000s. Our objective, systematic look at the program revealed very positive results.

During the time of our study, the program enrolled high school students from families with incomes in the bottom half of family incomes in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. About 90 percent were youth of color. These students face many barriers to attending college, beginning at a young age. Nonetheless, 100% of program participants who graduated from high school in 2005 received an acceptance from at least one college; 91% actually enrolled in the fall. Among African-American participants, 98% enrolled in college, compared with 85-90% among other racial/ethnic groups.

No single strategy or type of program will eliminate the achievement gap or remove all the obstacles to educational success for low income students and students of color. However, this is one approach which can deliver positive results for at least some high potential young people.

The "Love" That King Inspires

2010-01-18T20:42:00.002-06:00

This morning, the Reverend Dr. Joseph E. Lowery recalled in his keynote speech at the Martin Luther King Holiday Breakfast that Dr. King was a visionary, crusader, preacher, and revolutionary who could “illuminate the past, understand the present, and envision the future”. King created a dream – a dream that took shape during a time of great awakening for the United States, also a time when violence silenced forward-looking and prophetic voices.

During my junior and senior high school years in New York City, one assassination followed another: John F. Kennedy; Malcolm X; Martin Luther King; and Robert Kennedy (whose death was the major topic of conversation at my graduation ceremony). Many of us of that generation witnessed events which appalled us, yet intensified our resolve and determination to make a difference in the world.

To fulfill the dream of King, Dr. Lowery admonished us to move from “charity” to “love”. Charity is OK; it’s not a bad thing. However, charity is seasonal; love is everlasting. Charity is selective; love is all inclusive. Charity may or may not embrace justice; love always embraces justice. Borrowing from another metaphor, he equated charity with “giving people a fish so they can eat today”. Love, he equated with “teaching people how to fish”. However, he went even further, to indicate that love entails not just building people’s skills so that they can sustain themselves; it also involves addressing systemic issues – “checking the water to make sure it’s clean enough for fish to thrive”, and preventing pollution from occurring in the first place.

Poverty, pollution, economic decline, disparities – the list of structural issues in our society could continue. For us, what’s important is the understanding that we can and should extend a hand to help people with their immediate needs. However, we need to move beyond that charitable endeavor to change systems, policies, and institutions which constrain people’s initiative, no matter how capable they might be and no matter how hard they might try. We need to understand and improve the social determinants of health and well-being.

At Wilder, we’ve acknowledged that improving our community requires attention to immediate needs (mostly through services that we provide). We have recognized as well that we must attend to larger, systemic conditions (mostly through our research and leadership activities). That’s the complete approach – which acts earnestly to achieve the “love” which Lowery recommends and which Dr. King inspires.

More Food Stamp Use + More Wall Street Bonuses = A Threatening Mixture of Ingredients

2010-01-14T20:20:00.003-06:00

As you shop for groceries or eat your next meal, consider this:

About one in eight U.S. residents receives food stamps.
About six million people nationally have no other source of income except food stamps.
In Minnesota, the average monthly number of people receiving food stamps rose every year from 2002 to 2008. (When final numbers appear for 2009, I suspect we will see an increase as well.)
More than 40,000 Minnesotans may be living on no income other than food stamps, according to information reported by MinnPost from the Department of Human Services.
In Minnesota, about one in 12 people lives below the poverty line; in the U.S. as a whole, it’s about one in 8.

People with no income other than food stamps comprise the extreme tip of a larger iceberg created by the current economy. As profiled in the January 3 Sunday New York Times, many of them dropped suddenly into this situation from middle class lifestyles, as a result of losing jobs that had paid decent wages. In the current difficult economic environment, everyone knows someone out of work.

A public official opined something to the effect that providing food stamps and similar benefits indefinitely might foster reliance on the government welfare system. While I’m always open to new findings which will shape my opinions, I have to say that, so far, no evidence has come to my attention to indicate that people who receive food stamps, who have no cash income, and who double up with relatives or live in a shelter develop a liking for that condition.

Our economic challenges will not disappear soon. The Department of Labor reports that the downward trend in jobs continues; nationally, 85,000 disappeared in December. We have an unemployment rate at about 10%; and the underemployment rate, which includes people who gave up looking for work as well as people who took part time jobs to replace fulltime positions – could be 17% or more. No trends have yet emerged to indicate that the “stimulus” has had a major impact.

In the short term, concern and compassion for the less fortunate must motivate us to meet the immediate needs of those in our community. (Lack of effort or determination has not caused people to find themselves in bad economic circumstances. Many have led honest, hard-working lives, only to have their livelihoods destroyed by circumstances outside of their control, precipitated by people who were not so honest.) In the long term, we must collaborate with others around the nation and the world on issues such as economic development and the distribution of natural resources to needy nations – if we want to eliminate the underlying conditions that produce poor health, human suffering, and social deterioration, not to mention the breeding of terrorism.

National and local recovery from the current economic hardships will require all of us to contribute; it will require all of us to tighten our belts. Which leads me to other facts which have astounded the public recently.

As you examine your next paycheck, consider this:

Goldman Sachs is expected to pay its employees an average of about $595,000 apiece for 2009.
Workers in the investment bank of JP Morgan Chase will receive an average of about $463,000.

Corporate executives – some of them the same people responsible for causing the banking and housing industry problems which have devastated our economy – have now entered “bonus season”. Wall Street traders who created derivatives – they will receive big bonuses. Wall Street traders who bundled mortgages into “collateralized debt obligations”, sold them to investors, but then bet against them behind the scenes so the traders would profit when the investors lost – they will receive bonuses.

Again, I’m always open to new facts that will shape my opinions, but I have not seen any evidence that large salaries and bonuses for Wall Street executives, or huge rewards for dishonest traders, stimulate or nurture the democratic, capitalist system that we value.

Meanwhile the news amuses us with stories of NBC’s dispute with two talk show hosts, Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno, who together earn $50 million plus per year.

People living on nothing but food stamps, others making millions. How long do we think that our communities can survive unless we address the issue of poverty among some in the midst of such great abundance among others?

(To examine trend and background information related to these issues, see for example: Twin Cities Compass; New York Times; MinnPost. Food Support (Food Stamp) trends for Minnesota appear in the Quarterly Economic Pulse. )

A New Year at Wilder Research

2010-01-01T14:46:00.003-06:00

10 years ago, we feared we might wake up to Y2K havoc. As we transition to the teens, what do we call the first decade of the 21^st century? The “ones”? The “Os”? “The aughts”?

Whatever we call them, the opening years of this century did not bring Y2K, but they did bring many other challenges and opportunities. At Wilder Research, we look forward to continuing to collaborate with you to take full advantage of the skills and reputation we have gained through the long legacy of Wilder’s community-oriented research, along with the current resources which the Foundation can dedicate to meeting needs and improving our community.

The Board of the Wilder Foundation has decided that Wilder will focus on:

Children and Families
The Elderly
Community Research and Leadership

In establishing that third focus, the Board formally acknowledged something very significant: Meeting the needs of vulnerable people and others who need assistance, along with promoting the quality of life for all of us and preventing problems before they occur, cannot be accomplished solely by providing direct services. We, as a community, do not have the combination of resources, systems, organizations, and services to satisfy the duty we feel as a result of the compassionate, caring values which we share.

So, at Wilder Research, we take Community Research and Leadership very seriously. Over the coming years, we will continue to dedicate the efforts of our 80+ staff to work with you to identify how we can have more impact with limited resources. What can our communities do better? What can our nonprofit organizations do better? What can government do better? Let’s determine this, and take steps to implement worthwhile improvements.

We hope to bring people together and empower them to care for others, to build better organizations and communities, and to create new ways of thinking and new policies that will improve everyone’s quality of life. “Leadership” does not mean that the Wilder Foundation or Wilder Research has all the answers, knows the best direction to pursue, or expects to dictate anything to others. It does mean that, as a foundation, we have an obligation to stimulate, enlighten, and engage people in ways that human service delivery organizations and government cannot. We can put the best interests of our metro area in the forefront and act in a nonpartisan way to bring together people of all types and perspectives in literally hundreds of small efforts and large initiatives – to foster positive change.

Research has historically led individuals and communities to consider new options, to think in new ways. Wilder’s Community Research activities began in the teens of the 20^th century. We are the oldest existing part of the Foundation. Heightened emphasis on Community Research and Leadership, during the teens of the 21^st century carries out the intent of our founders and gives our community a precious resource for ongoing improvement of our well-being.

Again, we look forward to all we can do with and for you during the years ahead.

Happy New Year!

Longer Life Expectancy, Higher Outlays for Medicare and Social Security…

2009-12-16T17:19:00.001-06:00

Those predictions come from a recent study by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network for an Aging Society.

The predictions fit a statement I’ve made frequently to audiences during the past five years: As we witness one of the most dramatic demographic changes ever – throughout the world – with the aging of our population, we can expect “more of everything”. On the positive side, more people will live longer, with more resources, staying healthy, wanting to retire later, and seeking volunteer opportunities and other ways to contribute to their communities. On the negative side, more people will live with chronic conditions and disabilities, with few resources, and requiring care for an extended final stage of their lives.

The MacArthur study suggests that “current government projections may significantly underestimate the future life expectancy of Americans.” It predicts that Medicare and Social Security outlays will increase trillions of dollars beyond what many analysts expect.

It notes other impacts resulting from the increase in the aging population, including (on the negative side) the increased dependency ratio and threats to the nation’s fiscal health, and (on the positive side) a more experienced work force, and more productive years for individuals.

We will see an increase in the number of people who want to contribute to their communities by volunteering. However, as Greg Owen noted in a recent letter to the StarTribune, most agencies are not ready to accept an influx of volunteers. If we want to make the best use of the talents of our aging population, we need to construct the infrastructure which can do so.

For a longer description, and references, see the MacArthur Foundation’s Press Releases.

Inaccuracies from the White House Highlight the Importance of Effective Evaluation

2009-12-03T16:43:00.002-06:00

Has the federal stimulus program worked? Unfortunately, an objective monitor of the situation, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, asserts that White House claims regarding the numbers of jobs created may not be accurate (as The New York Times, as well as our Pioneer Press and StarTribune reported on November 20).

According to the Times, the 640,000 jobs “saved or created”, as reported by the White House, could not be verified. “The 640,000 figure, announced by the White House with some fanfare last month, came from reports filed by recipients of the stimulus money, many of which have been shown to be inaccurate or overstated.” The Times further stated: “A series of embarrassing reports – of raises being counted as new jobs, of jobs claimed in Congressional districts that do not exist, of school districts claiming to have saved the jobs of more teachers than they employ – may have ended up undermining confidence in the stimulus program.”

Representative David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat, opined: “Credibility counts in government, and stupid mistakes like this undermine it.”

Representative Obey understands an old Latin expression which many public officials do not recognize, to their detriment: Falsus in unum, falsus in omnia – which in today’s world could essentially translate as “if you make one mistake or spin one thing incorrectly, everything you say is considered inaccurate”.

Credibility counts in all sectors of society. We need transparency as well. The erroneous White House assertions about the effects of the stimulus bill illustrate the need for effective evaluation and understanding of our public and private programs. In these economic times, with government budgets stressed to the maximum, all of us who devote ourselves to efforts for the betterment of our communities deserve to know what works, what does not work, and how we can spend our tax dollars and charitable contributions as cost-effectively as possible.

Thanks from "Wilder Research"

2009-11-27T12:31:00.002-06:00

The older person who receives better care – thanks you.

The young child who starts school better able to learn – thanks you.

The formerly homeless family – thanks you.

The newly established immigrant business owner – thanks you.

The former substance abuser – thanks you.

The middle-aged person caring for an elderly parent – thanks you.

All of these people, and more, constitute the “results” of the work of Wilder Research over the past many years. As long as our communities have people in need, we will work to meet those needs; beyond that, we will seek to prevent people from falling into need. As long as the residents of our communities strive to improve their quality of life, we will collaborate with them to do so.

We cannot accomplish our work alone. Today’s complex issues require collaborative efforts among many organizations and individuals.

So, thank you to you – our partners, donors, supporters. Whether you worked with us side by side on an initiative, or you offered advice as an advisory committee member, or you supplied funding, or you contributed in any of a myriad of ways to our work, you participated in transforming lives and transforming communities.

During this Thanksgiving season, you have undoubtedly given thanks for the many blessings in your life. In addition, if you have worked with us, or if you have taken action with others to do benevolent work, then please give thanks for the blessings you have brought to those whose lives we have transformed through our efforts.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Compass in Unsettling Times, Stubborn Facts, Seismic Shift and … Hannity vs. Obama? Assault on Public Discourse?

2009-11-21T13:11:00.003-06:00

Twin Cities Compass annual meeting keynote speaker, Kate Wolford, President of the McKnight Foundation, urged us to rely more than ever on solid information when we make critical decisions during the current “unsettling times”. She likened our situation to that of a boat navigator. Should we rely only on our impressions and past experience – or should we consult charts and reliable navigation devices before we decide where to steer the boat?

Kate congratulated Compass for our nonpartisan, objective approach – in which we convene reasonable people with multiple, and frequently opposing, perspectives to identify what we need to know about our communities, shape a vision for improving our quality of life, and determine how to work collaboratively to make a difference.

An editorial in Thursday’s Pioneer Press praised Compass for focusing attention on “what is” and then motivating people to do something about it:

Facts are stubborn, and they'll exert their effects with our approval or without. It's better, then, in our free and open democratic republic, to acknowledge what is, from various angles — and then decide what to do to about it.

That's the function of Twin Cities Compass, a not-quite 2-year-old project to assemble facts, identify trends, inspire work on things that make life good and measure the effect of that work. With its home at Wilder Research in St. Paul and with funding from a passel of great philanthropic foundations, Twin Cities Compass is a rich source of facts and analysis and ideas for policy-makers, non-profits, business-people and anybody interested in improving our quality of life.

Dan Bartholomay, Commissioner of the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, emphasized the importance of housing as a social and economic asset and noted how it relates to other critical aspects of our lives: health; education; economic development; etc.

Dawn Simonson, Executive Director of the Metropolitan Area Agency on Aging, expanded the audience’s understanding of the profound changes which our communities will experience as a result of dramatic growth in the aging population. She noted that Compass will provide “rich data for action”, and she explained three key measures, among many others, which Compass highlights for the aging population: volunteerism; income; and disability.

We can take pride in the fact that our region always includes a large proportion of people who volunteer. Rates of volunteerism in the Twin Cities area for people in their sixties and seventies exceed rates for those age groups elsewhere in the U.S. Given the health benefits of volunteering, this is a positive trend.

On the other hand, among residents 65-74, about one in five has a disability, with physical challenges such as climbing stairs and lifting the most common. Among those over age 85, about three-fourths have one or more disabilities. So, we need to prepare for increasing numbers of people living longer, and requiring assistance.

Did Sean Hannity debate Barak Obama at the meeting? No. (Although I seem to recall that President Obama once challenged Sean to a debate. If it has not yet occurred, I would be happy to host a faceoff between the two of them at Wilder Center.) I noted the “H vs O” rivalry simply to heighten blog readers’ curiosity, as an entrée into a very important topic which I raised as we closed the meeting: namely, the assault on public discourse which is all too prevalent as partisans and special interest groups on both the right and the left dig in and refuse to consider compromise.

Our design of Compass built on the premise that we need to move from an “old math” to a “new math”. The old equation was:

Good intentions +
No common base of information =
Inefficient decisions

We want to create the new equation:

Good intentions +
Sound, reliable information +

A common sense of purpose =
Productive decisions for a strong region

Unfortunately, we today live in a world in which interest groups try to derail democratic debate, confuse us, and sway us with false or incomplete information. Their efforts push the equation toward:

Good intentions +
Unsound, Misleading Messages +
Diversions from a common sense of purpose =
?????

Those of us who care about our communities and who seek to work in multi-partisan collaboration must find ways to deflate the diversions. The quality of life of all of us here, as well as all people around the world, depends on it.

(If you're interesed, see the slides from the meeting at www.tccompass.org.)

Another Journey with the Twin Cities Region's Leaders

2009-11-03T03:02:00.000-06:00

Last week, we journeyed to Charlotte, North Carolina, as participants in the Inter-City Leadership Visit. This annual visit offers local leaders from government, business, and nonprofit sectors the opportunity to learn first-hand how other cities function and how they overcome challenges which they face. The hope is that we can bring back good ideas to our communities here in Minnesota.

What did we learn this year? Charlotte’s ability to work as a region struck all of us, and it engendered the liveliest conversation during our debriefing at the conclusion of the visit. Charlotte’s leaders realize that world trends have impacts on the region as a whole, not on individual municipalities and counties; they realize that, in the world marketplace, the region – “Charlotte USA” – has an identity, while small components of the region do not.

The Twin Cities region is a socially and economically interdependent entity within the global marketplace of regions. Do we have the will to work as a unified, coherent whole to address issues of economic development, the education of our children, the care of our aging population, and other significant challenges that we face? Or, do Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and perhaps other sections of the region have egos so large that they cannot yet relinquish more of their autonomy than they now give up for regional development and governance?

Air quality and water quality do not recognize political boundaries. Most people easily recognize that. Similarly, trends affecting health, education, housing, public safety, transportation – indeed all of the key elements of our community – do not pay heed to artificially created city and county borders. We need to understand when it makes sense to think small, enabling and empowering local units of government and small communities and neighborhoods to do their own thing – and when it makes sense to join as one, sharing the rewards and the costs of regional cooperation.

I’m working to promote regional thinking and regional action at whatever level makes sense. I hope that you share a regional mindset; and I encourage you to work in similar fashion.

Wilder Research Continues

2009-10-20T08:35:00.002-05:00

The work of Wilder Research is more important than ever.

Last week, much news appeared regarding changes in the Wilder Foundation’s structure and services. In order to have the maximum community impact, within a challenging economic environment, the Foundation decided to focus on three strategic priorities: Children and Families; the Elderly; and Community Research and Leadership. The Foundation will transition out of some programming.

What about Wilder Research? All of our major initiatives will continue.

In fact, in these demanding times, we expect to expand our projects, especially those we do in collaboration with other organizations, and especially those in which we can influence action which will address and resolve the tough community issues we face.

