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RE: The Personal is Political is Historical: An LOI

in #nonprofits7 years ago

Wonderful clarity and focus @gvgktang! You say the history

profession has lost touch with the original role of history as a catalyst for social change...

You urge support for communities to collect self-made testimonies and “seek connection and political relevance through activist and social service organizations.” I think others in the class (as well as at large) would agree.

The big question, however, is interest and capacity on the part of the potential orgs you select. How would you go about judging that in order to make awards?

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Great question! Based on our class readings, and especially Peter Dobrin's work on organizational capacity, I wanted to find groups that:

  1. had a stable financial history with a consistently well-managed, mid-size budget
  2. were not overly extended due to building or other capital commitments
  3. had at full-time, paid staff members
  4. had prior experience creating/running constituent-based projects within the communities they serve.

I used GuideStar for the financial research and the organizational websites for the programmatic portion. What do you think?

(Also, AAU is already interested in collecting community histories. I'm sure funding and collaboration could help them grow the project.)