A friend got me curious about the effects of nonprofits on cultures/movements, so I've started researching them.
According to this essay, Cesar Chavez was turned away from a mission of self-determination, mutual-aid institutions, and cooperative work/living for farmworkers when he started a nonprofit and was redirected by private donors to support mere unionization.
Are we the oak tree or are we the mistletoe? Do we want to feed off of a strong and solid industry, like the mistletoe that grows on the oak? Do we want to set our limits around negotiating contracts? Or do we want to build a self-sustaining movement through our own institutions?
As Scroogey points out
So I'd like to collect more case studies like this. Got any pointers?
Movement capture mentions NAACP.
Non-paywalled version for anyone interested https://archive.is/msYRC
Also, don't know if you heard, but Cesar Chavez is in the news this week for sexual abuse allegations.
Cesar Chavez news is blowing up in Central California.
IMO the reaction feels overwrought. So he was an asshole. Tons of historical figures are assholes. Did you support his cause or did you worship the man? Why are you genuflecting over this?
I've gotten multiple hyperreactive emails from the California Faculty Association about this, all with overwrought emotional language. I just roll my eyes.
You really asking this. We know why. This is what public figures and the public do now.
The question is, do we learn to NOT lionize leaders? Will we learn that putting men on pedistals enables this kind of behavior. It's a pattern that is so obvious it doesn't feel worthy of attention.
Fair. I'm just annoyed because I got like 3 emails about this over the past 2 days, from the CFA, from the President of the CSU System, bla bla. All acting so shocked. I want to send them this meme
Oh I can only imagine the pearl clutching. One of their darlings was a monster. Shocker. And those orgs live on virtue signaling.
The bad thing about this is that it all shows that exposing monsters does hurt a movement. After all, that's why so many don't expose this sort of stuff when Christian leaders are the monsters. Or the civil religion has a lion that eats the cubs.
Nonprofits strike again!
Maybe off topic, but a friend of mine who went to work for a DC nonprofit quickly became disillusioned. She said that peoples' behavior at nonprofits is worse than elsewhere, because they tend to see themselves on a righteous mission, which they use as an excuse to justify their bad behavior in other areas.
What specifically are you looking for examples of? Mission realignment due to donor preferences?
nonprofits (in)advertently neutering/distorting movements/revolutions