Ironically, the news stories about Wilder’s changes, in the Pioneer Press and Star Tribune, appeared directly beside other stories describing challenges which confront us – in one paper, a story about the diminishing “safety net” for the unemployed, and in the other paper, a story about the critical need for developing the science and math skills of our student population, not just to increase their ability to take jobs, but to create a workforce necessary for the economic vitality of our entire community.

Yes, research has probably never been more important. Whether we like it or not, our government, our community, our organizations must do more with less. Whether we like it or not, the world has changed. Globalization, the current recession, the Internet, global warming – take your pick – all have had significant impacts on local communities. The complexity of today’s issues means that we need to combine good information, committed individuals, and a common sense of purpose – with the result that we improve the quality of life of all our residents.

We look forward to working with you to lead the community through the stormy waters of the present.

Local GDP growth: positive signs for our communities and the nonprofits which serve them?

2009-09-26T11:10:00.003-05:00

The Bureau of Economic Analysis released figures two days ago, which provide cause for both concern and optimism – but hopefully more of the latter than of the former.

On the national level, new data for 2008 show that “the slowdown in U.S. economic growth was widespread: 60 percent of metropolitan areas saw economic growth slow down or reverse.” However, some metropolitan areas did increase their economic output. The Twin Cities region, Saint Cloud, and Rochester all showed positives – which perhaps offers Minnesota some reason for optimism.

Nobody can say what this means in the long term; economic growth in Minnesota’s metro regions (unfortunately not including Duluth) may or may not portend better years in 2010 and 2011. However, the national turnaround has to start somewhere; maybe that’s here.

We don’t know exactly when increases in the metropolitan GDPs will translate into significantly more jobs. Hence, we don’t know when economic growth will affect the rising level of requests that we have observed for assistance with basic needs; nor do we know when resources will return to nonprofits. I advise my nonprofit colleagues that we will not see major relief for at least five years; we will feel the negative effects of today’s recession for at least ten years. Let’s hope I’m wrong about that, but we should formulate our long-range plans with those assumptions and make sure that we can sustain as much service to the community as possible during the coming decade.

If we work together, we can and will get through it.

(If you want more details, take a look at the latest BEA numbers; also take a look at the latest Quarterly Pulse for the local area.)

Calling on the “reasonable middle” to improve our local communities (and move our nation ahead)

2009-09-17T17:22:00.000-05:00

Two headlines appeared beside each other in last Friday’s Pioneer Press, which illustrate a major barrier to making progress on important issues facing our communities, our regions, and our nation. One stated “Pawlenty knocks Obama’s focus.” So, what else is new? The other headline proclaimed “Democrats line up behind Obama.” So, what else is new?

Real news would be: “Pawlenty compromises with Obama, for the good of Minnesotans.” Or: “Democrats use Obama’s speech as tool to collaborate with their Republican counterparts.”

Daily instances in which some politicians and other leaders state their mulish opinions, frequently embellished with misquoted, exaggerated, or twisted truths, unwilling to compromise, intent only to destroy those with opposing views – these events constitute news only to the extent that they illustrate the pervasive cancer that threatens constructive discourse in which all of us have the opportunity to contribute our points of view, then work together for the betterment of our communities.

At Wilder Research, we cherish differing opinions. No one point of view has an exclusive hold on the truth – whether that truth involves the best way to deliver therapy for children or the best policy for delivering services to older adults, or any other significant issue.

We often refer to the “reasonable middle” to identify our audience: that is, people who might be at center, right of center, or left of center - even very far in one direction - but not so far to an extreme that they can’t reach any consensus with anyone other than their own narrowly-defined group of compatriots.

Our Compass initiative, for example, www.tccompass.org, lays out facts about the trends in our region, identifies approaches to improving those trends, which other communities have tried, and invites people to work with us to address those trends. We invite those who want to work in multi-partisan situations to address social issues, improve the quality of life, deal with tough decisions related to the conditions of the vulnerable in our society, identify opportunities for increasing regional economic vitality, and any of a myriad of worthwhile endeavors.

Exciting initiatives have developed from Compass, ranging from community economic improvement efforts, to improving the system of services for the chronically mentally ill, to reducing disparities in health outcomes, to better understanding water quality. (See these on our website or Facebook page.) People from different points of view can come together to engage in collaborative action, with significant results.

Let’s all join the “reasonable middle”; let’s encourage others to do so. We can remain true to our own values, but still compromise to reach consensus, for the good of everyone.

Measuring Success Helps Us All Become Smart Consumers (and Providers)

2009-08-05T14:59:00.002-05:00

How good is a hospital? Are you likely to get sick again? Will you have to return? How likely are you not to leave the hospital alive?

As the Pioneer Press reported, Medicare took a significant step to make data on hospital outcomes more accessible. This will benefit all of us who consume and pay for health care. It is an ethical, economically-responsible step to take.

At the Hamm Clinic, where I serve as Chair of the Board, we have tracked patient outcomes for more than a decade. So, for example, we now have a better understanding of how long it takes patients to get better, which patients seem to respond most quickly to treatment, and which types of patients don’t succeed with treatment or dropout prematurely. This evidence has many uses.

Clinicians can use the information to make better treatment decisions and to improve their work. Researchers can use the information to develop new and better treatment approaches. Eventually, consumers of health care can use the information in ways that will assist them and their families to better care for themselves.

All nonprofit organizations can learn from this. In the difficult economic times that we face, improving our effectiveness and increasing our productivity have become more important than ever. We need to work smart to produce results in the most cost-effective way and to have “multiplier effects”, whether our interest is health, the arts, education, economic development, or any other focus. Good data, including information on the outcomes of our activities, can help us to work much smarter.

Some nonprofit managers contend that we cannot, or should not, measure our outcomes. They sometimes claim that “We know what works; let’s just do it” or “We can’t measure everything we do” or “It costs too much”. But think about it: Would you really want to have a medical procedure that had not been tested? As a donor or taxpayer, wouldn’t you prefer to know that evidence exists that your hard-earned dollars will go to efforts that can succeed?

We do not need to measure everything that we do all of the time. Nonetheless, the hospitals can demonstrate how ongoing measurement of some of our work, combined with a sampling of autopsies (or, in the case of most nonprofits, occasional follow-up studies of clients or users of our services) can assist all of us to improve the effectiveness and productivity of our efforts on behalf of the people we serve.

Biased Census? Biased Bachmann? One? The Other? Or Both?

2009-06-29T15:24:00.003-05:00

Representative Michele Bachmann says she will refuse to completely fill out her 2010 Census questionnaire and risk a $5000 fine. Why? More on that later; first, a few things every informed community member should know about the census.

The U.S. Census has great importance. Census results influence electoral boundaries. The population totals from the census determine the number of representatives each state can have.
The census numbers also help establish the amount of Federal funding that states receive for many different programs.

Understanding major community trends cannot occur without the census (conducted every 10 years) and its counterpart, the American Community Survey (conducted annually). Marketing our businesses in Minnesota, maintaining a competitive edge, ensuring that we have a healthy population – the census facilitates all of these.

In my meetings with residents throughout the state during the past 6 months, in every region including Representative Bachmann’s district, people have expressed a hunger for accurate census data and other information, to empower them to build their communities. They want good information on what’s happening in education, health, economics; they want to know how their population has changed and how it’s likely to change. The census enables people to understand their communities – how many older people live there, how many residents have college degrees, how many residents own their homes, and so on. Businesses rely on the census to understand their customers.

We should not take lightly our obligation to respond to the census. Nor should we ignore the problems that an undercount produces for states and cities. Pricewaterhouse Coopers, at the request of Congress, analyzed the consequences of the fact that the 2000 census missed counting a large number of people. Their analysis shows that funding losses due to undercounting amounted to slightly more than $4 billion.

Minnesota was lucky in 2000; its undercount came to an estimated 14,000 people. Many other states had more serious undercounts. However, Minnesota’s luck may not continue, especially if public officials send out negative messages about the census. In fact, we could lose a Congressional seat if the undercount becomes too large.

Why is Bachmann negative? Because, according to what she told The Washington Times on June 18, ACORN “will be in charge of going door-to-door and collecting data from the American public... This is very concerning." On this point – that ACORN will go door-to-door – please note that Bachmann has it totally wrong. Only Census Bureau employees will collect census information. ACORN and other national organizations have signed on as “partners” with the Census Bureau to spread the word that the census needs good participation and wants to recruit staff who know local communities.

The one and only point of agreement which I share with Representative Bachmann on this issue relates to her concern that the Census Bureau’s inclusion of ACORN as one of its hundreds of partners taints an objective process in which we would like to place our trust. ACORN has definitely led some questionable initiatives which have alienated very good people who care about all members of our communities, rich and poor. Their reputation is a stumbling block regardless of their current intentions. Maybe ACORN should have been banned from partnering with the census. However, the Census Bureau has not been selective in approving partners; it’s pretty much “come one, come all” if you have connections valuable to reaching under-represented populations. ACORN does have those connections.

However, we should rise above the ACORN discussion to raise a larger issue. Important information, used for policy purposes, should be scientifically valid and politically credible to people of many different persuasions. At Wilder Research, we emphasize the use of advisory groups comprised of people from as many perspectives and political points of view as we can find. (Our Compass project enlisted 300+ members of the community, not all of whom agreed with one another, to establish credible measures of our communities’ well-being.)

To its credit, the Census Bureau recognizes the importance of enlisting a vast range of partners. The Bureau’s list grows every day. I took a look. The first page lists 100 Black Men of America, along with 7-Eleven – both excellent groups, with their own distinctive competencies to reach into communities. I went to Letter A partners. Alongside ACORN, I found: Association for University Business and Economic Research; Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs; ASPIRA Association; Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association; Association of Professors and Scholars of Iranian Heritage; Association of Public Data Users; and Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. That seems like a good range, and these represent just a few of hundreds.

The lesson: Always challenge information you receive. Question its source. Understand its limitations. If you find yourself gathering or putting together information, request advice from people with vastly different points of view. Some with extreme points of view will never be satisfied, except with their own contrived data. However, most people are reasonable, and they will agree on what constitutes good information, even if they then disagree about what the information means.

Representative Bachmann does not seem to understand this, but neither do many other public officials, both liberal and conservative. On behalf of all members of our communities, from the most powerful to the most vulnerable, we need to educate public officials to use scientifically sound and politically credible information. So much depends on it.

(If you want to see the list of Census Bureau partners, visit their web site. For Compass, visit the Compass web site.)

Success for Minnesota's Children - and for Minnesota

2009-05-29T11:29:00.002-05:00

“You are the only ones who can save Minnesota’s children,” Geoffrey Canada told an audience at the Minneapolis Foundation’s Minnesota Meeting on Wednesday.

The “you”, of course, is “we”. We are the only ones who care enough, and have the capacity and the will, to make sure that all children in Minnesota acquire the skills they need to be productive adults in the 21st century. (Canada leads the Harlem Children’s Zone – nationally recognized for increasing the educational achievement of children whom the system has not served well.)

In his remarks Canada stated that The United States has fallen backwards in educational achievement relative to other developed and developing countries of the world. This is something we at Wilder Research have noted before. Through our Twin Cities Compass initiative, we have documented the poor mathematics proficiency of our region’s high school students and the gap in skills that begins early in elementary school for our fastest growing group of students – students of color. If we want to preserve jobs and preserve our quality of life, we need to make some changes.

Harlem Children’s Zone demonstrates that low achievement, even for children from the poorest economic and community circumstances, does not have to occur; also, it can be reversed with sustained effort.

He recommended several principles to guide the development of our approach to education. Among them:

Begin early. Promote vocabulary development and pre-reading skills starting at birth; don’t let children fall behind. If they do fall behind, involve them in intensive programs to bring them back up to where they should be.

Maintain continuity of best practices through college. To enable at-risk children to succeed, it is critical to have a pathway of supports through college. Children who benefit from a short-term program lose those benefits if they return to schools that don’t teach them well.

Involve parents by all possible means. Do whatever it takes to involve parents. He “bribes” them with gift certificates to encourage them to come to meetings. Give parents the information they need to assist their children. Many parents, even with high school or college degrees, don’t have the depth of knowledge to assist their children in all the academic subjects taught in school. However, parents can learn where to direct their children to get questions answered. They can also learn how to create an environment of “warmth plus high expectations” which, from Canada’s view of the research will enable children to achieve at their highest potential

Design schools for success. “Schools that fail are designed for failure.” Canada asserted that schools have a certain “physics” – including, for example, a set number of days and hours which produces one year of achievement for children who are prepared. However, for children who start a school year unprepared or under-performing, the standard package does not work. It never enables them to catch up. He recommends lengthening the school year. He also admonishes school districts to stop hiring and firing superintendents who just travel from one district to another; instead, adjust the “physics” of education so that schools can accomplish their function with all students.

Evaluate in a timely, meaningful way. Use data to understand outcomes. Test in a way that provides immediate feedback that teachers can use to work with students during the same year the students take the tests.

Sandra Vargas, President of the Minneapolis Foundation, asked the audience of 1000+ individuals to “hold ourselves accountable” for higher educational achievement. We must “believe” we can do it; we must “take a stand to save every one of our children.”

Positive Economic News? Maybe.

2009-05-11T21:29:00.001-05:00

Some indicators suggest that the economic decline of the past year might have slowed, or even begun to turn around. Dan Laufenberg, an economist recognized by the Wall Street Journal for his accuracy in forecasting, contends that the “economy will recover nicely in the second half of the year.” Information from several sources might give us some hope that the economy will fulfill Laufenberg’s prediction.

The Labor Department reported that, although the U.S. lost another 539,000 jobs in April, the increase in unemployment was less than expected. The Treasury surprised us, positively, with better-than-expected “stress test” results for the nation’s banks. Indicators of construction spending and home sales in March seemed to do better than expected also. All of this might boost consumer and investor confidence, even if only slightly at first.

The positive effects of an upturn, if one has truly begun to occur, will take a while to filter through to government and nonprofit organizations. In addition, unemployment, foreclosures, and other events have placed many people in situations of need from which they will not quickly extricate themselves.

Nonetheless, we can continue to watch the trends, hope that these early signs bode well for our communities, and do all within our control to make choices as individuals and organizations which will speed the recovery.

School Superintendent Carstarphen - Good or Bad? How would we know?

2009-05-03T12:51:00.003-05:00

Effective or ineffective? The Pioneer Press raised this issue regarding Saint Paul Schools Superintendent Meria Carstarphen in a provocatively titled front page article documenting contrasting perspectives on her behavior: “bully or bold leader”? I encourage the School Board to expend no energy debating Carstarphen’s competence or incompetence; such debate is neither fair nor productive, for her or for us. Rather, I urge the Board to consider the larger problem of which Meria’s departure after three years is a symptom, namely: We have in this country an itinerant group of individuals who take school superintendent positions and leave them before we can collect any evidence on whether those superintendents actually did an effective job.

Indicators from the Council of the Great City Schools suggest that most urban school superintendents typically hold their positions for just a few years; rarely do urban superintendents stay more than 5 years. A 2000 report from the National School Boards Association uses different data and suggests more optimistically that about a third of urban school superintendents might stay in their position more than 5 years. However, this represents a decline from a previous period when more than half would stay for that length of time.

Meria perfectly exemplifies the itinerant group. She now leaves Saint Paul before we can see if anything she did actually makes a difference. Before coming to Saint Paul, she served briefly as the Chief Accountability Officer of the Washington, D.C. schools. There, she implemented a new accountability system, but she quit her job before enough time passed to determine her system’s effectiveness. How can we know if Carstarphan, or any superintendent, has done an effective job, if they leave after such a short time?

No evidence suggests that the Saint Paul Schools have become markedly better during the past three years. Take a look on Twin Cities Compass at reading and math proficiency scores, as well as graduation rates. Even if you believe that three years is enough time (and I do not feel that it is) to tell whether change has occurred, you can’t find any significant positive trends. Test scores overall and the graduation rate both need improvement. The achievement gap persists for White students and students Of Color.

Saint Paul has an excellent opportunity to act wisely in securing an effective, committed Superintendent of Schools. We have a large population and school system, but not so large that the bureaucracy can’t change course under good leadership. We have many committed, competent teachers, parents, community organizations, businesses and others who can lend a hand in educating our children.

Let’s search for a superintendent who will commit to the long term with our children; and let’s develop an incentive/compensation package that rewards long term performance on the indicators of educational success that really matter. The superintendent is not the be-all and end-all of school district effectiveness, but he or she does play a major role. Saint Paul can stand out as a district that does not just pull someone off the merry-go-round and have them hop back on three years later. We can creatively build a different type of arrangement for an urban school superintendent.

Let’s acknowledge that families and communities, as much as school systems, contribute to the education of our children, and let’s nurture a productive relationship between the new superintendent and our community’s residents and institutions. This will support the new superintendent and increase the likelihood that he or she will stay as long as it takes to have an impact.

More thoughts on this topic, including some specific suggestions for the School Board, based on what we know from research, in a future blog. If you have ideas to share, please let me know.

Weekend Musing: Mutual Support

2009-04-19T22:15:00.002-05:00

A newspaper story last week explored the importance of mutual support in the human and animal worlds. Over the years, we have come to understand that animal species, and perhaps plant species, practice cooperation far more than competition. “Survival of the fittest” does not necessarily mean every animal for itself.

An article in the New York Times Science Times reported that “plenty of nonhuman animals practice the tither’s art.” For example, if a rhesus monkey discovers a source of high-quality food, it is expected to call out to its comrades, to share. Vampire bats sometimes regurgitate a portion of their meal, to feed other hungry bats. Several varieties of birds and fish give up part of their “wealth” to help the larger community.

Contributing to the larger community, voluntarily or through payment of taxes, became a universal practice among humans as well: “There’s not a human society in the world that doesn’t redistribute food to nonrelatives” – the article quotes Samuel Bowles, of the Santa Fe Institute. “Whether it’s through the state, or the chief, or a rural collective, or some other mechanism, food sharing of large nutritional packages is quite extensive and has been going on for at least 100,000 years of human history.”

