Good afternoon. Welcome to the Bloomington Rotary Club's weekly celebration of service. I'm Steve Wicks.
I'm honored to serve as president this year, having a couple of technical challenges this morning. I
understand the speakers, it's louder on this side and softer on that side. So we'll try to make the
best of it. Please silence your electronic devices. On this day in history, February 3rd, 1887,
The U.S. Congress created the Electoral Count Act, which added to the procedures set out in the U.S.
Constitution for the counting of electoral votes after a presidential election. This act was substantially
amended by the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022, and elections
and vote counting is in the news again this week.
Jim Sands is online today and he will deliver today's reflection. Okay, thank you, President Wix. Can
everyone hear me okay? Thank you. As you know, I would much prefer to be there in person with you all.
But on last week, I had another foot surgery, so I am in recovery in a surgery boot and happy to join
you all online.
So my reflection today, obviously what I just said, today's reflection has nothing to do with me, but
the title of the day's reflection is The History of Black History Month. Dr. Carter G. Woodson, known
as the father of Black History Month, was born in 1875 and he passed in 1950. His education included
undergrad work at Berea College,
Masters at University of Chicago, and he earned a PhD from Harvard University. He was just the second
African American to earn a PhD at Harvard after W.E.B. Du Bois. In September 1915, Dr. Woodson and five
other African American scholars founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. The
Association's mission institutionalized the teaching,
the study, the dissemination and commemoration of Black history. In 1925, the Association for the African
American Life and History created by Dr. Woodson had the first Black history week began in 1926. And
there's been 100 years of celebration since that first one. There has always been a Black history theme
with each year,
And this year, the theme focuses on the transformative impact of commemorating Black life and history,
acknowledging its role in shaping American identity and challenging systemic injustices, while also
highlighting the ongoing work to integrate Black history into the national narrative. On February 10,
1976, and this was during the U.S. Bicentennial,
President Gerald R. Ford became the first president to issue a message recognizing Black History Week.
Then in 1986, Congress passed public law 99-244, designating February as Black History Month.
Now this year, we also commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States independence.
I feel it is vitally important to tell not only an inclusive history, but an accurate one. As many of
you know, there is a national societal push to alter or eliminate elements of Black history, often by
legislative means such as banning books, excising Black history programs through executive orders from
our schools and our public culture.
This includes the elimination of diversity, equity, and inclusive policies and programs. Black history's
value, which is also American history, I might add, is not only its factual contribution to mainstream
historical narratives, but its resonance in the lives of Black people and its relevance to all people.
Thank you very much for listening to me this afternoon.
Thank you, Jim. We need to record and be aware of all our history so we can celebrate things we're happy
about and learn from things that we're not happy about. Lynn Schwartzberg will introduce our guests
today. Well, I shouldn't have had that last bite of chicken.
I am welcoming one guest in person today, and that is Junya Jubburi, a guest of heart. Well, Mick, if
you would please rise so we can greet you properly and celebrate you being here. Do we have any guests
on Zoom today? As far as I know, we have no guests on Zoom, all Rotarians.
Wonderful. If you have any questions or interest in learning more about Rotary, please feel free to
speak with someone at your table. Thank you. Thank you, Lynn. With several birthdays to celebrate this
week, Tim Riffle on the 5th, Peyton Flynn on the 6th, and Bill Murphy on the 7th. Rotary anniversaries,
Martha Foster, 16 years on the 5th,
Also on the fifth, her husband, past president Aaron Davis, 13 years. On the seventh, a number of people
who all joined on the same day three years ago. Lexi Walters, Dakir Abdullah, Dee De La Rosa,
Henry Leck, all three years. It was a big day for the club. And finally, on the ninth, Jeff McKim celebrates
16 years with Rotary.
Announcements. Happy dollar proceeds from the months of January and February will be given to Teachers
Warehouse. I want to thank our President-elect Sam Udak who covered for me the last two weeks. One planned
and one kind of last minute. The Rotary Book Club. Please plan to join them following the regular celebration
of service on Tuesday, February 17th at 1 p.m. and they'll have a brief meetup to field questions that
Rotarians might have about the group and then also determining the next book and the date. So if you're
interested in the Rotary Book Club and you have any questions, please plan to show up that meeting in
a couple of weeks. The Rotary District Conference registration is now open. District Conference is scheduled
for May 8th and 9th at the Gold House in Louisville. We'll be joining with a district from Kentucky
and a district from Tennessee.
