Good morning NASPA13 and #SAchat colleagues!
I work with students experiencing hunger, homelessness, food insecurity, and poverty. I love what I do because I enable low-income students in their ability to stay in school. You can check out my office at www.oregonstate.edu/hsrc
I wanted to share briefly my own story of situational poverty. I took a break from Student Affairs after completing my MA in Educational Leadership at Washington State University (Go Cougs!). I went to work at a wilderness therapy program for troubled teens. I enjoyed the work, and did it for several years, and even was promoted to the Field Director Team.
We were encouraged to take leaves of absence in the winter time because numbers went down. I took 3 months off to go to New Zealand, and while I was gone our corporate owner asked the question "if this person is taking this much time off, is she needed at all?" My position was eliminated just before I returned stateside. The program did not have any other positions for me until the summer, and because I had been on vacation I had used a lot of my savings.
I never imagined I would be unemployed.
I had been thinking about going back to Student Affairs for a couple of years, so I decided to start a job search. While I was doing that, I worked at a couple of nonprofit organizations in Moab, UT. I made very little money, and rent was hard to make every month. I was losing money before I even bought groceries.
I decided that the best move I could make financially was to move out of my place. I was in a relationship at the time, and we borrowed his parents' RV. A month or so later we broke up, and I moved into my car full time. I couch surfed, camped, and freelanced at the area wilderness programs. Eventually I went home to NY to stay a while with family.
All the while I was applying for jobs in Higher Ed. I interviewed over and over and over, but the market was tough, and I had been out of the field for a while. My friend sent me the PD for the position at Oregon State - Human Services Resource Center Coordinator - the position I now hold. I never imagined that having applied for food stamps or living in a car would be helpful to me in an interview! I started working at OSU in January 2011 - about one year from the time I lost my job.
I feel like I was the luckiest homeless person in the world. I might have been in situational poverty, but I had a nice car to live in, good credit, and a Masters degree. I KNEW I would be OK - just not when. I had the privilege of looking like someone who "belonged," and who could do things like network and interview within the dominant culture. I had a resume that would get my foot in the door, and I could write a mean cover letter. I had a family who could take me in. I had a best friend in my dog, who lived with me in the car.
We need to remember that anyone can be homeless, anyone can experience poverty, anyone can have a life shock. We also need to remember that our students can be experiencing poverty, hunger, and homelessness. Class and SES are not often talked about in our diversity and social justice dialogues. That needs to change. Poverty is cross-cutting, critical, and pervasive.
If you have interest, please email me at clare.cady@oregonstate.edu to learn more, and to join a mailing list for a new NASPA KC I want to start.
In service to students...
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
19.3.13
28.7.10
$1 million dollars...?
read this ny times article today about nonprofit salaries and how people in our government are withholding funding to one because the executive director is getting such a large salary. now i first read this with righteous indignation...how could someone working for a NONPROFIT make up to $1 million a year? moab is the mecca for nonprofits (more here per-capita than in the rest of the us), and i know for sure that no one is pulling in that kind of cash. this reaction is fueled by two of my own life filters, 1) no one needs to get paid $1 million a year for ANYTHING, and 2) its a nonprofit people, why on earth are they giving all that money to just one person?
but i did sit with it for a while and actually asked that last question i posed. in working for two different nonprofits of late, and doing support programming for many others, i am coming to realize that the term 'nonprofit' does not mean a bunch of beleaguered hippies in birkenstocks running around trying to fix people's lives. i already did kind of know that, but i live in the concrete places of life and it helps me to SEE it in action to get it. knowing that nonprofits are businesses, and understanding that it takes a freaking lot lot lot of hard work to run one, i began to piece together a much less biased view on the whole situation.
if you want to be the best you can be to serve the populations you choose to serve you need to be powerful, organized, connected, and efficient. these are important qualities for any organization be it nonprofit, for profit, sports team, church choir...you name it. if you are a national nonprofit with hundreds and hundreds of locations and thousands of employees, donors, and volunteers...if you get millions in government grants that you need to apply for, and if your business includes being connected to some of the most powerful people in the country to get what you want, do you want some neo-hippie fresh from the peace corps waltzing in at 10am with a goatee and a latte (ps i have nothing against hippies, peace corps, going to work at 10am, goatees, or lattes)? no. you want the best business person you can muster with all of the power, connections, fundraising experience, and executive skills possible.
if the private sector places the value of such an executive at millions a year, what is wrong with a nonprofit saying they are willing to pay $1 million for that person? if i am a ceo at some major corporation making millions why would i go to work for peanuts somewhere else? i know that you can say 'morals,' but consider deciding to take only one tenth or less of your salary to do the work you do. not so cool huh? yeah, i know that these people make way way waaaaayyy more that you or i probably do (and if not and you are reading this please help to fund this poor wayward blogger - i will provide an address to which you can send checks), but if the market for better or worse places a multimillion price tag on that kind of work, well i suppose that morals can lead a person to take $1 million instead of $10 million.