These observations fulfill the predictions of a thinker far ahead of her times, Arabella Buckley, who wrote more than 100 years ago, that science would someday recognize: “that the "Struggle for Existence," which has taught [insects] the lesson of self-sacrifice to the community, [also teaches that the] devotion of mother to child, and friend to friend ... recognizes that mutual help and sympathy are among the most powerful weapons [of survival].”

As we strive to meet the challenges we face, let’s remember that mutual support, sharing, and collaboration lie deep within our genes. As well, they contribute to our collective ability to survive with all the other human inhabitants of this planet. Competition serves a function at one level of human existence; but cooperation provides a higher level function that we must not ignore.

Ending Homelessness - the Right Thing to Do, in a Smart Way

2009-04-18T15:16:00.002-05:00

“Heading Home Minnesota” intends to eliminate homelessness in this state. Jim Frey, of the Frey Foundation, recently wrote that this initiative is “not just right, but smart”.

Why “smart”? He mentions several reasons. Among them: a) The design of the initiative derives from knowledge of what works; its designers paid attention to research. b) It stresses collaboration. No one sector can solve the problem – business, government, nonprofits, and community residents, including homeless individuals themselves, must participate in the solution. c) The initiative stresses a three-pronged approach: prevention, supportive housing, and outreach.

Wilder Research has worked in partnership with other organizations and groups to address homelessness since the early 1980s. Currently, our Homeless Management Information System provides information and insight on the system of services which the state’s homeless access. Our once-every-three-years homelessness survey (to occur in fall of 2009) provides in-depth knowledge about the conditions of the state’s homeless residents. Through both of these tools, Wilder Research has influenced policies and funding in ways that will benefit homeless individuals and families, Minnesota’s taxpayers, business owners, and pretty much everyone in the state. We will continue to provide this information – to ensure up-to-date understanding of homelessness issues, to promote accountability, and to monitor our communities’ progress – until someday, hopefully, we and others will work ourselves out of a job.

I suspect that Heading Home Minnesota will make progress; it might, or might not, completely achieve its goal. Regardless, we will learn more about what can work. We will learn how to spend money more wisely. We will learn how to collaborate more effectively – as institutions and as individuals. As Jim stated, “Our public and private investments must be productive. We should be investing in a system that promotes education, employment, health and responsibility among homeless children, youths, and adults. This is what homeless people want for themselves. This is what we want for our communities. This is what we need for our future.”

See Jim Frey’s full essay: Heading Home Minnesota – not just right, but smart

An Award for Wilder Research - Some Lessons Learned

2009-04-15T12:24:00.003-05:00

Wilder Research has received the 2009 Public Sociology Award, given by the University of Minnesota’s Department of Sociology in recognition of our efforts “to do research that directly informs public debates and engages wider publics.” We value and appreciate this honor, and we will continue to work to provide high quality social research that promotes effective community action, efficient services, better policies, and better engagement of all of us in improving our communities’ quality of life.

To be successful, we’ve learned that at least four ingredients are essential, and I would like to share them with you:.

1. Solid research. The quality of information depends on the methods used to obtain it. We do not have a “one size fits all” mentality. Rather, we identify the best method(s) for obtaining information, depending on the questions which we or others need to answer. We include social scientists from all disciplines on our staff, because we don’t feel that any one discipline has a corner on the market for searching for the right answers. We build on theories and previous research from all disciplines. When we use a method we make sure that competent staff gather, analyze, and interpret information in accordance with the highest scientific standards. Much of this occurs transparently, providing an unseen foundation. Nonetheless, this foundation enables us to construct studies which will withstand criticism and provide the opportunity to obtain sound, up-to-date knowledge.

2. Credible research. We do not strive to produce what people want to hear; we strive to produce what people need to hear. We do not seek to please; we seek to provoke thought and creativity and to enhance insight. We feel that our audiences deserve research results which any reasonable person would accept as legitimate, unbiased, reasonable, and relevant (even if that person disagrees with those results). Some research “think tanks” become associated with a “point of view”; they can please adherents of that point of view, but they struggle to gain acceptance of their findings and interpretations, no matter how valid they may be, among other audiences. We take steps to appeal to people with all sorts of predispositions. We do this, for example, by forming study advisory committees with diverse representatives who do not necessarily agree with each other and who challenge us to find a way to gather information that all sides of an issue will accept as credible. We take great pride in the many occasions where liberals and conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents have all cited Wilder Research data to support their conclusions and recommendations.

3. Practical research. Our work must answer questions that will guide long-term strategic decisions and short-term operational decisions regarding policies, funding, programming, and other activities. We involve decision-makers, in general and specific ways, to advise on the design of our work, and in critiquing our work after completion, for continued improvement. The greater the use of our findings, the more we feel we have achieved our goals for Wilder Research.

4. Mission-driven research. Above all, we carry out our efforts in humble dedication to the improvement of the well-being of all members of the community. This dedication motivates individuals to join the Wilder Research staff, and it sustains them to carry out the highest quality applied research.

As always, I welcome your comments – and even your challenges – to keep us on track, continuing to accomplish the best possible work.

Overcoming Current Economic Challenges

2009-03-18T14:36:00.002-05:00

What are key ingredients for succeeding in these tough economic times? What will increase the chances that foundations will award your organization a grant? Some corporate and foundation leaders made loud and clear suggestions at a seminar* this past Friday. Three major themes cut across their remarks:

1. Focus on what is “mission critical.” Identify the activities absolutely essential to your mission. Get rid of the rest. Focus on core values. If others can do something as well as you, maybe you should let them. Don’t be drawn off mission by “seductive RFPs.”

2. Form strategic alliances. Collaborate with others in whatever way makes sense. Be willing to give up your independence. Speakers questioned why multiple agencies should provide the same services, why they should all spend money on fundraising intended to support delivery of the same service to the same population, why they should have independent “back room” operations duplicating one another’s efforts.

3. Board members, step up and take charge. Boards must take ownership of the tough, high-level decisions. Staff can then move ahead, based upon those decisions, to operate the organization as effectively as possible. Most organizations have “800 pound gorillas” and “sacred cows”. Board action should eliminate these and support executive directors to move ahead. As Ellen Luger of General Mills said, “Be open to new ideas; don’t just think the old way.”

Organizations who incorporate these themes into their planning and action will: (a) increase their impacts; (b) improve the economics of service delivery; and (c) appear more attractive to corporate and private funders (all of whom are experiencing decreases in their endowment income and other sources of revenues).

The worldwide economic downturn will continue for a while. The current recession will include the deepest slide in economic indicators since World War II. State Economist Tom Stinson stated that economic recovery similar to the rebound from the recession of the early 1980s will not occur for two reasons: first, no “pent-up demand” exists to get money flowing to end the recession; second, demographics are not in our favor – older people tend to save, while younger people spend. In the 1980s, the ‘baby boomers” were young; now, they are older and more concerned about saving for retirement.

Significant recovery for nonprofit organizations will lag the overall improvement in the economic environment. Recovery for nonprofits will likely take at least two years, if not more. Full recovery will perhaps take 10 years.

Jon Campbell, CEO of Wells Fargo Minnesota mentioned something he learned from his father: “When things seem as bad as they will get, they are likely to get a little bit worse.”

Let’s heed Campbell’s words, not to foster pessimism, but to keep us vigilant. We can, and will, overcome the pressing challenges we face – if we keep ourselves informed, communicate and support one another, and open our organizations to opportunities to carry out our work in creative and effective ways. Wilder Research looks forward to addressing the challenges of our times, alongside our for-profit, nonprofit, and government colleagues with similar interests in improving our communities.

*Seminar: “UNITED FRONT: Engaging Nonprofit Board and Executive Leadership Facing Unprecedented Challenges”. Friday, March 13, 2009. Minneapolis. Sponsored by Greater Twin Cities United Way, General Mills, and Minnesota Council of Nonprofits. Thanks to those three organizations for offering a forum which provided objective data on current economic conditions, along with wise counsel on strategic approaches for dealing with these conditions! (Opening panel included: Jon Campbell, CEO of Wells Fargo Minnesota; Mayor Chris Coleman, Saint Paul; Suzanne Koepplinger, Minnesota Women’s Indian Resource Center; Ellen Goldberg Luger, General Mills Foundation; Mike Opat, Hennepin County Commissioner; Jon Pratt, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits; Tom Stinson, Minnesota State Economist; Christina Wessel, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits.)

The Genius and Hard Work that Our Communities Need

2009-03-08T15:03:00.001-05:00

Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra performed the music of Thelonious Monk on Friday; the concert reminded me how fortunate we can be, usually just a few times in our lives, to witness artistic genius first hand. I felt the same way while sitting in the open-air Delacorte Theater in Central Park, experiencing a live performance of King Lear, with James Earl Jones in the title role; the same as well seeing Zero Mostel as Tevye in the Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof.

Master performers have an ability to take current models and conventions and work them into new forms. They challenge themselves and others – and they motivate others to challenge them. (Marsalis and his colleagues try to “arrange music too hard for one another to perform”.) Top performers have an ability to work with others. They seek ideas from others. They search constantly, both by themselves and in collaboration with others, for new ways of doing things.

We can learn a lot from observing brilliant people. I’m always struck by the combination of intellectual assertiveness and intellectual humility – groundbreaking efforts to achieve new ways to understand and to act, yet with great awe and all-encompassing appreciation for how little any of us, even geniuses, can really know and do.

As we face the issues our communities and our nations currently face, I hope we can develop our collective genius in a way that incorporates the traits of great performers like Marsalis. For example, we desperately need to change our system of health care. Will we just produce more of the same, bogged down by old ways of thinking and stymied by the baggage of the past? Or can we rearrange some old parts and create some new ones, to redesign an accessible, effective, equitable system? Can we arrange something “too hard to perform” and then accomplish the work and preparation that enables us to perform?

If and when “stimulus money” flows into our communities, will we seek to plug holes and maintain the past? Or will we creatively identify opportunities that will leverage the effect of the money, building on the energy and genius of our residents?

Top performers make difficult, complex efforts look simple. We can’t deceive ourselves. As Marsalis pointed out, sometimes practicing “18 or 19 hours in a day” is necessary. Similarly, to get our communities and economies back on track, we will need to work diligently. Quick, simple, and “politically correct” approaches will fall far short of what we need. We must challenge one another, give up turf, compromise and orchestrate some new music.

Research, Economic Stimulus, and Community Progress

2009-02-17T13:11:00.001-06:00

Research has never had more importance. Determining the best way to stimulate the economy; correcting our housing problems; providing the most effective health care and human services – all of these demand good research.

Paraphrasing Thomas Paine, we may now find ourselves in “times that try people’s souls.” In these uncertain times, research not only provides information; it also significantly contributes to democracy and strengthens democratic institutions. How so?

First of all, the obvious. Sound research provides facts which can support better decision-making. Sound research also provides understanding of cause and effect, enabling us to broaden our scope and take action not only when we have a problem but also to prevent the occurrence of problems.

Less obviously, but much to the delight of Mr. Paine if he lived now, the research process, when implemented well, has features which promote truly democratic flowing of ideas, sharing of opinions, and participation in decision-making. For example:

- Transparency: In a good study, all facts and data sit out on the table, for everyone to see, to critique, and to challenge.
- Involvement of multiple parties: A good study will involve all relevant stakeholders, taking special care to involve people with different points of view. (For example, in politics, those from different political parties; or in health care, the providers, the insurers, the drug manufacturers, etc., including those with different philosophies of care.)
- Clear vision: Good research demands clear thinking and valid measurement; these promote the establishment of a vision which everyone can at least understand, whether they avow or disavow it.
- Empowerment: The facts, the data, the findings, the conclusions – they sit on the table not only during a study, but beyond. Anyone can take them, re-examine them, and draw new conclusions.

In short, good research leads to the democratization of understanding the world and creates the opportunity for truly democratic decision-making. In our globalized society, where anyone and everyone can become a disseminator of information over the Internet, sound, credible research is critical for making wise decisions on the most effective and most cost-effectiveways to improve ourselves and our communities; to treat our problems and prevent problems from occurring.

The front page of The New York Times on February 16 featured a story on the $1.1 billion in the economic stimulus bill which will focus on comparing the effectiveness of different treatments for illnesses. More on that in a later blog, but it reflects the growing understanding that, with all the options available, we need research, if we want to have a larger impact within the resources available to us.

We at Wilder Research look forward to working on these issues and making progress with you and others in our communities. Any thoughts? Get in touch!

Daschle, Geithner & the Need for a “Moral Stimulus Package"

2009-02-03T13:08:00.002-06:00

Can it really be the case that we can’t find a “best qualified” person for a major leadership position like Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of Health and Human Services, who does not also have characteristics such as honesty, integrity, and humility on his or her résumé? We were asked during the past few weeks to overlook the nonpayment of taxes by two Cabinet nominees, because they have special “skill sets”. When I hear that, I feel the need to promote, in a nonpartisan way, a higher standard of public leadership.

Throughout my career, I have met thousands of leaders in government, nonprofit organizations, and business who pay their taxes and honestly fulfill other community obligations. Tom Daschle (who withdrew his nomination this morning) and Tom Geithner might be fine fellows and in some ways deserving of appointments as Cabinet Secretaries. However, it’s difficult for me to believe that nobody among 300 million Americans comes a close second to them – with most of their competencies, plus the “competence” of honesty.

Our President proposes an infusion of cash into the economy to combat the economic recession we experience. But the roots of the recession, which now causes such pain in our local communities, do not lie in a shortage of cash. More cash will not prevent the recurrence of the problems we now have. Ethical leadership, on the other hand, does offer the prospect both to get us out of this mess and prevent it from occurring again.

Our President has the opportunity to stimulate and reinvigorate the moral fiber among decision-makers and leaders in government, nonprofits, and business. If he seizes that opportunity, the resulting effects in our local communities, and among all people from the most powerful to the most vulnerable, will at least equal the impact of an $800 billion dollar “economic stimulus” package.

Treating honesty and integrity as core qualifications for high-level leaders, rather than just a nice addition, might seem unusual. However, what if “well-qualified” Wall Street CEOs had honestly communicated with their shareholders, the government, and the general public? What if “well-qualified” bankers had conducted honest appraisals of risk? What if “well-qualified” individuals had been honest with themselves and others?

If a lot of honesty had flowed through our power networks, the crisis in our economic networks – which battered the retirement savings plans and college savings accounts and home ownership of millions of honest and hardworking people – might not have occurred.

We need economic stimulus in some way, shape, and form. But without moral/ethical stimulus of our leaders, we will fail to achieve the long-term quality of life that our communities deserve.

Wilder Research 2009

2009-01-12T04:36:00.001-06:00

Improvement of communities, providing leadership and insight on tough issues, nourishing greater effectiveness and efficiency in nonprofit and government organizations – those goals motivate us to accomplish as much as we can through research and nonpartisan action, in collaboration with many of you, our partners – during 2009.

This year:

Twin Cities Compass, successfully launched last year, will work in partnership with initiatives striving to improve the quality of life in the region. We expect to focus at least on the topics of housing and education, and we’ve been invited to partner with a consortium of organizations throughout Dakota County, for a unified approach to address the issues that area faces.

Minnesota Compass will extend to all regions of Minnesota greater capability to understand their trends, strengths, and weaknesses, and to promote positive change.

Sadly, the region continues to need homelessness studies. The Wilder Research Homeless Management Information System compiles an up-to-date account of homelessness needs and services; it will offer baseline information in 2009, perhaps tentatively for a while, until we fine tune the system to present the data in the most effective way and with the highest possible credibility. In addition, our every-third-year homelessness survey comes due this year; it captures in-depth information about the characteristics of homeless individuals and families, reasons for homelessness, etc. Everyone wonders what the housing crisis and the foreclosure trends of 2008 might have caused. Our research will find out in detail. If there is any silver lining to doing these studies, it’s that Minnesota stands out among the fifty states for our understanding of homelessness issues, coupled with our compassion and our resolve to do something about those issues.

Long-term care, health disparities, and medical home are three health-related topics on which we definitely have plans to work. As well, we may conduct a major study of universal health care.

Work completed on an Early Childhood Asset Review and Business Plan will likely receive public attention.

Studies on the following topics will commence, or expand into full operation: children’s mental health; supportive housing; early education; adoption programs for older teens; faith-based mentoring programs in 16 cities; child care use; parenting education; and more.

Seminars, conferences, and other convening that we will sponsor to raise awareness and to foster productive action include: older adult service needs; health disparities; child care use; teen adoption; housing and homelessness; implementation of the medical home concept; and more. We will continue our series of free seminars (begun in September of 2008) to educate nonprofit managers about program evaluation.

Events confirmed so far:

- Increasing post-secondary education access and success (February)
- Early childhood neglect and trauma (March)
- Youth tobacco marketing issues (March)
- Early childhood, child care use, conference (April)
- Evaluation series for nonprofit managers (February, May)

Understanding “return on investment” of nonprofit and government efforts – we will continue to increase work on this topic, on our own and with partners. In the present context of recession and government spending reductions, this topic has more importance than ever. The conference we sponsored in 2008 will probably return in 2010.

Some of our efforts involve collecting data directly from residents, consumers, or service users. Our Survey Center will remain very busy with surveys ranging from urban areas to statewide and larger regions.

If you have an interest in any of these studies, please let us know. I can refer you to the project directors, if you don’t know who they are.

If you have an interest in any of our conferences or seminars, or if you want to join our newsletter mailing list, send an email to Marilyn, at marilyn@wilder.org .

And, of course, explore our websites: www.wilderresearch.org and www.twincitiescompass.org

All the best for 2009!

Issues with Local Impacts 2009

2009-01-01T17:38:00.003-06:00

I can think of a dozen or so national domestic issues likely to have substantial local ramifications during 2009 and beyond. I’ll mention three.

Economic Recession

“Our donors in past years have begun requesting our services,” – a situation reported over the past couple of months by nonprofit organizations – revealing that some middle and high income people, who had previously contributed their dollars to benefit others, now find themselves without a house, without a job, and in need of a handout. For at least a year, we can expect more foreclosures, more people losing jobs, poorer economic circumstances, on average, across the nation (and the world). State government will curtail activities. Some nonprofit organizations promoting the public good will go out of operation. Poverty and nutrition issues will not improve. This will affect many who have not previously experienced poverty and the effects of economic downturns.

