If you are killed by the failure of a government project, you’re worth millions.  If you are killed by the failure of government policies, you’re worth nothing.

The policies set and the dollars spent by government, and the responsibility that is assigned to government failure, seem to be more dependent upon whether a group votes.    Historically minorities and poor do not vote heavily and therefore are marginalized.

Low income people and minorities seem to get the blunt of bad government policies.  Examples include the locating of polluting industries, high incidence of lead paint, distribution of firearms, lack of access to health care and the lack of resources. 

There are a number of nonprofit institutes whom have provided studies noting the problem.  However, I have rarely observed the same organizations providing direction to public policy makers of specific solutions.

Just because government has failed policies does not mean nonprofits should just blame the government.  Talk is cheap.  Creating partnerships to address unmet need takes effort and giving up some control.  So I challenge each organization that has a compliant about government policies to come up with a blueprint as part of their strategic plan on how they would resolve the issue. 

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 12:01 am and is filed under Program Development, Consulting, Proposal Development, Public Policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.