I think there are lots of fun things planned for Friday night and then a full day of work stuff on Saturday.
You can learn more and register at rotaryallstars.com and hopefully the link will be in the roundabout
this week. Chamber of Commerce business after hours. It's on the 18th and unfortunately it's full. It's
being held at the Posh Hotel and I think that was very popular.
But Chris M.G. is sitting in the back there, says that if you want to email him, he can get you in.
So if you're interested, it helps to know someone, email Chris and he'll get you included. And now we
have a celebration of service. And this week I want to recognize
Okay, the All Indiana Rotary Global Grant Scholarship. This is a $40,000 one-year scholarship that was
announced in the last week. And we have two club members who are heavily involved in this process, Jim
Bright and Jeff Richardson. And the money comes from the Rotary Foundation. And that money comes from
Rotarians. In our case, we have 66 club members who contribute to the Rotary Foundation.
through the every Rotarian every year. We have a handful of other club members who donate to the Rotary
Foundation through other means. And last year, our club members donated over 24,000 to the Rotary Foundation.
And this year, seven months to date, our club members have donated almost 15,000. So we have a very
generous club and that money goes to lots of different things, including
a one-year $40,000 scholarship. And here's a picture of this year's winner, Christian Gray. He's a native
in Indianapolis. He's a graduate of Wabash College, been volunteering at the Martin Luther King Center
in Indianapolis. And he plans to use his $40,000 to study in Amsterdam for a year. We did have a candidate
that our club endorsed. Unfortunately, she didn't
get it, but Christian appears to be a very qualified candidate, and I think he'll represent Rotary well.
So congratulations to Christian Gray, and congratulations to all of you who support the Rotary Foundation.
Rotary International, I've shown this slide before, the seven areas of focus. And February is Peace
Building and Conflict Prevention Month.
I had a three minute video to show. We're running a little bit behind schedule because the late start.
So I'll show that next week. And I want to pivot to the Rotary Toast 2026. So we just finished the 2025
toast and we need help. So it's been scheduled for November 6th and it's the most important single event
for all three Bloomington Rotary Clubs.
We raised almost $45,000 in 2025. Our club member Tracy Ivanovich led the effort last year. Brian Hain
from the North Club is leading this year. And he's looking for planners, doers, leaders, helpers, would
like to have more Rotarians involved. We want to have a deeper bench. Some of the people who have been
involved for many years are getting ready to rotate off.
Areas of need include selling tables, public relations, technical support, decorating, website design,
meal planning, more. This year's recipient has been selected. It's not been announced. They're still
working on the recipient's charity. But I think when the recipient is announced, it will be seen as
a very positive choice. So if you're interested in serving, you want to learn more, contact Ron Barnes
over there or me.
Okay, membership, little bit of a change on the Mystery Rotarian. We're going to have a quiz today.
So those of you in the room, raise your hands. And those of you online, raise your hands electronically.
So the quiz is, one of these Rotarians is not a published author. And your choices are Natalie Blaze,
Jim Capshaw, Aaron Davis, or me.
So if you think that Natalie is not the published author, raise your hand. Okay, I see one or two. Okay.
If you think Jim Capshaw is not the published author, raise your hand. All right. How about Aaron Davis?
Do you think Erin is not the published author? Raise your hand. Uh-oh. If you think I am not a published
author. Oh gosh. Well, Natalie Blase before her rotary days wrote a fantasy trilogy called the Prey
of Rain trilogy. And here's a picture of Natalie on her last day with the club.
Jim Capshaw, we heard from him a couple of months ago. He's written a lot of things, most recently,
Making Indiana University, History, Landscape, and a Sense of Place. Aaron Davis, past president of
the club, and he wrote two or three years ago a book, Exposing Systems of Anti-Jewishness. And finally,
Your Overwhelming and Correct Choice,
I have not written anything that's been published. I can read and I can write. Oh, but Tim, what's your
comment? Your son-in-law is an author. Yes, I do have a son-in-law who's about to publish his second
book. So thankfully, we have inherited an author into the family. So anyway, good job. I didn't expect
that you would do so well on this. But here after seven months as president, I feel like you're getting
to know me.
I said this once before, once again, Happy Dollar proceeds in January and February will be given to
Teachers' Warehouse. And now we have time for Happy Dollars. Is anyone happy today? Oh, we have two.