However, I fear that the many middle and upper income people with secure employment and housing (and who can wait out the decline in the value of their retirement accounts) might not feel much pain at all. In fact, the opposite may happen. It’s a great time to have a little bit of money, because a little bit can go a long way. Housing prices have declined; mortgage providers have lowered their rates. Quality consumer goods have become available at a fraction of their original sticker price. (Walking through Macy’s a few days before Christmas, I felt as if store employees wanted to pay me to take merchandise rather than the other way around; also, the number of people taking advantage of the steeply discounted items to make purchases for themselves seemed almost as large as the number of gift shoppers.)

If a large proportion of us do not understand the realities of what our communities face this year, the likelihood of amassing the political will to overcome challenges is low. We need to make sure this does not occur.

State spending is extremely important, as many economists, including Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman, have noted. We need to find a way to use state government as one of the economic levers to get funds flowing through local economies.

Carleen Rhodes recently commented on the situation of community-based organizations that contribute so much to the fabric and infrastructure of our communities. They have experienced snowballing needs recently, while their investment assets have decreased and their charitable contributions have declined. She hopes that the strong Minnesota tradition of giving will help pull these organizations through hard times. Her essay made me wonder: Why do we talk about bailing out an industry that has ignored market forces, developed products that consumers world-wide largely prefer not to purchase, lavishly paid its executives even when they performed ineptly – but we don’t propose to help the small businesses and community nonprofits that have competently, wisely and prudently operated in our communities?

Health and Health Care

Universal health coverage. Why we have people who cannot obtain health care in the United States, I don’t know. Actually, one of my health care providers said that he knows – "It’s 80% greed and 20% institutional inertia." was his assessment. That's probably too cynical a view of the many interests affected by health care reform. Many different groups sincerely want to improve our system of care, and they don't all agree. However, it's clear that there will have to be a lot of give and take in order to promote the health of our communities' residents in an optimal way.

I lived in the United Kingdom for a year and carried a national health card while there. This can work. Beyond personal experience, I’ve seen the data. If you think your chances of living longer and healthier, even if you have great health insurance and access to care, are better in the U.S., than in countries with universal health care coverage, think again. You’re kidding yourself.

With inadequate health care, people cannot perform as well at jobs, they can’t do as well academically. The negative consequences affect all of us in a variety of ways: higher insurance rates; higher demands on local government which we must fund; more illnesses transmitted and more costs of care for ourselves and our families.

Neither Bill Clinton nor George Bush accomplished necessary health care reform. Let’s hope that President-elect Obama resolves to make progress that means so much to the physical and mental health of our communities’ residents.

Disparities in health care. As I’ve mentioned before, differences in health outcomes based on race and class will increasingly become an Achilles heel for our nation, as populations of color increase as a proportion of our population. Universal health coverage is one major step toward eliminating disparities, but we’ll need to take other steps as well.

Obesity and diabetes rates. As I’ve also mentioned before, these rates are rising. They cost all of us, directly or indirectly, through greater incidence of chronic diseases, higher medical costs, pain and suffering among families, lowered life expectancy for some individuals, and other consequences.

Education

Education constitutes one of the most important tools we have to remedy our current economic situation and to make our communities as healthy and productive as possible. This means education in all its forms: primary; secondary; post-secondary; re-education of workers with outmoded skills; and so on.

Yet our high school math scores show that we do not produce the graduates we need for strong, competitive businesses of the future.

The achievement gap between White students and students Of Color persists – a threat to our vitality because of the increasing diversity of our young population and the need to educate all young people.

School districts have announced cutbacks. Many urban schools, where some of the most serious achievement issues exist, lack innovation and creativity. Some initiatives do seem to have promise. I was very impressed with what I saw on my visit with Twin Cities leaders to Atlanta – a superintendent with a vision and commanding presence, collaboration with the business community, a serious focus on data for management and improvement (not just for compliance and teaching to the test), a system that attempts to take a “whole school approach”, rewarding teachers, principals, cafeteria workers, and janitors, when test scores markedly improve. Let’s hope we can learn from these models. Increased funding is definitely not the panacea; we must implement new approaches.

Wilder Research

We plan to address these and other issues in our work during the coming year. I’ll fill you in on more specifics.

In the meanwhile, I encourage you to think seriously about whatever you consider the top issues for our communities in 2009 and about how you plan to work on them.

I welcome your thoughts – about the issues, about what Wilder Research might do, and about how our communities can move ahead.

Peace - Translations/Connections

2008-12-25T10:17:00.000-06:00

At this time of year, when so many people throughout the world celebrate many different holidays, and all of us hope for peace among nations and among individuals, I searched the web for translations of the word, "peace". The number of online translators is amazing (although I could not find a translator for Malinke, a language I learned to speak at a very basic level while visiting residents of Mali). A few of the translations that I discovered appear below. Searching for these, and for others which I did not find, taught me something not only about linguistics, but about different cultural worldviews.

For example, the number of online translators for Somali-Italian languages surprised me at first, but makes sense. The Somali-Italian translations reflect the imperialism/colonialism of the past few centuries. A portion of Somalia became Italy’s first colonial conquest in the late 1880s, as Italy attempted to assert itself as a unified state.

An Ojibwe translator increased my understanding of the importance of context. It would not translate individual words; it only translated sentences. It emphasized that words derive meaning with reference to relationships and the larger setting in which they are spoken.

Paix (French)
Paz (Spanish)
Frieden (German)
ειρήνη (Greek)
和平 (Chinese)
Vrede (Dutch)
Vrede (Afrikaans)
Pace (Italian)
平和 (Japanese)
평화 (Korean)
Paz (Portuguese)
мир (Russian)
أمان (طمأنينة) (Arabic)
Mir (Croatian)
ukuthula (Zulu)
àlàáfíà (Yoruba)
kev sib haum xeeb (Hmong)
nabad (Somali)

In looking for an English to Hmong translator, the directory of online translators directed me to a web page developed by the Saint Paul Schools - with dictionaries for translating back and forth between the two languages. That web site also includes special educational resources. Congratulations to the Saint Paul School District!

If you surf the web and explore different languages and cultures, I hope you find it enjoyable and rewarding. Although the existence of multiple languages does create some barriers to communication, our efforts to understand one another's languages can bring us closer together. In our increasingly globalized world, we need more than ever to make connections across nationalities – both within our own country and with people from different nations. So, beyond just surfing and learning, let’s make a commitment to make the connections that increase the chances that all of us will experience peace with one another.

As the year comes to a conclusion, I wish you "peace"!

Nonprofits: Danger? Opportunity? Or Some of Both?

2008-12-22T14:51:00.002-06:00

An economy in peril. State government “unallotting” money budgeted for human services, education, and other purposes. What will happen to nonprofit organizations? What does the future hold for organizations dedicated to the public good?

The Minnesota Council of Nonprofits reported last week:
· about half of nonprofits have seen a decline in total revenues;
· about half have experienced increased expenses;
· just under half have suffered a decline in individual contributions.

Interestingly, MCN reported that both the number of nonprofit employers and the number of nonprofit employment locations in Minnesota declined, while the number of nonprofit jobs increased by nearly 4% from 2006 to 2007. The increase seems to be in health care, since employment in community relief services (e.g., food shelves) and in social advocacy organizations dropped below previous years’ levels. See their report at: www.mncn.org

Some evidence suggests that demands for services may have begun to increase as a result of 2008 economic events.

So, what should we do during a year filled with uncertainty, and one in which resources will undoubtedly diminish while demand to meet needs most likely increases? A couple of strategic suggestions appear below.

First, let’s set our sights on what we can reasonably expect, positive and negative, based on what we now know about the economy.

Paul Anton, Chief Economist here at Wilder Research, exhorts us to current economic crisis in perspective. We have not entered another Great Depression. To reach that point, the 1.8 million jobs we saw disappear this year would have to grow to 30 million in the next few years. Nonetheless, many indicators of economic health have declined and show no prospect of rebounding for at least a year.

Paul sees hopeful signs because Obama’s economic advisors recognize the need to inject the right amount of Federal stimulus into state economies and because we’ve become intelligent enough as a nation not to repeat the huge policy mistakes of the past. That is, we know it makes no sense to fight the forces of globalization and restrict the sale of foreign goods in the U.S. (as we did through the Hoot Smalley Act in response to the 1929 stock market crash, with the result that we created a trade war which probably turned a bad recession into the Great Depression). We also have a Federal Reserve which will seek to support banks, not drive them out of business.

We will most likely need to survive at least a year of bad economic times. We should develop contingency plans based on neither too much optimism nor too much pessimism, but we should not focus exclusively on those plans. We must more than ever before keep our eyes on our missions and ask how to accomplish those missions in a time of increasing need and declining resources – which leads me to my second point.

Second, let’s seize the opportunity to become more efficient and more effective and to use new tools to accomplish our goals.

We never have “good economic times” in our nonprofit work. Needs always exceed the capacity to accomplish goals and deliver services. However, during normal times (however you define them), we can become complacent. We tolerate inefficiency. We feel some desire to innovate, but can encounter difficulty when attempting to create the momentum for change.

So, perhaps 2009, and the uncertain economic climate, can call us to new leadership – to do what we do in new ways, more efficiently, and more effectively. Perhaps the incentive for change will be apparent. Nonprofit organizations have an opportunity, like never before, to re-organize and re-energize.

Housing Trends, Rising Foreclosures, Implications for Our Future

2008-12-15T09:41:00.001-06:00

Housing indicators do not look very good, according to a recent Wilder Research report by Craig Helmstetter:
· An increase in the proportion of people paying 30% or more of their income on housing. Events of the past few months will probably push this up further.
· Rents on the increase; vacancy rates down.
· An upward trend in the number of families served in emergency shelters, especially in Hennepin County.
· One of the worst rates in the country here in the Twin Cities for the homeownership gap, that is, the difference between Whites and Persons Of Color in rates of homeownership.

Housing stability, education, the ability to obtain employment and perform well in a job – all of these relate to one another. In the interest of building a strong region, we need to view housing issues as not just a pressing current challenge to overcome, but as a threat to our future.

Solutions need to be comprehensive, visionary, creative, and linked to overall efforts to maintain the strength of our region. In the short term, we cannot avoid the fact that more families and individuals will need shelter; let’s work on that. However, more importantly, we need to address the long term – how can we push the indicators mentioned above in a positive direction?

I encourage you to read the report, “Affordable Housing for Low Income Families,” in the “New Releases” section of the Wilder Research web site. We at Wilder Research look forward to working on long-term solutions.

On November 22, We Weep

2008-11-22T12:35:00.003-06:00

Little or no mention in today’s newspapers regarding the assassination of John Kennedy -- very different from the evening papers of November 22, 1963.

During English class that day, the principal announced over the school’s public address system that the President had been shot and that we would be dismissed early. The boys all became silent; most of the girls started to cry.

I delivered an evening newspaper. On this afternoon, we newsboys waited for the papers to arrive. They reached the distribution point about an hour and a half late. The editors only had enough time to splice a special headline story on to the first page. Eerily, the rest of the paper contains all the “America as usual” stories that would have run anyway that day.

Kennedy served less than three years of his first term. Some consider his impact significant. Others contend that, despite the notable achievement of even becoming elected (defeating Richard Nixon in a close race, becoming the first Roman Catholic President, etc.), and despite efforts he initiated early in his presidency (notably civil rights efforts, or, as one T.V. commentator put it in 1963, “dealing with the fomenting Negro crisis”), he actually accomplished very little.

In any case, the events of the 1960s left indelible marks on all of us who had a commitment to social issues and community welfare. Tragic murders of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, other civil rights activists, students at Kent State, and others, shocked us. The land of the free was not supposed to experience these types of events. Protests and other acts of support for civil rights and against the War in Vietnam became a daily focus.

The “up” events of the time created a sense of optimism and hope. They stimulated ideas for a new, changed, improved world. The “down” events were discouraging, depressing, and led to soul-searching. However, they had the effect, for many of us, to increase – not decrease – our determination to pursue the dream of a better political and social future. What we learned and experienced during the decade convinced many of us to enter the human services field, to look for ways to strengthen communities, and to mold inclusive, creative political philosophies that we could translate into just social policies.

Any parallels to the election of Barack Obama? Both Kennedy and Obama, as Presidents-elect, were intelligent, ground-breaking individuals. Kennedy broke the religion barrier (no Internet at the time, but rumors circulated that, “if he’s elected, he will do what the Pope tells him to do”). Obama broke the race barrier (despite many different rumors about his background and motivations, and what he might really do once in office).

One of the newspapers which I saved from the days after the assassination was the November 24th edition of the New York Sunday Herald Tribune. Art Buchwald wrote a column that has appeared in bits and pieces in many places since then (including the Congressional Record). Excerpts from the beginning and end appear below.

We Weep

We weep for our President who died for his country.
We weep for his wife and for his children.
We weep for his mother and father and brothers and sisters.
We weep for the millions of people who are weeping for him.
We weep for Americans, that this could happen in our country.
We weep for the Europeans
And the Africans
And the Asians
And people in every corner of the globe who saw in him a hope for the future and a chance for mankind.
We weep for our children and their children and everyone’s children, for he was charting their destinies as he was charting ours…
We weep for all the tortured and warped people who could not accept the decent things he stood for.
And we weep for all the hatred and prejudice that fill the hearts of such a small segment of our society.
We weep because there is nothing else we can do,
Except curse those who would destroy a man in hopes of destroying all of us.

If we can't breathe, we can't do much else ...

2008-11-21T15:42:00.002-06:00

“If human society is to approach sustainability…” there should be “incentives for the world economy to be based on nature’s ‘income’ rather than depletion of its ‘capital’.”
--Murray Gell-Mann, Nobel Prize-winning physicist, in “Visions of a Sustainable World" (1990)

“California has the worst air in the country, and 20 million people living in the dirtiest regions account for billions of dollars a year in economic losses because of premature death, chronic illness, hospitalizations and missed school and workdays.” (The San Francisco Chronicle reporting on a recent study from California State University Fullerton)

“The best estimate of total costs of environmentally attributable childhood diseases in the state of Minnesota is $1.569 billion per year…” (The Price of Pollution)

“A noxious cocktail of soot, smog and toxic chemicals is blotting out the sun, fouling the lungs of millions of people and altering weather patterns … The byproduct of automobiles, slash-and-burn agriculture, cooking on dung or wood fires and coal-fired power plants, these plumes rise over southern Africa, the Amazon basin, and North America.” (The New York Times reporting on a just-released U.N. report)

What’s next – for all of us? Human activities throughout the world, the behavior of the world’s human population, seem to be putting a severe strain on our capacity to have a high quality of life, and possibly to survive at all. I personally do not relish the idea of premature death (a fate for many in California). However, what alternatives do I have to breathing the air?

Most of us have a limited focus day to day. We go to work; maybe we run a business. In the nonprofit world, we teach, we heal. In government, we administer critical services. However, no matter what our major interest or profession, no matter how we choose to contribute to our communities, no matter how small or large the focus of our primary daily attention, we can’t afford to ignore environment trends. We can’t deny the change that has occurred in the quality of the world’s air, water, and land. We can’t pretend that the pollution caused in all parts of the world does not affect everyone throughout the world. We can’t ignore our responsibility to change the behaviors that directly and indirectly contribute to a damaged environment, poorer health for ourselves and our families, higher health care costs, and lowered economic productivity. Our best efforts, no matter how diligent and steadfast will bear no fruit if our planet becomes uninhabitable.

Twin Cities Compass has added environment indicators to make environment information more accessible to all of us and to promote action on our part. I encourage you to look at them. As usual, we have “key measures”, which provide a “tip of the iceberg” indication of how our region is faring; we also have “more measures” which enable you to explore trends and issues in depth.

Two thoughts. First, the environment crisis affects all of us – old, young, wealthy poor, no matter where we live. Wealth can help to mitigate some effects; some regions may have less air or water pollution than do others. However, the U.N. report makes evident the interconnectedness of all parts of the globe. Pollution in Asia affects North America, and vice versa. The life-diminishing shadow of an obscured sun will fall on the rich as well as on the poor.

Second, we all need to change. Curing the problems of the environment will require change by virtually everyone on this planet (other than those few who live exclusively in remote locations using only completely renewable resources). It’s not just those with incomes over $250,000 per year. It’s everyone – high income, middle income, low income, or living in poverty. Everyone has to make decisions within their sphere of influence.

We all need to change our individual behavior and to let our public officials know that we expect them to work on environment issues in ways that will produce results.

So, are you willing to take your lunch in a permanent container, rather than disposing of a paper bag each day? wear a sweater, rather turning up the heat another degree? buy in bulk, to reduce individual packaging? purchase wood products only if the seller can prove that the products do not come from illegally harvested timber?

If a hundred million of us take simple steps like this, it will help push things in the right direction. There’s far more to do, but this is a start.

Wilder Center qualifies as a Gold LEED office building. It makes me proud to contribute to the sustainability of our region and the world at the same time that I’m working directly on social and health initiatives that can improve the quality of life for our region.

The most pessimistic prognosticators feel it’s already to late. We’re doomed. I’m more sanguine – cautiously optimistic that we can turn this around. I hope that you agree and that you have the desire to work on it.

Hotlanta and Our Mayors - Anything Learned?

2008-10-04T20:15:00.002-05:00

Bloomington Mayor Gene Winstead
Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak
Saint Paul Mayor Chris Coleman

The leaders of our region’s three largest cities spent three days in Atlanta last week. What were they up to? Did they work hard? Was it a good use of their time? Which of them snored while sleeping on the plane?

As a member of the Inter-City Leadership Visit, in which these city leaders participated, I can report very positively about the mayors’ hard work and about what they and the rest of us learned on this journey to the “capital” of the southeast region of the United States.

Most significantly, we learned first-hand the importance of dealing with issues on a regional basis. Cities, counties, states--while crucial for some administrative purposes--may be in process of becoming almost obsolete within a global marketplace of regions. What does that mean? It means that Atlanta, while important as a city, constitutes only one part of a socially and economically interdependent network of cities and counties that comprise the region of Atlanta.

