Book Review: The Non Non-profit by Steve Rothschild

Steve Rothschild has written an exceptionally perceptive, well researched, and highly relevant analysis of what makes non-profit entities work and, conversely, what causes others to fail. He humbly talks not just about his own enormous success at creating and building a major jobs training program for his practically untrainable clientele, but he also illustrates all of his early failures so no one else need make the same mistakes in their own programs. Rothschild is a true visionary, but unlike most visionaries I know, he has the street-smart savvy and organizational skills that are essential to bring one's visions to life. The book contains a clear step-by-step recipe for success for all non-profit organizations, easy to understand and easy to implement. The book should serve as the single most important resource for anyone involved in any leadership role in any non-profit organization. To me it would be gross negligence to occupy such a position and not read this important book.

Welfare Spending: Are State Restrictions Really the Answer?

USA Today recently carried an article detailing many states’ efforts to curtail how welfare recipients spend their welfare payments. In many states, welfare recipients will no longer be allowed to use their stipends on liquor, gambling, cigarettes, strip clubs, and guns. Apparently it's been decided that these listed indiscretions should only be allowed to those few people who can truly afford to waste their money doing them. (Although it comes as no surprise that those who can afford to do so generally do not). This is the case despite the fact that the same legislators, who are now creating an economic bar to certain specified sins, have long ago declared all these sins to be perfectly legal. Indeed, I presume that many, perhaps most, of the members of the enabling legislatures probably engage in many of these activities themselves. So I guess it’s ok to sin, as long as you do it with money you have earned.

But who gets to choose which uses of welfare benefits are acceptable and which must be outlawed?