Hank is going in your direction. Sorry. Oh, hi, it's both of us. Yes. Well, go ahead and you can start.
Amy Osojima and I.
Saligaskill are happy because we have a concert this weekend. It was originally on the, uh, snowpocalypse
day of January 25th. It has been changed to February 8th, Sunday, three and five o'clock. This is Boches
Novae, the wonderful choir that we sing in. And we're seeing a program about space and Gus Grissom,
Gus Grissom native of Mitchell, Indiana, who perished in the Apollo one fire.
Um, it's a really interesting program. If you've never been to a vote just night concert, they just
said they're the best at the UU church. It's free. And it's less than an hour. I'm happy ish. Um, on
that date, because of the stove.
Hopple, Snow, whatever that thing is called. I can't talk. I am going to the Václav Snové concert,
but I will have to miss the Bach Cantata project, which is Cantata number 63 at 2.30, also free at St.
Thomas. A great experience. If you have never been to one of the live Bach Cantata concerts in Bloomington,
it is not to be missed. Women are also playing basketball that day. So one for each activity I'm going
to try to squeeze in.
Anyone else happy today? Is there anyone happy because they got a really good parking space out front?
I'm happy and I feel blessed because I was able to attend the game in person on the third row. That'll
never happen again, but that was wonderful. That's it.
We had a hard time hearing you over here. Was it that Steve attended the national championship game?
Was that it? He said the game. So I said the game. So that sounds like the game. I'm happy that my friend
Don was able to join us today. With anyone happy online? Leslie?
Sorry, I was shaking my head. No, we do not have any online. Okay, thank you very much. We're so happy
though. Thank you, Hank. Okay, Michael Schirmus is traveling today and he is the one who arranged for
today's speaker. And he's gotten out to California and he's discovered that he does not have a reliable
internet connection.
So evidently, the tech structure in California for these things probably not as advanced as Indiana.
So anyway, I will happily introduce today's speaker. Dr. Brad Fulton is an associate professor of management,
data science, and philanthropy at Indiana University. His research draws on organizational theory and
network analysis to examine the social, political, and economic impact
of philanthropic foundations and community-based organizations. Fulton co-leads the Observing Civic
Engagement Lab, which uses an innovative data collections technique known as systematic societal observation
to analyze the internal dynamics of community organizations. He also leads the Philanthropy Lab, which
is analyzing IRS Form 990 data
on 250,000 foundations, 1 million nonprofits, and 10 million grants to construct a foundation grantee
network of the entire U.S. nonprofit sector. Fulton's collaborators include the Federal Reserve Bank,
AmeriCorps, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He's also served as a fellow with the
Aspen Institute
an academic research partner for Giving Tuesday, and an academic ambassador for Tableau. Welcome, Dr. Fulton.
So thank you for that introduction. The word philanthropy is a tongue twister, so Steve did a great
job with that. And I'm super excited to be here, because you all embody what my research captures. And
I'm going to kind of walk you through an overview of what we do at the Observing Civic Engagement Lab,
and sort of how the implications it is for groups like Rotary, not only here in Bloomington, but around
the country, and how that relates to civic engagement.
And okay. So you can. And do I use this microphone or either one. Let's stick with that one. Okay. I'll
cut this one. Perfect. Let's see.
Okay, perfect. That works. Well, this is great. First of all, your tech person, I forget his name, but
Tyler is incredible. It's not just with my stuff, but like even having Hank walk around with the phone
to give videos so that the people on Zoom can see who's giving the happy dollar. Very impressive and
seamless. So, okay, there we go. So we're gonna be talking about civic engagement, something that's
very common to you all. And I wanna look at it from a researcher's point of view.
perspective, and how do you actually measure and analyze civic engagement and assess the quality of
civic engagement. And so as a definition, civic engagement is how people with community in and with
through civil society organizations. So it's people coming together through civil society organizations.
Now, when I ask students, what is a civil society organization,
They actually don't really know, even though they're a part of a civil society organization. So what
are civil society organizations? I'll kind of walk you through. They are formal organizations whose
participants voluntarily assemble to pursue common purposes. They're also known as voluntary associations,
civic associations, or membership-based organizations.