The local forces that shape Atlanta’s future and its standing in the world derive not just from what happens inside the city’s boundaries, but from events and activities throughout the neighboring cities and counties for 100 miles. For example, the workforce is a regional workforce; large corporations deciding whether to move to, or do business in, Atlanta look at the region as a whole. Transportation is a regional issue. Infrastructure and quality of life issues, such as water resources and air quality, require regional solutions as individual municipalities have little or no capacity to address them on their own.

The same applies to our metropolitan Twin Cities region. Whether we like it or not, Scott, Hennepin, and Washington Counties share many common issues and must address them together. Saint Paul, Bloomington, and Minneapolis can go it alone on some things, but they have to collaborate on others. Our conversations with the school district and business leaders, for example, prompted several of us to consider whether the Minneapolis and Saint Paul school districts need to collaborate more to increase their internal effectiveness and decrease expenses and to bring more funding into the region from foundations.

Some things we learned:

Atlanta points to several events which had significant positive impacts on its regional development:
- The location of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
- The Democratic National Convention in 1988
- The Olympics in 1996
The first of these created a transportation conduit which facilitated travel to and from Atlanta, providing ease of access that directly supported the growth of Delta and the related airline industry and indirectly supported the growth of many other businesses that chose to locate in the Atlanta region because of its accessibility. The other two events raised the profile of Atlanta, making it more respected and prominent within the U.S. and around the world.

We probably will not sponsor the Olympics in the near future, but we do have a convenient, modern airport, and we just hosted the Republican National Convention. That’s two of the three ingredients. I returned from Atlanta with the feeling that this Twin Cities region has a lot of potential – if we can get our act together to promote regional thinking and regional ownership of the major issues we face, along with regional action to address those issues.

We learned more in Atlanta – about how that region has dealt with race issues, how they transformed their school system from dysfunctional to functional, how business leaders play major roles. Subjects for future blogs.

Who snored on the plane? Fortunately, not the pilot, but I won’t say more than that!

Vote for the low-fat President!

2008-08-26T16:06:00.001-05:00

As you reflect on the events in Denver and Saint Paul, you will make the decision to support one candidate or the other. Over the coming weeks, you will hear commentaries from news analysts and pundits about the fitness of nominees for the Presidency and you will thoughtfully consider who endorses whom.

To assist you, I provide my endorsement – who I think should serve as the next President.

It is the “low-fat, total coverage, high-achievement, invest early” candidate.

Low-fat. The data are compelling. The U.S., and some of the other developed countries, face a public health issue like never before. The obesity rate among U.S. adults has more than doubled since 1990 to 25 percent. Diabetes, the sixth leading cause of death, is also rising quickly. Obesity and diabetes cost money and lives. All of us suffer, if not directly, then indirectly through the extra expenses we pay for health care and health insurance and the extra pain we endure because of loved ones who suffer chronic illnesses and premature death. Chronic diseases resulting from obesity are largely preventable. Which candidates know what we need to do and have made a realistic, believable commitment to doing it?

Total coverage. I’ve lived and worked in countries with universal health coverage for all of their citizens. The United States, with all its wealth, has no excuse to allow its residents to lack health insurance. Getting everyone covered requires cutting through political and economic obstacles, but it can happen with bold, enlightened leadership. Which candidates know what we need to do and have made a realistic, believable commitment to doing it?

High achievement. Skills we need to sustain a strong workforce exist in too short supply among our younger population. In Minnesota,, more than 20 percent of third graders fall below reading proficiency standards, and a whopping 68 percent of eleventh graders fail to meet proficiency standards in math. Many factors have produced this situation; solutions may seem daunting. Nonetheless, we must start by working with school districts, teacher education programs and teacher unions, families, and nonprofit organizations, within our communities, if we want to move educational achievement for all children in a more positive direction. Which candidates know what we need to do and have made a realistic, believable commitment to doing it?

Invest early. (This does not mean spend more money.) We must focus attention on how to support the best possible growth and development for children. Everything I’ve mentioned above will improve if we start early. Better health early in life sets children on a lifelong path of better health. Good health care early in life prevents problems and reduces costs. High achievement in the early years increases the likelihood of continued achievement, which extends beyond a single individual to later generations. The economic argument, the return on investment for providing good child care (by families themselves or by others), health services, and high quality education to young people becomes a more convincing argument every day as we see new research evidence. Which candidates know what we need to do and have made a realistic, believable commitment to doing it?

I hope that you use these criteria, along with other criteria that you consider important, to assess the candidates – not just for President, but in any races in your district: Senate; House; etc. Now is the time to put our candidates on the line for commitments which transcend party politics and make good sense if we want to address some of the most significant challenges we face.

Return on Investment (part 2)

2008-08-01T16:51:00.001-05:00

I mentioned earlier our "Return on Investment" conference. Here's a bit more.

Michael Stegman, of the MacArthur Foundation, spoke on “The Power of Measuring Social Benefits” and advocated the development of a culture of evidence-based decision making for all of our policies and programs. He outlined the work of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and informed the group of their interest in potentially working with Wilder Research on a return-on-investment study of supportive housing programs. (We are discussing with MacArthur a study which will develop a framework for return-on-investment analysis of different types of supportive housing programs and which will pioneer the use of public agency data for such an analysis. Hopefully, something will develop!)

Steve Aos, of the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, described the system used in Washington State to assist state legislators to make the most informed decisions possible, based on current understanding of the effectiveness of specific programs and policies. At the request of legislators, his organization creates “apples to apples” comparisons of different programs and policies, so that legislators can apply their intuition and their perspectives to meaningful information when casting their votes. To carry out their work on a specific program, the WSIPP identifies all studies of that program; they determine whether these studies meet standards of quality; if they do, they combine the results of these studies (using “meta-analytic” techniques) to provide a picture of what the research says.

He took the example of the decision whether to spend more money to decrease class sizes in elementary, junior high, and high schools, as a means to improve academic performance. As you will see from Steve Aos’ slides on our website, the results disclose a very interesting phenomenon: Reduction of class size seems to have positive effects in grades kindergarten through 2; it has positive, though less strong, effects in grades 3 through 6. For junior high (7-8) and senior high (9-12), class size reduction seems to produce no effect. In fact, a glance at one of his charts might prompt you to ask whether additional research might reveal that reducing class sizes in junior high actually has a negative effect on student achievement! (Note: I am not saying it has that negative effect. I’m saying you might wonder whether it does when you see the chart.)

John Roman, of The Urban Institute, offered an overview of ROI analysis of crime control programs and policies. If you have any interest in this topic, you will find his presentation very valuable. He pointed out that DNA analysis may revolutionize policing, because of its substantial return on investment. In addition, he alerted conference participants to the practical dilemmas which we can face in attempting to make policy decisions which may have long term positive consequences, but at a short term increase in costs. It’s often the case with crime control programs, for example, that they produce an immediate short term social return, but they increase costs. Cost reduction may not occur for a number of years. In the meanwhile, somebody (typically taxpayers) must pay those costs.

Christopher King, of the Ray Marshall Center of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin , described ROI analyses of workforce programs in Texas. He demonstrated the likely long-term benefit of workforce services and showed how we can test to see whether certain types of programs are more likely to produce those long-term benefits.

Susan Urahn, of the Pew Center for the States, alerted us to the practical steps we need to take to introduce return-on-investment studies (or more broadly, any sort of good research) into policy-making. It is clearly a process that requires engagement of policy makers and representatives of constituent groups over the long term; it’s not simply a matter of doing research and issuing a report.

Susan Urahn surprised many members of the audience with a graph which showed that, by the year 2024, total mandatory spending will exhaust all Federal revenue sources. That is, spending on items such as Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, other mandatory expenditures, and national debt payments will completely consume the money that the government takes in. Nothing will remain for anything else. The complete solution to that problem, assuming her numbers are correct, will require more than wise spending, but the problem creates all the more need for good return-on-investment studies.

Today’s taxpayers, policymakers, philanthropists, and all of us who care about the future of our communities need return-on-investment information. Limited resources compel us to make wise decisions with the highest likelihood of impact. Not every expenditure can be rated for its return on investment, but many can. We need to do so, and we look forward to working with others to accomplish it!

I encourage you to look at the videos and slide presentations from our conference on our website: www.wilderresearch.org

Understanding Whether Social Programs Have Long-Term Value

2008-07-23T23:44:00.003-05:00

Does the nonprofit organization where you work, volunteer, or donate your money produce impacts that are worth their costs? Think of any government program – does it achieve results that justify the expenditure of your tax dollars? How would you know? At Wilder Research, we recently had the outstanding opportunity to pursue these questions with a distinguished group of national and local experts and others who joined together for a day of cutting-edge discussions.

Return on investment (ROI) studies can serve as a tool for understanding whether programs that seem to make a difference in the lives of people and communities also have financial benefits that justify continued funding. In an era of scarce resources, such studies can enhance our ability to make wise spending choices. They are not the final word; they do offer more information for our consideration.

Simply stated, ROI studies examine programs (or policies) that have demonstrated positive impacts. They total the costs of a program, estimate the costs potentially averted as a result of that program’s positive impacts, and then compare them. Let’s make up a simple illustration. (Real ROI studies have more complexity; however, this example illustrates the principles involved.)

Let’s say that an after-school tutoring program has demonstrated its effectiveness at reducing the number of children who drop out of school. Based on research, we can estimate the impact that has on reducing delinquency and on improving employment rates for these children who remained in school. Assume the program cost equals $1500 per participant; assume the costs averted by participation equal $9,000 per participant (based on the number who would have entered the juvenile justice system). This program produces a 6 to 1 favorable impact, not even considering the value of enhanced employment for the individual participants and their families, and not to mention the additional financial benefits produced by a better qualified workforce for employers and the community at large.

How might this translate into programs related to issues currently presenting critical challenges to our communities?

The Trust for Health recently reported that spending just a few dollars per person each year on prevention strategies could reduce the incidence of obesity, diabetes, and other diseases and save all of us and our health care system thousands of dollars per person, not to mention the human suffering of chronic illness and lowered life expectancy. As the data show on our Twin Cities Compass web site, obesity trends stand out as some of the most serious, yet largely preventable, health challenges that we face. A dollar spent on prevention can save many, many dollars spent on cure.

Leonard Pitts Jr., in a column this week, challenged all of us to “consider the math.” For some children, a $3,500 investment at age 8 can produce a $60,000 savings 10 years later.

We enjoy the opportunity to collaborate with a network of others from around the nation and the world who seek to bring return-on-investment research into focus, to assist public officials, philanthropists and others who allocate resources to make better decisions – not to mention assisting all of us who volunteer, vote, pay taxes, and make other contributions which we hope will produce as significant a long-term return as possible. We all have limits on our time and our money; it can reassure us to know that we can direct those resources based on the best possible evidence of effectiveness and cost effectiveness.

In a future blog, I’ll say a bit more about some of the key things we learned at last week’s Wilder Research seminar on ROI. If you have thoughts or questions in the meanwhile, please let me know.

Taxes for Nonprofits?

2008-06-16T17:26:00.003-05:00

In New York City, in the turbulent sixties, “hippies” and other anti-establishment folks sometimes wore buttons proclaiming “Tax the Churches.” Today, a new generation, less flamboyant and less hirsute, asserts we should tax all nonprofit organizations.

Should nonprofit organizations pay taxes? You might say no, but what if you knew that the National Football League is a nonprofit organization, or that some nonprofit CEOs earn more than many local business executives? A recent, front page article in the New York Times, citing a new Minnesota court ruling, described the increasing number of challenges across the nation regarding the tax exempt status of nonprofits, and it raised the issue of how to define “nonprofit”.

Currently, nonprofit status is given to organizations that range from health care and educational institutions with billion dollar budgets to small mom and pop operations, with no paid staff, operated out of the living rooms of their volunteer executive directors.

Unlike for-profit businesses, most “tax-exempt”, nonprofit organizations do not pay property taxes, Federal income taxes, or sales taxes– as long as the income of the nonprofit relates to its mission. The rationale for this exemption includes: the desire to provide an incentive for organizations to do charitable work; the fact that nonprofits pick up much of the work that government cannot do; and separation of church and state (in the case of religious organizations). Note that employees of nonprofits do pay income taxes; nonprofits do pay the employer’s share of Social Security tax for their employees.

So, why does the National Football League qualify as a nonprofit? Why does the NCAA have nonprofit status? These organizations do not receive all the tax breaks that charitable nonprofits receive, but they do receive some. Reasonable people have begun to ask why. These kinds of organizations do not match the image that many of us have of nonprofits – offering free or reduced-cost service to needy individuals and families, provided by volunteers or modestly paid staff.

In the Minnesota case cited in the Times, a child care organization in Red Wing offered its services at the same price to all parents, regardless of their income and ability to pay. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that the organization “had to pay property taxes because, in essence, it gave nothing away.” The Times reported, “The court concluded that because the center charged all families the same amount, regardless of their ability to pay, and because its rates were not lower than those of its competitors, it was not an institution of “purely public charity” under the law and thus was subject to thousands of dollars in property taxes — $16,000 in 2006 and in 2007.” Nationwide, the article says, the tax-exempt status of charities costs local governments $8 billion to $13 billion annually, according to various rough estimates.

Some good arguments exist for taxing nonprofits – not necessarily at the same level as for-profits, but at some scale based on a specific nonprofit’s ability to pay.

Nonprofits benefit from the services of government. Their clients travel to them using roads paved and maintained by government, for example; the organizations themselves receive police and fire protection; and their employees can take advantage of some government services and amenities. Nonprofit organizations enjoy many other protections of the law.

Some nonprofits have millions or billions of dollars in their endowments. The Boston Globe reported in January that Harvard’s endowment had topped $34 billion and that 76 universities have endowments of more than $1 billion. Many nonprofits, especially large ones, pay their top staff salaries equaling or exceeding what for-profit and government organizations pay. None of these organizations would suffer from paying a small amount of tax.

But strong arguments also exist for retaining tax exemptions for nonprofit organizations. Here, briefly, are four.

Notably, many nonprofit organizations provide services which no other organization will. How many for-profit soup kitchens and homeless shelters have you seen? Nonprofit organizations deal with issues that the private sector and government avoid; they tackle problems and meet needs that families, neighborhoods, and communities are unwilling or unable to address.

Nonprofit organizations have demonstrated new approaches to critical social and community issues. The first schools were nonprofit endeavors; health care came to many communities in the United States under nonprofit auspices; initiatives to stimulate business development in aging cities and rural areas have begun as nonprofit enterprises; preservation of history and art has occurred largely because of nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits do creative, pioneering work.

Taxation would drive some nonprofit organizations out of business. Many of these organizations operate on a shoe string, made up of volunteer staff working at their kitchen tables. These organizations could not sustain a tax payment, even if someone could figure out how to compute such a tax. Taxation would cause even some larger nonprofit organizations to reduce in size or go out of business. This would lessen the innovation, intellectual and ideological diversity, and compassion that these organizations bring to our communities.

Finally, many nonprofit organizations – serving individuals or entire communities – rely heavily on government sources. What sense does it make to put a tax on government support?

The Council on Foundations sums up these and other reasons: “generous exemptions recognize the important principle that organizations that act voluntarily to further the public good should be freed from the obligation to support government through payment of taxes. Exemption maximizes the ability of charities to help others.”

Nonprofit organizations contribute greatly to the economy. The Minnesota Council of Nonprofits reports that the nonprofit sector in Minnesota employs more than a quarter of a million people. The 2008 Nonprofit Almanac, published by the Urban Institute Press, reports that, for the United States as a whole, “nonprofits employed 12.9 million people in 2005, or about one in 10 U.S. jobs, and paid wages totaling $489.4 billion, accounting for 8.1 percent of all wages in the U.S.”

You may feel that many of these organizations can and should pay taxes; you may feel that some nonprofit organizations should pay some taxes, even if at a reduced rate; you may feel that nonprofit organizations should remain tax exempt. I can respect any opinion, if you form it on the basis of an objective understanding of what nonprofits do and how they contribute to our society. Just don’t be swayed by the rhetoric either pro or con. Look at the facts, and I think you will conclude that nonprofit organizations with a truly charitable mission create a return on investment that is worthy of support.

Ah, to build, to build!

2008-05-19T15:24:00.002-05:00

"Ah, to build, to build!
That is the noblest art of all the arts."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Wilder Research recently moved to the new Wilder Center, along with many others from the Wilder Foundation. If you have not had the opportunity to visit us, I hope you can make it to our Open House on May 28. Our founders, the Wilder Family, wanted us to exist “in perpetuity”; one of the Foundation’s mottos is “Here for good”. In that spirit, our new building is intended to last for the rest of this century, and it incorporates many features of sustainable design (in fact, enough for us to earn a Gold LEED – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – rating for meeting the highest measures for space, maximization of light, efficiency of heat, conservation of water, and building features).

"We shape our buildings: thereafter they shape us."
- Winston Churchill

Embracing the best environmental practices reflects our desire to embrace best practices in our programming and research, and our new facility provides new opportunities to do so. For me, our large new convening space is one of the most exciting. It allows us to bring people together to share and learn about the best ways we can make a difference in our communities and improve the lives of everyone, especially vulnerable populations. Having sound knowledge and understanding, through research, enables everyone to recognize significant social and economic trends, understand what programs and policies best realize our vision for a region with a high quality of life, and take steps to make this region even better.

Since moving in, Wilder Research has already held a conference on early childhood; and a region-wide seminar on disparities and their implications. In July, we have a cutting-edge seminar on the return on investment of human services. In addition, our new space has been used for large community functions including our Community Open House, a Governor’s forum and the St. Paul Mayor’s State of the City address. I spent many hours chairing a committee of Wilder staff who planned our conference and meeting space. It was more than just the planning of construction. It was architectural design in the best sense – careful consideration of how space, walls, technology, with flexible configurations, can facilitate social interaction and creativity. It’s very gratifying to see the dreams of this committee already beginning to become reality.

We can't know all the future holds. The World Wide Web is, of course, a powerful force. I am amazed at what it has afforded us – our ability to post our findings for anyone from around the world to quickly download; the ability to provide data in a format that allows viewers to easily slice and dice it in a variety of ways as we have on Twin Cities Compass project (tccompass.org); and even the ability for you to comment on this column. Nonetheless, face-to-face interaction has a special importance, which our building can foster. In the seminars I mentioned above, I’ve already begun to dig more deeply into issues with colleagues from throughout the region who are concerned about education, early childhood, health, and our economy.

