Environmental Nonprofits and NGOs

So this blog is really late however I thought better late then never:) The reason it took so long to write was because I was not jazzed up about environmental nonprofits and slightly over whelmed by the amount of reading that was posted for environmental nonprofits. Which was sizable according to my standards, which means a lot coming from an English major.

Once I talked to Sarah, my GTF and who is amazing, she encouraged me to at least watch "The Story of Stuff" videos. They are so amazing they break down environmental concepts and policies to a kindergartner lever, which I personally didn't mind considering my biggest challenge with following the environmental movement is all of the jargon they use. Plus the narrator is absolutely amazing she has just the right amount of spunk. I strongly suggest watching these videos before proceeding further because I will be referring to them often.So after I watching "The Story of Stuff" I was really pumped up about environmental nonprofits and the work they do. This led me to pour over the lecture slides to get the demographics of the sector.

There are 27,000 environmental nonprofits in the US. I was blown away by this number because the birth of the sector was in the 1960's. After watching the "Story of Stuff" this number seems to low. Why low? For starters the sector encompasses a wide range of topics from Wildlife to Smart Growth and everything in between. That every thing in between is interconnected. "Story of Stuff" just reinforced the need for more Environmental Nonprofits because at ever level of production there is pollution and environmental injustice being done against the planet and people.

In class we looked at this study by Hoffman that was done in 2009 that examined the interaction between environmental nonprofits and corporations. Hoffman categorized organization based on there ties with corporations. They were categorized as followed:

1. Isolates: Which maintain purity of mission by not interacting with corporations. I am all about purity of mission however they have little influence on corporate policy.
   
2. Mediators: They are central to the corporate network and talk to everybody. This allows them to influence more policy however it also can jeopardize there true mission.
   
3. Bridges: Are also central to corporations however they maintain few ties with other environmental nonprofits.
4. Independents: Don't like to mingle with corporations but are social butterflies in the environmental nonprofit world.
5. Captives: they don't mingle with corporations or other nonprofits.

These classifications were really interesting and also served as a pleasant distraction from Modernist Lit. trying to come up with examples of environmental nonprofits for each category. You should try it, its a brain tease!. Well at least it was for me. I would love to link to his research however I don't know the study name or Hoffman's first name. I will ask my professor or GTF soon and link to it or at least cite it.

The freedom in the US nonprofit sector has allowed environmental organizations to be slightly abrasive towards corporations and government. I didn't realize that this was such a good thing until Monday's class. Our guest lecture was by Renee Irvin from the 3PM Department. She was amazing she talked about her research in China on Nonprofits. First thing I learned from her lecture was that NGO's and Nonprofits are the same thing. I feel really stupid for not knowing this. My friend Evan, you should read his blog as well, was equally surprised. The second thing I learned was that China a really strict regulations like a the person has to have a large amount of start up money, they have to have an established member base, the government doesn't allow there to be multiple nonprofits with the same area even if there is demand for more. In addition to this the government can deny a nonprofit for no apparent reason. Nonprofits and the government works super close together. This is seems so wrong! What if you are an environmental NGO with a mission of improving air and water quality. This type of organization doesn't always see eye to eye and often times have a bad relationship.....


I know that I am leaving you hanging but more will come tomorrow! Have to go rock climbing at the gym.