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June 25, 2009

National Conference on Volunteering and Service
Goodbye, "Nonprofit Sector." Hello, "Delta Sector."

Many people dislike the word “nonprofit” — after all, why should groups describe themselves by what they are not? But coming up with an alternative is a challenge.

Robert K. Ross, president of the California Endowment, a health foundation in Los Angeles, says he’s got just the word: “delta,” the Greek letter that signifies change. So, no more talk about the “nonprofit sector,” he said at the closing session of the National Conference on Volunteering and Service.

It’s now the “delta sector.”

“We need to be more intentionally about change and transformation,” he said. “Business as usual is leaving too many families broken and too many families and folks with hopelessness and despair.”

Mr. Ross’s suggestion quickly caught on during the panel discussion. “Where would you like to see social innovation in the delta sector at the end of two Obama terms?” David Gergen, a political commentator and professor of public service at Harvard Kennedy School, the panel moderator, asked Sonal Shah, head of the new White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation.

Ms. Shah’s response: “We would be integrated into every discussion that takes place with every cabinet secretary. In every discussion [people would ask], ‘What’s the delta sector doing?’”

With White House endorsement of the new name, should we consider it official?

— Suzanne Perry

Thursday June 25, 2009 | Permalink

Comments

1. Um…

   Two things come to mind immediately:

   A violent video game— http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xwcgb_the-delta-sector-trailer_videogames

   And Star Trek: Voyager—http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Delta_Quadrant

   — Andrew    Jun 25, 12:50 AM    #

2. That’s Greek to me. I sympathize with the problem of defining yourself by what you’re not, but why not just call it the change sector?

   — Kurt    Jun 25, 09:58 AM    #

3. It has been fun to watch the drumbeat get louder for this change, as we have advocated it for several years. http://is.gd/eSwG

   Our own choice of words has been Community Benefit Sector, for several reasons.

   First, it is affirmative, stating succinctly what we are about – creating benefit in communities (even if that ‘community’ is defined as a huge region). Secondly, it is plain English – no one can say “Huh?” about what the words mean.

   We have toyed with using “Social Benefit Sector,” but to be honest, we find it sounds sort of jargony and doesn’t have the direct impact of the words “Community Benefit.” The words “Community Benefit” evoke a picture. Every board member can ask, for every decision, “Will this benefit the community?”

   Regardless of where this settles, it must be a phrase that is affirming and powerful, as well as immediately identifiable and understandable. The last thing this sector needs is more jargon and cute stuff.

   Hildy Gottlieb
   Author – The Pollyanna Principles: Reinventing “Nonprofit Organizations” to Create the Future of Our World

   — Hildy Gottlieb    Jun 25, 02:13 PM    #

4. Problem is whatever it is changed to, we’ll go around for years saying “the sector formerly known as nonprofit.”

   — Bruce Trachtenberg    Jun 25, 02:21 PM    #

5. I second Hildy in the notion that “huh?” is never a good first response to your name.
   My problem with “Community Benefit Sector” is that the initials CBS represent something very specific for people of a certain age, like moi.
   I worked for a CBS radio affiliate and a CBS television affiliate. So there’s no way I’ll reprogram those synapses.
   Another suggestion, please!

   — Ruth Ann Harnisch    Jun 25, 02:26 PM    #

6. In the scholarly literature, the field is known variously as civil society, the public sphere, and the third sector, suggesting a kind of middle ground between public and private, between government and the free market. I realize that these terms encompass more than just nonprofit organizations (including as they do families, churches, informal groups, voluntary associations, etc.) but they get closer, I think, to the real sphere of activity that where talking about here. And they serve our needs much better than the “delta sector,” which is meaningless to the uninitiated. Or even “community benefit sector,” which doesn’t accurately describe the work of many organizations that are not community service-oriented so much as advocacy-driven, faith-based or politically-motivated, and which also has unhelpful do-gooder connotations. I prefer simply “the civic sector.”

   — Scott London    Jun 25, 03:13 PM    #

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