"When one has finished building one's house, one suddenly realizes that in the process one has learned something that one really needed to know in the worst way - before one began.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Yes. It's a learning experience. But all that we do in life is part of the search for doing things better. That's the value of the sound practical research we do at Wilder Research, intended to improve the lives of individuals, families, and communities. I hope you join us, at Wilder Center, and elsewhere, in our quest for better understanding and a better life for all.

And, I look forward to seeing you at our open house.

Is Iraq ahead of children in the war on priorities?

2008-04-23T15:12:00.002-05:00

Dr. Richard Chase, who has led much of Wilder’s early childhood research, has mentioned that preschool children are among the people most likely to live in poverty and to lack health care in the United States.

Yet, ensuring all children have health care and/or supporting their early learning would cost less than the $340 million that we spend each day on the Iraq war. I challenge us to consider how we collectively establish priorities and to try to understand why war is apparently more important than the well-being of our children.

At Wilder Research, we have focused a lot of attention on early childhood issues, early education, and child care for preschool children. We know that children who lag behind their first five years stay behind.

Demographically, many of the children on whom our nation’s future depends come from racially and ethnically diverse families; many live in low income, urban neighborhoods. Research shows these children are most at risk for failing. Improving the early learning experiences of these children Dr. Chase stresses, requires the development of approaches that are “targeted, tailored, and comprehensive.”

“Targeting” our approaches means that we must direct greater attention to children and communities where needs are highest, and less attention to children and communities where needs are lowest.

“Tailoring” means that whatever we do should fit the cultural preferences of children and their families. We should take steps to eliminate obstacles that can arise from language, literacy, and other aspects of children’s lives.

“Comprehensive” means that we must take steps to improve the social and economic conditions of children and their families, not just the ways that we care for children. Larger conditions, if negative, can often undo the positive effects of quality care provided by either families or formal caregivers.

Implicit in the recommendations of Dr. Chase is the need for collaboration and “co-creation” of the specific activities employed to improve the quality of life of children, their families, and their communities. We may need to establish some universal policies, standards, and mandates. However, as long as local communities can work within them, respectful of the basic rights of children, they can shape their own activities to best align with their cultural expectations.

That brings us to policy questions; it returns me to the question in the title.

Set aside your feelings about the war for a moment. Whether we should have started it, whether we should continue the war or pull out of Iraq - these are topics for another discussion, another blog. My point is that Democrats (including one of the leading Presidential candidates) and Republicans joined together to vote to invade Iraq, remove its leader, and attempt to establish a democratic government and improve the well-being of Iraqis.

The fact is that we did enter the war. Someone somewhere decided that we should spend hundreds of millions of dollars per day on this effort. Our legislators (that same “someone”) have decided that they cannot join forces across parties to ensure that all of our children in the United States have health care and that they all receive the preparation they need to succeed in school.

How does that happen?

According to February 2008 data from the Congressional Research Service, the Iraq War costs us at least $340 million dollars per day; that’s about $124 billion, yes billion, dollars per year. You can add to that a recent estimate from a RAND Corporation study that we will spend $6.2 billion dollars in costs related to veterans who return from this war with post traumatic stress syndrome during the first two years after they return.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, a good estimate of the total cost of providing health care to all children under 18 would be approximately $88 billion dollars per year. The cost of health care only for children under 5 might be $25 billion. Note that this is the cost. It is not necessarily what government (the taxpayers) would pay; funding for much of this could come via sliding fees, if for example, we want employed parents to contribute toward the cost of their children’s health care. In the case of war, on the other hand, the taxpayers pay the full bill.

The Committee for Economic Development is an independent research and policy organization of some 250 business leaders and educators. CED is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and nonpolitical. Its purpose is “to propose policies that bring about steady economic growth at high employment and reasonably stable prices, increased productivity and living standards, greater and more equal opportunity for every citizen, and an improved quality of life for all.” These business leaders, who include board chairs and CEOs of major U.S. corporations, estimate that preschool for all of our children might cost $33 to $41 billion each year.

So, $124 billion per year for war in Iraq (not including other billions for Afghanistan, other military operations, etc.); $88 billion or less, for children’s health care; $41 billion for preschool education.

Whether intentional or not, we have established priorities which put spending for Iraq ahead of spending for our children. A bipartisan decision was made that invading Iraq had higher priority than providing health care to all children in the United States or providing high quality preschool education to all children in the United States.

To me, the continuation of democracy depends on having skilled, educated members of our society who will lead our communities, work in our businesses, raise healthy children, and do everything else that's necessary to maintain the strength of a nation.

Lack of school readiness imperils our freedom, in the long run, probably more than any danger in Iraq. Loss of competitiveness weakens our businesses; it can make us losers in the global marketplace; it will threaten our well-being more than Sadam Hussein ever had the faintest chance of doing.

A recent article in The New York Times noted Bill Gates’ statement that he is “terrified for our work force of tomorrow”. Although his fears stem primarily from the condition of our high schools which in his words “cannot teach all our students what they need to know today”, critical determinants of academic performance exist in the earliest years of life and must be addressed long before high school.

Again, we can separately debate the pros and cons of invading Iraq. I just wonder why such an invasion, followed by many years of military action in that country, has higher priority than health care and education in our own country and local communities. If you have thoughts, I welcome them.

Progress as a Unified Community

2008-03-19T11:22:00.001-05:00

Our partners, the Itasca Project, a coalition of business leaders, and Twin Cities Public Television, will air a series in April based on findings from Itasca's Mind the Gap project. Those findings point to disparities between Whites and Persons of Color with respect to education, housing, health and income. On May 8, following the broadcast of the series, Twin Cities Compass will hold a seminar to discuss the implications of these disparities for the future of our region.

To understand those implications, consider three things.

First, the baby boom generation is aging; Boomers will leave the workforce and leave positions of community influence in large numbers over the coming 15 years. Second, Persons of Color increasingly make up the younger population - those who will replace the baby boomers and the generation following the baby boom as the community leaders, managers, workers, parents of the future. Third, the data (which you can see on the Twin Cities Compass web site) show that this growing part of our population is:

More likely to live in poverty
Less likely to graduate from high school
Less likely to own their own home
More likely to suffer from chronic illness

The future for all of us requires that the younger generations in our communities have the skills, knowledge, and resources to maintain high levels of economic productivity and community well-being. Current trends suggest that they will not have such skills, knowledge, and resources to the extent that they deserve and need them.

I encourage you to assess the information and to form your opinion on what should be done. Watch the television series premiering April 6 on channel 2 at 6:00p.m. to learn more about the widening gaps and hear from some of those most affected; look at the facts in Twin Cities Compass; participate in various forums for discussion, come to our seminar on May 8 (find information on the Twin Cities Compass web site.) I think you will conclude that this is a pressing issue for us locally, nationally, and globally.

But let's not just think about it and discuss it. We can't change history, but we can act as a united community to include all of us - young, old, different colors and cultures - in creating the future. We won't just eliminate disparities; we will enrich, improve, and elevate the lives of all of us.

Twin Cities Compass

2008-03-04T08:58:00.001-06:00

Has our region become better or worse? What direction are we headed? What can we do to improve? We ask questions like these when we consider volunteering or donating, when we try to vote for the best political candidate, or when we form an opinion about where our tax dollars should go. In fact, we all ask these questions whenever we wonder about what we can do to produce the highest quality of life for the residents of our communities.

To make the region as good as it can be for all of us, we must "KNOW" and "DO". That is, we must first understand who the residents of our region are, and what the major trends are. Then, we must commit to action.

Last month, Wilder Research launched Twin Cities Compass - a new, non-partisan initiative that measures the 7-county Twin Cities region’s well-being with respect to civic engagement, early childhood, economy and workforce, education, health, housing, public safety and transportation. If you go to the web site, www.tccompass.org, you will find easy-to-access information on these topics, that will enable you to understand (to "know") the major trends affecting the region. Several hundred volunteers, whose names are listed, assisted us to identify the most important measures for understanding trends. You can see those trends displayed for the region, over many years if possible, and for counties and large cities. You can also see comparisons - how our region compares to other regions of the U.S. - in order to develop better understanding of how we are doing in the larger context of our nation and our world.

In addition, the web site contains links to resources, so you can learn how business, government, and nonprofit organizations have attempted to improve their communities; you can learn what seems to work locally and elsewhere.

That's the "KNOW". There is also the "DO".

The group of funders who support and govern this project want the information to be used. Our goal in the next phase of our work is to inspire people from all sectors--government, business, nonprofit and concerned individuals--to get involved in coordinated efforts to address needs. Some organizations have told us that they would like to take the lead on topics like housing, early childhood, and civic engagement. We'll report on their progress in future blogs and newsletters. We hope that as many people as possible use Twin Cities Compass, in large and small ways, to strenghten their efforts to improve education, health care, the economy, our transportation system, and all the aspects of our life that are so important, now and in the future.

If you have suggestions or comments regarding the web site, we welcome them. Feel free to use the "Contact Twin Cities Compass" feature on the web site.

Super Tuesday and My Vote

2008-02-04T09:13:00.000-06:00

As a voter, I have been extremely nonpartisan ever since I first became eligible to vote. I proudly vote for Democrats, Independents, and Republicans in whatever combination makes sense - based on (a) an examination of where candidates stand on issues and (b) my level of confidence in their ability to do what they say they want to do.

We now have a choice among four candidates: Barack Obama; Hillary Clinton; John McCain; and Mitt Romney.

I will compare them on perhaps 15 to 20 criteria. Some of these criteria appear below, in case you might find them helpful as you make your choice about the next U.S. President.

Consensus-building. Which candidate can most effectively bring people together - internationally, to address worldwide issues affecting humanity - nationally, to form multi-partisan strategies to achieve our goals - locally, to facilitate collaboration among increasingly diverse communities across the United States?

Pork/Earmarks. Which candidate has the courage to stand up against favoritism and against irrational systems of allocating our national resources? Who is willing to pioneer better ways to address issues and make our government more efficient and effective by taking action to eliminate earmarks and to transform the government bureaucracy?

Environment. We all live in the environment. The environment affects everything we do - locally, nationally, and internationally. We can't replace it with anything else. We can only care for it. Which candidate offers the soundest approach to addressing global warming, energy use, water and air resources, in cooperation with our fellow inhabitants of this earth in other nations? Which candidate will promote wise use of land to save energy and improve air and water quality?

Health Care Coverage for All. Everyone deserves adequate health care. After living in Europe for a year, I realized how shameful it is that we, in the United States, have such a large portion of our population who lacks access to health care. Which candidate can achieve the health care coverage we need in this country? (Although I'm not my sharing ratings of any specific candidates, I will say that none of them has so far proposed a plan for health care that seems both effective and feasible. However, I could be wrong and will continue to analyze this.)

Education Gap. We have two gaps - internal and external. Within this country, Persons of Color constitute our fastest growing populations. They will make up many of the leaders of the future, the workers of the future, the parents of the future. Sadly, our systems have not brought their level of educational achievement up to the level of the White population. Which candidate will best promote school readiness (of both the students and the schools)? Which candidate will best elevate our educational systems? Which candidate will lead the way to ensure that all children graduate from high school, ready for post-secondary education? Externally, some evidence exists that other nations' educational systems out-perform ours. Which candidate can change this, so that we remain on a par with other countries?

The Vulnerable. Our compassion and care for the vulnerable within our communities make up one defining element of our culture. Which candidate offers the clearest vision, and the most feasible approaches, for building the capacity of vulnerable people and enabling them to live with dignity? Whether social spending increases, remains level, or decreases, money is not the answer; creativity, energy, and commitment are what we need.

Housing. A last item I'll mention is housing. Which candidate offers the best strategy for our housing markets and systems to create an adequate supply of housing, accessible to people at all income levels?

Well, as you participate in primaries or caucuses, and as you make your decisions as a voter, I hope you apply these and other criteria, to take a thorough look at who can best provide the leadership we need.

Homeless Older Adults

2007-12-26T16:33:00.000-06:00

People 55 and older make up an increasing number and proportion of homeless adults. That's a key finding in a report presented by our homelessness study team to the Gerontological Society of America a few weeks ago. Ten years ago, about 1 of 25 homeless adults was 55+; today, it's almost 1 of 12.

This reflects a general trend we've noted earlier: With respect to our aging population, we can expect more of everything. More people will live longer. Many of them will remain healthy and active into the 70s and beyond; many others will live with chronic conditions that limit their ability to do everything they want to do, and even to care for themselves. (Some recent research suggests, incidentally, that the generations coming into their sixties and seventies now might not experience the disabilities of aging in the same proportions as previous generations. If this turns out to be the case, as perhaps further research will show, that would be very fortuitous.)

In any case, we can expect more homeless older adults, or at least more older adults at risk for homelessness.

In Minnesota, based on the most recent survey by Wilder Research, the majority of homeless adults are male; 44% of homeless males over age 55 are military veterans. About half of homeless older adults are persons of color, compared to about 10% of Minnesota's overall population.

The Wilder Research study found a number of differences between homeless adults over age 55 and those below that age. Older homeless adults are only half as likely to be working for pay; they more likely receive income from General Assistance, Social Security (old age benefits, disability insurance, and/or supplemental security income). Their monthly incomes tend to be higher than the incomes of younger homeless adults. Older homeless adults report more chronic health conditions that limit daily activities; in general, they have a greater level of physical and mental distress, compared to younger homeless adults.

In addressing homelessness, we need to understand that it can involve all ages, and different age groups can have different types of needs.

Social Determinants of Health

2007-11-17T10:27:00.000-06:00

"Social Determinants of Health" Sounds complicated? Sounds like jargon? It's not, really. In fact, an excellent seminar yesterday, sponsored by Blue Cross/Blue Shield, shed light on how education, income, and the features of the places where we live literally add or subtract years from our lives.

For example, people who don't graduate from high school earn less during their lives than people with more education. You might expect that, but statistics show that they also more often suffer from obesity and cancer; they die at earlier ages. A major study in England, featured in a to-be-released PBS series, shows a strong and direct correlation between income (or social status) and health status and life expectancy.

In the past, we have tended to put emphasis on individual choices and behaviors as the factors that affect our health. If we choose to smoke, our health will suffer; if we choose to exercise, we will remain fit and less likely suffer from many chronic diseases. We have also recognized that we inherit some characteristics from our parents; as the New York Times reported today, commonly-available DNA testing will soon enable everyone to "learn what is known so far about how the billions of bits in their biological code shape who they are."

Our DNA, and the lifestyle choices we make, do influence our health. However, they might explain only a fourth or a third of the differences among people. The research summarized yesterday by Dr. Anthony Iton, suggests that individual choice might account for only 15-30% of the explanation for why some people stay healthier, and live longer, than others. It also showed strong differences in disease rates and life expectancy depending upon people's places of residence. Even within the same geographic areas (Alameda County CA was one example; Louisville KY was another.), residents living just a few miles from one another show great differences in health, in a very predictable pattern: neighborhoods with poorer, less educated residents, with worse housing, with higher levels of uncollected waste, live shorter, less healthy lives. And, this pattern does not just influence the lives and well-being of poor people. Residents of middle class neighborhoods can live 3-5 years less than residents of wealthier neighborhoods.

If you think that these issues do not apply in Minnesota, think again - and watch for data we will report in our Twin Cities Compass project. Disparities do exist. They have real effects, as you will see. The Brookings report, "Mind the Gap", sponsored by the Itasca Project identified disparities based on race, income, and place as some of the most significant challenges for the future vitality of our region.

It's immoral, in my opinion, that we should have these disparities. Total equality might not be possible, but we can certainly bring everyone to a minimum level of education, so they can participate in work life and civic life. We can certainly narrow the gaps to a minimum.

Perhaps the moral argument makes sense, but still does not sway you - consider the practical side. Health disparities affect you very directly. Health disparities cost you money right now, and they jeopardize your future well-being, regardless of your social status. People of color constitute the growing populations in our region. They make up the work force of the future, the parents of the future, the leaders of the future. If the up-and-coming part of our community is less healthy now, we all pay in the form of increased insurance costs and taxes; if they have poor health, and die earlier, in the future, we all lose the value of their productivity and the many contributions they can make to our society.

There is little doubt that we must understand the "social determinants of health" and address the disparities in our region, if we want our region to stand out internationally as one of the best places to live.

(Watch for the PBS documentary, Unnatural Causes, next year. Watch also for the TPT series on disparities in the Twin Cities region, and their effects on all of us. Twin Cities Compass and Wilder Research are partnering with the Itasca Project and TPT on education and follow-up activities for that series.)

Veterans Who Are Homeless

2007-11-12T17:29:00.000-06:00

About one in four homeless men in Minnesota are military veterans. 600+ veterans live in shelters or on the street; most are men, but a few are women. Let's remember them on this Veterans Day.

Perhaps most tragic is that some of our veterans from the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts are among the homeless. Many in this country oppose the war, but regardless of our opinion about whether we should have our military in Iraq, it seems unconscionable that we can't care for those who so recently served their country in the military.

Wilder Research has conducted a statewide homeless study every few years since the early 1990s; we conducted it on a more limited level beginning in the early 1980s. Over the years, we witnessed increases in the number of homeless people, with especially large increases in the number of children. Evidence from our most recent study indicates that the total number of homeless people might have leveled off, or even declined slightly.

That's good news, if it holds up when we repeat the study in 2009. Nonetheless, we cannot rest on our laurels, even if we have really turned the tide. Work remains to be done.

Last week, the Minneapolis Foundation brought together hundreds of people concerned about homelessness. We looked at the Wilder study data; we listened to Housing Finance Agency Commissioner Tim Marx describe how we can take action. Paul Williams, Richard Amos, and Gabrielle Strong highlighted the practical issues that challenge us, along with homeless people themselves, if we want to solve this issue.

We look forward to continuing to shed light on homelessness. If our collaborative effort to end long-term homelessness succeeds, it will be testimony to the strength and the will of Minnesotans to show compassion for the vulnerable and to include in our economy and civic life all who want to make their homes here, but have run into a few extraordinary difficulties in doing so.