do we have to suffer for our morals? is it not possible for us to make a good, solid living and still help those in need? apparently the government does not think so, as they held up the funding for the boys and girls clubs over the executive's salary. though that is not the only place lawmakers have opted for this approach. the americorps vista program, aimed at eradicating poverty pays even less of the paltry sum they pay its non-vista volunteers in the name of having the participants live like the people they serve. when you look at it one way you could argue that perhaps lawmakers should live on the average salary of their constituents. then again, i imagine that like the nonprofit exec took a pay cut to go from private to nonprofit, the senator could make way more than a government salary if he or she opted to sell more than their morals and health care plans to the people.
but i digress. i do think that it is reasonable for a person who wants to help others to ask that he or she be well cared for whilst doing it. after all, if we are trying to fight poverty why would we require that the people who are choosing to work to end it live in it? it seems oxymoronic to me. not only that, but isn't an ally a person who is in the 'power up' position of some social dichotomy, yet opts to work on behalf of those who are in the 'power down' position? allies are important in enacting any kind of social change. it is just as important for whites to be against racism and heterosexuals to be against homophobia as it is for blacks and gays to fight for their rights. i do not in any way want to indicate that these groups can't create their own change, but just that it helps to have others in on the cause. and in the case of poverty, its really really hard to create a lot of change for yourself if you are working 60+ hours a week to make ends meet along with raising your kids. it takes money and energy to help out. nonprofits can get the money, and they need to use some of it to harness the energy necessary to enact change.
so though i still argue that no one needs $1 million a year for ANYTHING, i understand that i do not control the market value of things (oh if wishing made it so). so if a nonprofit needs $1 million to entice someone to come kick some ass and make things run well i say go to it. plus, if you want to place value on outcomes, don't you think $1 million is better spent on someone trying to help people in need rather than shareholders? perhaps this IS a better value than i thought...
but i did sit with it for a while and actually asked that last question i posed. in working for two different nonprofits of late, and doing support programming for many others, i am coming to realize that the term 'nonprofit' does not mean a bunch of beleaguered hippies in birkenstocks running around trying to fix people's lives. i already did kind of know that, but i live in the concrete places of life and it helps me to SEE it in action to get it. knowing that nonprofits are businesses, and understanding that it takes a freaking lot lot lot of hard work to run one, i began to piece together a much less biased view on the whole situation.
if you want to be the best you can be to serve the populations you choose to serve you need to be powerful, organized, connected, and efficient. these are important qualities for any organization be it nonprofit, for profit, sports team, church choir...you name it. if you are a national nonprofit with hundreds and hundreds of locations and thousands of employees, donors, and volunteers...if you get millions in government grants that you need to apply for, and if your business includes being connected to some of the most powerful people in the country to get what you want, do you want some neo-hippie fresh from the peace corps waltzing in at 10am with a goatee and a latte (ps i have nothing against hippies, peace corps, going to work at 10am, goatees, or lattes)? no. you want the best business person you can muster with all of the power, connections, fundraising experience, and executive skills possible.
if the private sector places the value of such an executive at millions a year, what is wrong with a nonprofit saying they are willing to pay $1 million for that person? if i am a ceo at some major corporation making millions why would i go to work for peanuts somewhere else? i know that you can say 'morals,' but consider deciding to take only one tenth or less of your salary to do the work you do. not so cool huh? yeah, i know that these people make way way waaaaayyy more that you or i probably do (and if not and you are reading this please help to fund this poor wayward blogger - i will provide an address to which you can send checks), but if the market for better or worse places a multimillion price tag on that kind of work, well i suppose that morals can lead a person to take $1 million instead of $10 million.
do we have to suffer for our morals? is it not possible for us to make a good, solid living and still help those in need? apparently the government does not think so, as they held up the funding for the boys and girls clubs over the executive's salary. though that is not the only place lawmakers have opted for this approach. the americorps vista program, aimed at eradicating poverty pays even less of the paltry sum they pay its non-vista volunteers in the name of having the participants live like the people they serve. when you look at it one way you could argue that perhaps lawmakers should live on the average salary of their constituents. then again, i imagine that like the nonprofit exec took a pay cut to go from private to nonprofit, the senator could make way more than a government salary if he or she opted to sell more than their morals and health care plans to the people.
but i digress. i do think that it is reasonable for a person who wants to help others to ask that he or she be well cared for whilst doing it. after all, if we are trying to fight poverty why would we require that the people who are choosing to work to end it live in it? it seems oxymoronic to me. not only that, but isn't an ally a person who is in the 'power up' position of some social dichotomy, yet opts to work on behalf of those who are in the 'power down' position? allies are important in enacting any kind of social change. it is just as important for whites to be against racism and heterosexuals to be against homophobia as it is for blacks and gays to fight for their rights. i do not in any way want to indicate that these groups can't create their own change, but just that it helps to have others in on the cause. and in the case of poverty, its really really hard to create a lot of change for yourself if you are working 60+ hours a week to make ends meet along with raising your kids. it takes money and energy to help out. nonprofits can get the money, and they need to use some of it to harness the energy necessary to enact change.
so though i still argue that no one needs $1 million a year for ANYTHING, i understand that i do not control the market value of things (oh if wishing made it so). so if a nonprofit needs $1 million to entice someone to come kick some ass and make things run well i say go to it. plus, if you want to place value on outcomes, don't you think $1 million is better spent on someone trying to help people in need rather than shareholders? perhaps this IS a better value than i thought...
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