Putting Human Needs on the National Radar Screen
Check out this brief on messaging and collaborative action for nonprofit human service and community development organizations, from the National Human Services Assembly.
Click the link to see the full PDF.
Why This Report?
Human services and community development efforts build or rebuild the fabric of community, especially for individuals and families that are vulnerable and lack the mobility and opportunity of their better off neighbors. Yet, with states in fiscal crisis and the federal government cutting spending with potentially unprecedented severity, human service and community development programs across the country have been cut dramatically over the past few years and face far deeper, potentially devastating cuts. These programs are little known or understood by the general public and policy makers. They are often perceived as discretionary or as “charity” when, in fact, they are more about providing opportunities for citizens to become fully functioning and contributing members of society. And for our most vulnerable citizens—young children, the frail elderly, people with disabilities and fragile families—there are programs that provide engagement and protection.
Proposed cuts are so sweeping that they may leave millions in far more desperate conditions than the disadvantages they now experience.
Organizations and subsectors (e.g., youth, aging) are fighting for the programs needed by the people they serve as they always have, but times are different now. Proposed cuts are so sweeping that they threaten the infrastructure of community and may leave millions in far more desperate conditions than the disadvantages they now experience. Even as organizationsand advocates seek to sustain funding for particular programs, those in and supportive of our human development– community development system are called upon to begin the longer range process of raising awareness of the crisis and positing big-picture solutions.
The language we use in making the case for human services and community development is a part of the challenge, and this document, which is based on a scan of relevant literature (including neural research on how people build perceptions), suggests language as an important element of the solution. In the end, though, new shared language is one component of what could and should be unprecedented collaboration, which holds the greatest potential for producing changed perceptions of human services and community development.
Read the full report and guide at the link below.