Becoming a "Greener" and Stronger Community

2007-10-03T10:22:00.000-05:00

Improving the well-being of our communities requires, obviously, that we address local issues and concerns. However, it also requires attention to national, international, and global issues. The quality of our environment, while it may seem like something over which we have little control, is one of those issues that relates fundamentally to our local quality of life. We need to do our part to preserve and enhance the environment.

For example, Wilder has a commitment to build an energy-efficient structure for our new Wilder Center at the corner of Lexington and University in Saint Paul. We hope to receive gold certification for the building; we'll be one of very few such buildings in the state, but hope that we are one of many over the next 10 years.

My annual visit to the Minnesota State Fair a month ago prompted me to wonder if we could make major progress toward a better environment through simple steps at public events like the Fair. Can the State Fair take visible action toward reducing waste and, through its example, educate Fair-goers, who will then increase their attention to environmentally friendly behavior?

One thing that struck me: the number of disposable items - cups, spoons, napkins, etc., -distributed by vendors, used by patrons for only a few minutes, and then discarded. Why not require that Fair-goers bring their own cups, or purchase one "souvenir cup" from the Fair, and then have vendors dispense portions into those cups? This could greatly reduce the 1,000 plus tons (2 million plus pounds) of garbage that the Pioneer Press reported the Fair produces. More important, though, it brings 125,000 people per day to realize that they should, and can, do their part for the environment.

Vaclav Havel, the author and a former president of the Czech Republic wrote recently that "Maybe we should consider our sojourn on earth as a loan. There can be no doubt that for the past hundred years at least, Europe and the United States have been running up a debt, and now other parts of the world are following their example. Nature is issuing a warning that we must not only stop the debt from growing but start to pay it back."

If all of us listen to nature's warning and do our small parts for the environment, the collective result will be very positive. We'll help the world, and we'll help the Twin Cities region!

Achievement Gap

2007-08-29T12:51:00.000-05:00

The "Achievement Gap" refers to the differences between white children and children of color on measures of academic performance. For example, White children are about twice as likely to score proficiently on reading and math tests, and twice as likely to graduate from high school on time, compared with African-American children.

The gap presents a challenge to our region because children of color constitute a rapidly growing segment of our population; they represent the majority of students in the Minneapolis and Saint Paul schools. They represent a signficant portion of our future.

The Superintendent of the Saint Paul Schools announced that she wants to close this gap. According to reports appearing in the August 24 Pioneer Press and StarTribune, she intends to develop a plan that will engage the community to work toward equal educational outcomes for all students.

The education achievement gap is not new; it is not local. Wilder Research began formally reporting it in the early 1990s, as did others around the country. It had been identified even before then.

Dan Mueller of Wilder Research outlined a number of strategies that research demonstrates can reduce or eliminate the gap. These include: high quality, center-based preschools; elementary schools that have a strong focus on teaching and learning (minimizing distractions for other purposes, for example); schools that have a rigorous curriculum; schools that align their curriculum and instruction with their assessment process; effective school leadership; strong teacher professional development programs; and others.

Note that income differences do not fully explain the achievement gap; note also that different racial groups tend to score differently. And remember that the numbers are typically averages; within each racial group, you can find students who perform well and students who do not.

The Superintendent intends to create a plan in the coming months. I encourage her to consider both short-term and long-term strategies, as the research suggests. For some students, improvement can likely occur rapidly. Complete closure of the gap, for all students, will take longer.

Saturday's Pioneer Press reported that she will institute new "training" in which "outside consultants" will "observe staff members at work and advise them on areas of potential racial, socio-economic and gender bias." This will start with clerks and the executive team; observations of teachers will not occur at first. Research evidence does not yet exist to indicate that such training will substantially close the gap, but potentially it can begin to enhance the atmosphere of schools and the day-to-day behaviors of front line staff in ways that will foster better learning environments for children of all colors.

Closing the gap will require changes in the cultures of schools, other organizations, the community, and families. It will require joint efforts among many of us in Saint Paul. It will require that we all share responsibility; we will need to move beyond blame and finger-pointing and take special care not to "blame the victim".

If you have looked at the research, you know that elimination of the achievement gap will only occur if our schools change. That will cause stress and discomfort. However, our schools cannot accomplish this alone. We all need to pitch in, and we all might experience some discomfort in the short run.

Are we ready? I think that many of us are. If we pay attention to the evidence on what does work to close the gap, and if we make a steadfast effort, we can succeed to overcome one of the most significant challenges to the future of our region.

(You can learn more about the research on the achievement gap in the paper by Dr. Dan Mueller, "Tackling the Achievement Gap Head On" on the Wilder Research web site.)

The 35W Bridge in Minneapolis

2007-08-02T10:50:00.000-05:00

Does civic engagement affect our responses to metal fatigue? Probably yes, as I reflected upon it this morning.

Everyone in Minnesota, and many throughout the nation and the world, watched events unfold Wednesday evening in the aftermath of the collapse of the bridge over the Mississippi River. Today, we could view a tape of the actual collapse. The victims and their families have directly experienced a tragedy, and continue to do so; all of us feel the effects.

Today, the morning after the collapse, I had an 8:00 a.m. meeting with an advisory committee to discuss how to measure "Civic Engagement" as part of our Twin Cities Compass initiative, intended to measure the quality of life in the Twin Cities region. Prior to the meeting, I had wondered if committee members would attend, given the emotionally stressful events of the previous evening, not to mention potential traffic problems in the morning. I even had considered canceling the meeting.

I'm glad we met, not just because we productively accomplished our work, but because the meeting offered me the chance to reflect on the fact that civic engagement does very much relate to what happened to the bridge and on the bridge.

We have structures and infrastructures of all kinds in this world. They enable us to travel, communicate, and get important things done. Similar to people, they get old. Bridges get old.

Who should decide when to replace an aging bridge - engineers and other technicians? public officials? the general public? The experts gave this bridge a "sufficiency rating" of 50%, meaning from their point of view that it "might" need to be replaced; they rated its "structural members" at 4 on a scale of 9. Should it have been replaced? Who decides?

These decisions are not purely technical. They involve values; they involve hard decisions about costs. They pit different needs against one another, since money spent on bridge replacement cannot pay for something else. The decisions have implications that people feel directly, for example, in the time it takes them to travel, and in the taxes they have to pay.

Good decisions require informed and engaged members of the community. Productive action must be nonpartisan (or cooperatively multi-partisan), not motivated by attention only to rigid political or ideological agendas. Long-term thinking (which some politicians will not do) is required.

So, when we consider what happens to bridges, roads, and other physical structures, we must remain aware that our action or inaction, our interest or apathy, determine how safe we will be when we ride in cars, buses, trains, and planes. For the 35W bridge, some person or persons made the decision that the 50% rating was good enough not to make structural work a priority. Perhaps more people should be involved in that type of decision, in addition to many other decisions that literally affect our lives.

What about on the bridge? There we saw civic engagement at its finest in a crisis situation. Everyone - our police and fire services, service agencies like the Red Cross, nearby residents, passers-by, drivers (some of whom narrowly missed catastrophe), and others - pitched in, in some cases risking their lives.

I could not be near enough to get on that bridge to help people last night; but I'm very happy to be part of a process that can bring our region together to examine our trends and needs and to get mechanisms in place that will prevent future tragedies of this type.

That's why our meeting this morning - while it might seem remote from the victims, the crushed cars, the jumbled slabs of concrete - while it might seem irrelevant to engineering studies and reports - has great significance. We need civic engagement; we need good information that engaged citizens can use. Our lives and well-being depend on it.

As a footnote, three of the thirteen people in the room this morning had a close connection to victims on or near the bridge at the time of the collapse. One of these victims was seriously injured and is waiting for a decision about surgery. So, 3 of 13 at "one degree of separation" from people directly involved; my guess is that the rest of us in the room are only "two degrees" separated from the tragedy - that is, we most likely know someone who is personally linked to a victim.

That shows how much of a community we are - and demonstrates how important it is for us, as community members to make our region a better place to live!

Information Gold Mine

2007-07-16T12:51:00.000-05:00

If you owned a business and you had some great performance numbers—revenues, total sales, annual profits, or whatever—would you list them in a financial report? Certainly. You would also use those numbers in a variety of other ways—perhaps to congratulate and motivate your staff, or to publicize the success of your business to attract more customers or investors. As a smart businessperson you would try to promote success in any way that makes sense.

What about nonprofits? Do we make the most of our performance information? Many of us sit on a treasure trove of evaluation information without realizing its potential. Some organizations, however, have discovered ways to creatively use such information to effectively demonstrate their impact. I and my co-authors wrote our book, Information Gold Mine: Innovative Uses of Evaluation, to uncover and share some of the best examples of creative uses of evaluation. We wanted to showcase program managers who could talk to their peers about what they had done and the benefits it produced for them.

Our book highlights organizations who use their evaluation findings to improve their services, to raise funds, or to influence policy and legislation. For example, PACE, an organization in Florida that serves adolescent girls, uses its evaluation findings to inform the general public and donors about its work, to provide training and technical assistance to other organizations, and to influence legislation. In 2004, it influenced the passage of a bill that mandated gender-specific services for adolescents.

Another example is YouthZone, in Colorado, who used their evaluation to push for excellent programming based on sound data. They made real changes—dropping parts of their model and changing others—to get genuine results. Debbie Wilde, executive director, says it has also given her and her board “more confidence in talking with people who have financial resources, in doing public relations, and in being assertive in asking for referrals.”

Information Gold Mind is available from Fieldstone Alliance, www.fieldstonealliance.org. (It will also be available at libraries soon.) You might also want to take a look at Wilder’s series of program evaluation tip sheets prepared by Cheryl Holm-Hansen highlighted on the first page of this Sampler. On the same topic, The Manager’s Guide to Program Evaluation, offers a framework for program managers to plan, contract, and manage useful evaluations. It is also available through Fieldstone.

We all strive to improve our effectiveness. Credible, clear data can empower us to continually adapt to our rapidly-changing environment, form good strategies, take control and be proactive in service delivery, alliance building, fundraising, marketing, and whatever else it takes to get our jobs done.

Perhaps you have some thoughts on this topic. Please let me know. Also, if you have an interest in more information about this book, or want to obtain it, visit the Fieldstone Alliance website.

Aging in Our Region

2007-06-12T10:59:00.000-05:00

Today's StarTribune reported that the number of aging people in the suburbs will greatly increase in the coming years. (The Brookings Institution made these projections; they resemble earlier predictions made for Minnesota by our State Demographer.)

As we have discussed before, the movement of the Baby Boom into older age will constitute a demographic change unlike anything we have seen previously. The number of people in their 80s and 90s, for example, will grow in some suburban Twin Cities counties far more rapidly than any other age group. The currently evolving demographic trends have implications not just because of the increase in elderly, but also because the generation that follows the Boomers is smaller in numbers, which may produce various types of shortages in businesses, nonprofits, and government, and which may require that we re-think how we get things done.

The increasing number of older people will lead to "more of everything." On the positive side, more people who live longer, healthier lives - who want to remain active, perhaps in the labor force, perhaps as volunteers. On the negative side, more people who will spend longer periods of time needing care and assistance with their daily lives - which will strain families, communities, and formal health and long-term care systems.

Another article in today's news indicated that many Boomers feel the need to postpone retirement, due to financial concerns. As we showed at a recent conference, the proportion of older people with low incomes, even living in poverty, seems to be increasing, after a decline over many decades.

We need to realize the importance of addressing the changing demographics as a region. It's not a "city" issue or a "suburban" issue. Cities and suburbs are socially and economically interdependent. (Geographic dispersion in the suburbs may increase the challenges of caring for older people there, relative to cities where density provides opportunities to bring services closer to more people, reduce transportation time and costs, etc.; but that's a different issue.) As a region, we need to understand what changes will likely occur, plan for them, and act together to promote the best quality of life for residents of the entire region, young or old.

Globalization - What it is, and why it's important (part 1)

2007-05-08T09:21:00.000-05:00

Globalization - something only of concern for international business, trade, diplomacy? Or, something that affects all of us, no matter what our profession or interest?

Several months ago, the Wilder Board asked: "What large scale trends or issues exist, which could have very profound consequences for the work of nonprofit organizations, whether local, national, or international?" This Board has always looked ahead strategically; they knew that plans within Wilder take into consideration changes in the population, the rising and falling of specific needs, and so on. In this case, however, they wanted to look beyond the obvious, to larger trends or overarching conditions that might produce the more visible trends that we readily see and understand.

Among several nominations of significant, large-scale trends, globalization percolated to the top as an important focus of attention, and we spent time discussing it. So, in a series of blogs, I'll offer my views on what globalization means and what implications it has for us.

One, simple definition of globalization: the increasing integration of societies and economies throughout the world. It means that people move more and more easily across borders, that more money and capital moves across borders, and that freer trade exists.

The International Monetary Fund defined "economic globalization" as: "a historical process, the result of human and technological progress. It refers to the increasing integration of economies around the world, particularly through trade and financial flows. The term also refers to the movement of people (labor) and knowledge (technology) across international borders."

Thomas Friedman (author of "The World is Flat", "The Lexus and the Olive Tree") asserts that "Globalization has replaced the Cold War as the defining international system." A recent headline in the New York Times strikingly confirmed this assertion. If you remember the 1950s and 1960s, your recollections of the Soviet Union probably include: Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe on a podium; the phrase (probably mis-translated) "we will bury you"; the Iron Curtain; the "red menace"; and similar negative concepts. At that time, public service announcements attempted to reassure us by explaining that the "DEW line" would detect the launch of Soviet missiles; it seemed that the U.S. and the Soviet Union had missiles pointed at one another, ready for launch. Now, a half century later, the New York Times of April 21 stated: "Pentagon invites Kremlin to link missile systems."

Friedman asserts something else that can help us to understand the importance of globalization for all of us. As the Friedman web site states: "Globalization is the integration of capital, technology, and information across national borders, in a way that is creating a single global market and, to some degree, a global village." In The Lexus and the Olive Tree, he frames "the tension between the globalization system and ancient forces of culture, geography, tradition, and community."

Jim Steiner, of Lowry Hill and a member of the Wilder Board illustrated how capital flows in today's world and offered examples of how local decision-making is unbounded; companies look to achieve the best possible gains within an international network.

It's this blending of the local and global, this creation of the truly global village, that we need to pay attention to. Whether we realize it or not, the forces of globalization affect our personal, civic, and business lives. Decisions we make as voters, investors, leaders, community members can leverage the forces of globalization, or can passively react to those forces. "Neighborhood" decision-making and "world-wide" decision making overlap more than ever before.

Globalization has, on the one hand, increased opportunities; it has democratized communication and the way we learn about the world. However, not everyone has received benefits. Globalization has enhanced the situations of many of us, yet some of us may be much worse off as a result of globalization.

In future blogs, I'll talk about all these features of globalization and their implications.

Youth Mentoring - Economic Impacts of Effective Programs

2007-04-18T09:11:00.000-05:00

An article in today's StarTribune, highlights the resuts of a study conducted by Wilder Research's Chief Economist, Paul Anton, and Judy Temple of the University of Minnesota. The study shows that, when effective, mentoring programs for youth can produce savings for taxpayers.

This research adds another piece to our understanding of how we can effectively and economically promote the development of young people.

Editorial Encourages Follow Up to Wilder's Homeless Study

2007-04-12T13:20:00.000-05:00

An editorial in the Pioneer Press today (April 12, 2007) encourages us to take the results of the latest homeless study and move forward as a community to make progress on this issue.

The editorial concludes: "Minnesota is responding. Cities, counties and the state have focused on the problem and on the underlying issues. There is no single or simple solution. Wilder's report reminds us that we need to take another look, and to see that these are our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters, our ex-soldiers and former neighbors. And they need our help."

You can see the full editorial on today's Pioneer Press Opinion Page.

Homeless in Minnesota - A Few Facts

2007-04-11T08:16:00.000-05:00

About 200 individuals joined us yesterday to take a look at highlights of Wilder Research's latest study of the homeless in Minnesota. This series of studies began in the early 1980s; it became statewide in the early 1990s.

You can obtain reports on the Wilder Research web site. Also, you can find slides from the first hour presentation.

By our estimates, the number of homeless people in Minnesota is between 9,200 and 9,300. That's roughly equal to, or possibly slightly less than, the numbers of three years ago. This estimate is based on a one-night count. We do a unique study that involves almost 1,000 volunteers who interview people who live in shelters and people who do not live in shelters throughout the state.

The study contains a great deal of information to which we need to pay attention, if we want to make progress on the issue of homelessness. In several blogs, I'll touch on a few pieces of relevant data; I'll also suggest issues, challenges, and ingredients for moving ahead successfully.

First, a few demographics:
- About half of the homeless in Minnesota are female; about half are male. This surprises many people.
- Very young adults (18-21) and the "middle aged" (35-54) tend to be over-represented among the homeless, relative to their proportion of the total state population. Older people (55+) are definitely under-represented among the homeless; people 55 and older comprise 28% of the state's adults, yet only 8% of homeless adults.
- Homeless adults tend to have less education than adults in general. For example, 63% of the state's adults over age 25 have some education beyond high school; 32% of homeless adults have that level of education.

The most striking demographic data relate to race:
- Blacks/African-Americans constitute 38% of homeless adults in contrast to 3% of Minnesota's adult population.
- American Indians constitute 11% of homeless adults in contrast to 1% of Minnesota's adult population.
- Latinos constitute 7% of homeless adults in contrast to 3% of Minnesota's adult population.
In short, groups of color are over-represented among the homeless.

Children also deserve some note:
- Of the roughly 9,200 homeless persons, about 3,400 are children.
- 2,800 of these are with their parents. This is more than the 875 that we found back in 1991.
- 600 are on their own
- Among children with their parents, about half are preschool age.
- The youngest child whom we interviewed living on their own was age 11.

In future blogs, I'll mention some additional information. However, more importantly, I'll focus on what we need to do to move ahead. If you want more facts, please take a look at the reports.

The team for this study deserves our appreciation. Dr. Greg Owen has directed this work since its first days 23 years ago. Principal staff who collaborated with him on this latest study include Ellen Shelton, Michelle Gerrard, Karen Ulstad, and June Heineman. Many others at Wilder Research also contributed. And, of course, it would not have occurred without the assistance of close to 1,000 volunteers, collaborating organizations, and our funders - all of whom hope that eventually this research will cease because we will have resolved the issue.

If you have thoughts, I would value the opportunity to hear them.

Race & Juvenile Delinquency

2007-03-20T09:49:00.000-05:00

Racial disparities in juvenile sentencing - The news media (e.g., Pioneer Press) reported the results of a Wilder Research study of this issue in Dakota County. For example, black youths make up 3% of young people in Dakota County, but 21% of the young people in the criminal courts and corrections systems.

Other studies, in Minnesota and elsewhere, have produced similar, overall findings; those findings are not particularly surprising. However, what's notable - and very commendable - for the Dakota County commitee of public officials who are studying the issue are two features of their initiative.

First, the research did not just stop at identifying disparities; it dug deeply to identify potential causes. What might be the factors that explain these differences? What occurs in the system, and where, to produce the differences? The study showed, for example, that black youth did not commit more serious crimes than white youth committed.

This type of in-depth look is rare; the willingness of public officials to take such a look is admirable.

Second, this study will not receive some publicity and then move off the radar screen. The committee intends to determine how things can become better, and take action. They have committed themselves to research, learning, and improvement. They want to make fair decisions, in the public interest, based on sound research evidence. They seem open to doing their part, and also to inviting others to collaborate with them.

It will be exciting to work with them and to see how they do this.

Homelessness - New Research

2007-03-14T10:52:00.000-05:00

Wilder's most recent research related to homelessness received attention in the newspapers today. You can find articles in both the Star Tribune and the Pioneer Press.

Among the major findings is the fact that the total number of homeless persons in the state may have remained stable over the past three years. Of concern, though, are statistics showing such things as the large number of children who are homeless, the increase in mental illness, and the number of veterans who are homeless.

I'll have more comments in future blogs, but I wanted you to know about these news items. Dr. Greg Owen, the study director, will participate in some live events this week, on Minnesota Public Radio, for example, and on other radio and TV stations. If you have thoughts or comments, please let me know.

Community Issues - from the "Executive of the Year"

2007-03-02T10:10:00.000-06:00

In remarks at a recent lunch in her honor as The Business Journal's "Executive of the Year", Mary Brainerd highlighted three significant community issues.

The first of these is the importance of addressing social and economic disparities in order to maintain the economic vitality of the Twin Cities region. Our region can make substantial, long-term progress only if all residents have opportunities to participate as productive community members. Reports from the Itasca Project, which is primarily a coalition of business leaders, have shown that reducing disparities is not only the morally right thing to do; it's the smart thing to do for economic growth.

The second issue is that mental illness is a major, unaddressed problem. Addressing it effectively will require collaborative action among health care systems, community organizations, government, and others. As a member of the Board of the Hamm Clinic, I've heard first hand from our Executive Director, Dr. Jim Jordan, and others about the need to work together to conquer mental illness - in an environment where the issues have not yet become understood by most members of the community and where health care systems often cannot yet provide comprehensive and specialized treatment.

Third, she pointed to the high cost of health care. This cost stresses everyone: health care providers; insurers; government; business; and, of course, all of us as individual patients. In the opinion of many people (I assume Mary Brainerd is included.), we should have the highest quality and most accessible health care in the world. Sadly, we do not. Issues of cost, disagreement over who ought to pay, and other bureaucratic and legal obstacles have gotten in our way.

Ms. Brainerd wants to champion these issues. I'm very pleased that someone of her competence and character is doing so. (A business executive with degrees in both philosophy and management - maybe that's why she's so effective.) As testimony from several community leaders at the lunch indicated, many others throughout the Twin Cities are pleased as well!

Severe Poverty

2007-02-27T08:17:00.000-06:00

The Star Tribune this past weekend quoted Paul Anton, the Chief Economist at Wilder Research, regarding recent figures that reveal growth in the number of people who live in "severe poverty".

What is "severe poverty"? Imagine yourself as an individual with an income of less than $100 per week. That's all the money you have to pay for a place to live, for food, and for whatever other necessities you must purchase. Another example of the "severe poor" would be a family of four, including two children, with an income of $196 or less per week - that is, less than $50 per person.

Analysis of trends by the StarTrib's news service suggests that the number of people in severe poverty has increased throughout the U.S. It grew by 26% nationally and by 62% in Minnesota. On the positive side, the number of people in severe poverty in Minnesota (194,000 in 2005) was 3.9% of the state's total population - the third lowest rate in the country.

It's important to stay aware of these numbers - attempting to understand the trends and to identify what we might do about them. Our Twin Cities Compass initiative and our research on homelessness do just that. Sadly, the severe poor and the homeless include people who have acquired an education, hardworking people, veterans who have served their country, and others whom we might not expect in this situation. For adults, an economic downturn, the closing of a plant, an accident, or other events outside of their control can send them to the lowest part of the income ladder. Outmoded job skills, illness, or other unfortunate life circumstances can force some of them to remain there.

A few recent news articles have sensationalized this topic. Someone, perhaps out of ignorance or fear, issued yet another call for "one way bus tickets" for people who supposedly exploit our resources. Certainly, abuses occur; they always will. However, if we set aside for a moment any concerns we might have about people who commit fraud (which can include anyone from the homeless to the CEOs of our largest corporations, and everyone in between!), these numbers indicate that we have many very worthy and very needy members of our state's population, who deserve our attention.

The results of our latest survey of the homeless will become available during the next two months. I invite you to join us and thousands of others who are committed to improving our communities - in learning what that study has to offer.

As always, please let me know your thoughts. And thanks to those of you who have emailed with questions, comments, and encouragement about this blog.

Aging / Caregiving (Part 3)

2007-02-14T08:25:00.000-06:00

Our seminar yesterday on the challenge of caregiving for older people drew a large audience who wanted to learn about and discuss what we can do about the anticipated increase in the number of persons over 75 who will require care for longer periods than ever before.

We identified what we called the "challenge of today" and the "potential crisis of tomorrow".

The challenge of today derives from two facts: (1) More older people need care for longer periods of time; and (2) Caregivers are experiencing increasing physical, mental, and financial strains as a result of caregiving. While studies are not definitive, some good, initial research suggests that the increasing strains on caregivers have manifested themselves in worsened health (perhaps 15% of caregivers), more stress and worry (90%), more frequent use of alcohol or prescription drugs (10%), and overall more symptoms of depression and more physical ailments. Articles in the media have documented the extreme steps that spouses and adult children of older people have taken to cope with the financial demands of caregiving - in some cases selling homes and depleting savings to purchase what's needed.

The potential crisis of tomorrow derives from the fact that the current challenge will intensify because the Baby Boom generation, as it ages, will increase the number of older people, without a similar increase in the younger generations that follow them. For many individual Boomers and their families, this will mean a shortage of caregivers; for society as a whole, it will mean an increased "dependency ratio".

We saw broad implications for public policy, business, the care industry, and philanthropy. One of these implications we called the need to "increase caregiver awareness" and to build this awareness into all of our approaches to aging issues, health care, the workforce, and anywhere else that is relevant. Another implication is that the service system needs to make caregiving assessment and support a standard part of its activities. This includes providing an equal role for informal caregivers in planning. (They implement most of the care plans anyway.)

For business, the key implication is human resource flexibility. Options and support need to exist for employees who are caregivers, or else they will either not remain as employees or will work with highly compromised productivity. Options need to exist for older employees to remain working full or part time, in the same or different roles, if they choose to do so. Employees within a decade of the traditional retirement age should see some incentives to shape the next stage of their careers in ways that will help employers to ease the major transition that will occur as Boomers, with their accumulated experience and wisdom, begin to leave the labor force in large numbers.

On the positive side, society will see an increasing number of healthy, retired 65 to 74 year old people. Some of them undoubtedly will want to volunteer. Caregiving should be promoted as an attractive option.

Community-based programs, e.g., block programs and faith-based programs, social support networks, partnerships among service organizations, intermediary organizations and community organizations (where agencies working collaboratively can do more than working in parallel) - these are some ways to help meet the challenge of today.

Preventing, or at least lessening, the crisis of tomorrow will require creativity and flexibility. We may need to make changes in policies that now deter volunteers from doing caregiving (e.g., liability policies or finance/tax policies). More attention to prevention and wellness among healthy older adults may trim slightly the numbers who develop problems that will require caregiving, or might delay the onset of such problems.

Nobody has all the answers, but many good people are concerned and working on it. We are pleased to be part of that effort.

People Power to Meet Community Challenges

2007-02-07T08:19:00.000-06:00

"Americans are largely optimistic about the futures of their communities and stand ready to help make them better places in which to live."

Those words introduce a report from the Pew Partnership, based on a survey done about three years ago. The report noted a number of challenges that American communities face, such as: hunger; homelessness; less than complete adult literacy; and poor educational performance.

Based on the survey data, the report revealed that many Americans already address these issues, through volunteering for example; and it identified an "enormous amount of latent good will on the part of the public." In fact, it concluded that "there are huge numbers of people who are willing to lend a hand if they can be convinced that hunger, illiteracy, inadequate housing, poor public education, and neighborhood safety pose significant concerns for the communities in which they live."

Wilder Research, through Twin Cities Compass, is developing a means for residents throughout our region to stay on top of the major issues that our communities face. We hope that, by providing everyone the ability to understand these issues, we will offer them the basis to act out their "good will" in whatever ways they consider most appropriate for their own situations.

Many partners have joined us, and we hope to engage even more during 2007. (In fact, if you know of a group or organization that would like to hear about our work, please let us know.)

A few more, selected findings from the Pew report - related to the interest and willingness of the public to pitch in to address important community challenges:

* Almost 9 out of 10 of the survey respondents indicated that they already donate, or would be willing to donate if they had the opportunity: clothing; food; or money to a local charity.

* 70% of respondents reported they would be willing to donate supplies to a local school, or are already doing so.

* Almost 2 of 3 respondents would be willing to do one or more of the following (or they already do so): help an adult or child learn to read; deliver food to people who cannot get out of their homes; assist in mentoring a child.

These numbers are high. Certainly, not everyone will have the time and ability to carry out the charitable work mentioned above, even though they might truly intend to do so. However, even if only half of these people focus their attention on community challenges at any one time, that's a lot of people power! We hope to nurture and support this people power, in collaboration with other partners throughout the region. Let's see what we can do!

For Better Planning, "Stop Pretending"

2007-01-31T16:33:00.000-06:00

Paul Anton, our Chief Economist at Wilder Research, began an editorial in today's Pioneer Press as follows:

"Imagine projecting your family financial situation five years from now in
the following way. You assume that your income will increase every year in
line with expected inflation; but you also assume that the prices of
everything you buy - clothing, gasoline, food and health insurance - will
remain unchanged. Undoubtedly, you would predict a surplus of money in your
bank account. Unfortunately, you would be wrong.

The State of Minnesota is making that same unfortunate error."

He proceeded to describe four dangerous implications if the state uses inflation when projecting revenues but not when projecting expenses. Simply speaking, the state can't make meaningful and useful financial projections.

You have probably said to yourself already: Does it require an economist to determine that the state can't reasonably assume that inflation will only affect its income and not its expenses? Isn't that perfectly obvious? However, sometimes what seems obvious might not actually be so obvious; or it might be obscured by other considerations at a time when legislators attempt to make a decision or pass a law.

Whatever the case, the legislators made a big mistake when they adopted this formula for financial forecasting; now they need to correct it. More accurate forecasts will enable us to better analyze and plan programs to meet the needs of the state's population.

Take a look at Paul Anton's editorial. And, as always, if you have any thoughts about how we can do our work to improve public policies and improve the quality of life in this region, please let us know.

MLK Day Everyday

2007-01-24T16:34:00.000-06:00

In a meeting I had about 10 years ago with Professor Mahmoud El-Kati from Macalester College, he said: "Why do we think of just one day as Martin Luther King Day? Why shouldn't we celebrate his ideas and ideals every day of the year?" So, in that spirit, I decided to do this entry on just an ordinary day, midway between the MLK holiday and the beginning of Black History Month.

This year, as last year, I encouraged the staff of Wilder Research to take the time to learn just one new thing - that they did not know before - about Dr. King: about his life, his words of wisdom, or whatever. If we learn just one new thing (not to mention two or three) each year, and if we make the effort to apply what we learn in our personal and professional lives, imagine how substantially we can improve ourselves.

Wilder's Ujima group selected some quotes from Dr. King, for a card memorializing him along with Coretta Scott King. One of these quotes is: "There are two types of laws: there are just laws and there are unjust laws...What is the difference between the two?...An unjust law is a man-made code that is out of harmony with the moral law."

That quote reminds us that we must have a moral basis, a set of values, for our work.

Laws, codes, regulations, ways of doing business or making decisions - they might seem "rational". They might even seem "fair". But does that mean they promote justice? Does that mean that they are "moral" within the larger context of how we feel people should be treated, and of how we feel people should have the opportunity to live?

Dr. King's words and actions encourage us to continually raise questions, to challenge the status quo. He inspires us to search and to wonder how we can do better.

Religious organizations speak to values and offer options. Many advocacy groups strive to raise awareness of justice issues. I like to think that foundations and other philanthropic organizations base their work on values that all of us can choose, or not choose, to adopt. But there is no single script that we can all simply read and follow.

Instead, each and every one of us sits in our own unique position - a product of our history and our culture - and we must each struggle with the question of how to translate values of inclusion, acceptance, and understanding into our actions to achieve progress in our communities and in our world.

Does basing our work on values of inclusion, acceptance, and understanding impair in any way the ability of applied researchers to reach honest, objective conclusions? Absolutely not. In fact, such values enhance honesty and objectivity in our pluralistic society. They enrich our efforts to do work which can elevate human beings and improve communities in nonpartisan, unbiased ways. They make it even more exciting to ask new questions, and obtain new answers, at Wilder Research every day!

Dakota County Visioning for 2030

2007-01-11T12:41:00.000-06:00

Dakota County has a creative and innovative effort underway, to develop a "vision" for their county for the year 2030. Their advisory group asked me to speak this morning - to "tie things together", to help the group "identify connections" among issues, and to specifically address human services, education, public health, and public safety. This forward thinking initiative is very commendable. At the very least, it will provide reference points that citizens, county and municipal officials, nonprofit organizations, and others can use as they do planning. Beyond that, it has the potential to stimulate new thinking and to foster collaboration among groups interested in having the same positive impacts on the quality of life.

We could spend days analyzing these topics. So, I highlighted two major trends that constitute "key drivers" of changes related to the human services, education, employment and related dynamics in the County. These are: the aging of the population; and increasing disparities across our growing, diverse population in the region (of which Dakota is a part). These trends, of course, exist within the larger context of an increasing state population, increasing regional population, and increasing county population.

Aging, as we've noted before will result in "more of everything" - more people living longer, healthier lives, with the capacity to continue with employment, consumership, and community involvement - as well as more people with extended periods of disability and need for assistance. How will we cope with this dramatic shift? The State Demographer estimates that Minnesota will need 46% more healthcare practitioners and technicians during the next ten years. As retirements occur, the replacements for the health care industry are not readily available, just as they are not readily available for other industries.

Competition for scarce human talent will increase. Companies, nonprofit organizations, and government need to consider policy and workplace options that will help to maintain some of the energy and wisdom of older workers, rather than ignoring the fact that seasoned workers will begin to depart in large numbers as the Baby Boomers reach the traditional retirement age.

The disparities issue, as the Itasca Project noted, is a regional issue. Persons of color, on average, earn less, are less likely to have health insurance, have lower high school graduation rates, are less likely to own homes. Yet these are the growing populations with the potential to work in and lead the businesses and organizations of the future. We must strive for preschool readiness, elementary and high school achievement, and the transition to higher education for these groups, or our region will lose out in the global economy.

Many people in Dakota County wisely understand our regional interdependence across the counties of the Twin Cities region. As part of this visioning process, let's hope that even more do so!

Wilder Research 2007

2007-01-01T13:33:00.000-06:00

We look forward to another productive year in 2007, working in collaboration with many different organizations. - educating, discovering, leading, raising awareness, to improve the lives of individuals, families, and communities.

During 2007:

We have two "Perspectives Breakfasts" set for this year. On February 13, we'll focus on The Caregiver Challenge, a critically important topic now that so many families, friends, and neighbors care for older people for extended periods of time. On April 10, we'll release and discuss some of the new findings from our latest statewide study of Homelessness.

Twin Cities Compass will continue its launch. The Twin Cities region has long been known for offering a high quality of life. But will it remain so? How can we ensure that there will be opportunities for a good education, affordable housing, employment, and access to health care for everyone? How can we ensure we will stand out as a strong, competitive economic region? Twin Cities Compass will give everyone in the Twin Cities a common foundation to understand and act on community issues that affect our region. We invite your ideas and participation in this important initiative.

Visit our web site if you want details, or if you want to register for an event. Watch for other seminars and activities, as we proceed toward 2008, when we hope to develop, in our brand new building, a state-of-the-art facility for learning, discussion, and action on significant public issues.

In the next 12-24 months, we hope to to have "mini-conferences" on child care issues, the achievement gap, homelessness, early childhood mental health, and other topics. We particularly want to understand, raise awareness, and promote productive action regarding disparities in service access and effectiveness among Whites, African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, Africans, and other groups. We have several productions in the works with public television. We have begun planning a unique conference, for early 2008, on the economics of human service programs.

We will continue devoting efforts to the testing and development of "evidence based practices" - especially with a focus on underserved, urban populations including cultural groups whom mainstream research often misses. Interesting studies this year will include adoption innovations for older youth, strengthening the infrastructure of charter schools, and adult day health dementia. Several longitudinal studies - intended to provide a solid, long-term perspective on service effectiveness - will continue and/or offer results during 2007, including the First Steps Initiative, Project Early K, The Power of YOU, Destination 2010, and Cargill Scholars. Our Homeless Management Information System has now reached the point where we can establish some baseline measures to be used over time.

Well, that's just a portion of the anticipated activities. If you have suggestions or questions, please get in touch. If you want to collaborate with us, let us know that too.

Relax, celebrate the new year, watch college football, or do whatever you enjoy today. Then, let's keep on working, exploring, and acting on these issues tomorrow!

Happy New Year!