They include hobby groups, business associations, religious congregations, advocacy groups, clubs,
and more. So here's an example of different civil society organizations. So what's fascinating to me
is that this is a unique, something that's unique and distinct to the US in terms of its scale and variety
and scope. Alexis de Tocqueville,
was a French scholar who traveled to the US in the early 1800s because he was curious about this experiment
that was going on, this democracy. And he's like, how does a democracy work? And so he came in as an
outsider to observe the United States and how its society is structured. And his key takeaway was the
reason why democracy actually succeeds and thrives in the US is because of
these civil society organizations, these voluntary associations, which are different from work and different
from home. They're the third space where people come together and connect with one another and build
up the structure of a democratic society. And since then, there's been several books written on the
topic of civil society and democratic civic engagement. These are just a few of them.
And then one of the things that scholars have always been interested in is, so what happens inside of
these civil society organizations that actually foster democratic civic engagement? Like what actually
goes on? We know about all these different groups, but what goes on? So historically or typically, you
have a researcher who is probably a quantitative social scientist. And what he does is he finds
bunch of different people who are involved in civil society organizations, and he gives them a survey.
And he says, hey, can you fill out this survey and tell us about the groups that you're involved with
and what you do? How long have you been a member? And all the different things like that. And the problem
with that is you get a lot of information that's very broad, but not very deep.
So you get baseline quantitative data, like how many civil society organizations are out there, how
many ones are people involved in, how long have they been involved. The other approach that you could
take is you pick one organization, let's say like the Rule of Way Club here in Bloomington, and you
have an ethnographer, someone who actually commits to observing this one organization for an entire
year, comes to all of your events,
of your meetings, the board meetings, the events, and just takes detailed, detailed information about
your organization. And it's incredibly rich in deep information. However, it only lets you know about
that one organization. And so you're like, you don't know if that's something that's generalizable to
all civil society organizations or if it's something that's peculiar to this one.
And so what we came up with was what's called like a middle range approach. It takes some of the advantages
of survey research and some of the advantages of ethnographies and binds them together. And the way
it works is we send people throughout the community to different events, convenings is what we call them.
to observe what goes on inside of these civil society organizations. And we do it at scale. Our goal
each year is to observe about 1,000 convenings. So it's much different than one ethnographer for one
year observing one organization. And it's also much richer data because we're actually in the room when
things are happening. I'm going to walk you through what we actually collect data on when we're observing
a convening.
Because the approach we use is called systematic social observation. And we apply it to civil society
organizations. And this is a study that's an approach that's been used in other contexts. Probably one
of the more famous ones is where they did systematic social observation of police officers on their
beat. And so these observers would go and ride along with police officers
and document what goes on in the daily routine of a police officer, like how many different people do
they encounter? What is the types of encounters like? What is the demographic profiles of the people
that they're encountering? What are the outcomes of the encounter? So all these different things. So
it's been done in different contexts, but no one had ever thought to do it in the context of a civil
society organizations. And so we said, okay, let's do this for CSOs.
And so the way it works is we compiled this basically sheet or survey that has over a thousand variables
that looks at all the different things that might occur within a CSO convening. And so everything from
like, what time does the meeting start? Did it start on time?
Is there technology used? Or is the meeting in person, or is it virtual, or is it hybrid? Were there
any decisions made? So we list through all the different possible things, and even who shows up at the
meeting. Where do the age ranges of the people in attendance? What is the...
gender distribution, what is the racial composition, so all of the different characteristics, so a thousand
different ways you could measure and assess a convening. We have that in our tablet CD form, and we
put it on an iPad. So in a sense, if someone was gonna observe this CSO convening, they'd be sitting
in the back of the room, you would actually forget that they were there, and they would just be
tabulating everything that's going on. So they come 10 minutes before it starts and they stay through
the entire meeting and they document every single thing that goes on. And so we have these modules and
I'm gonna kind of walk you through. So what type of convening is it? Is it a business? Is it a fundraising
event? Is it a protest? What type of convening is it? What's the space that they're meeting in? Is it
a theater?
Is it a church sanctuary? Is it the basement of someone's home? What is the space like? Are there tables?
Are there chairs? Are they movable? Are they not? Is it conducive for the size of the group that's there?
So we just go through every single mini-grid and type of thing that could occur within a convening.
Times and participants, again,
What was the scheduled time? And did it actually start on time? Did it end on time? What time did the
first person show up at the convening? We talk about procedures and norms. Is it a formal meeting? Like,
do they have Robert's Rules of Orders when they're going through the agenda? Or do they have no agenda?
What is the, you know, the formats and stuff? Activities, you know, some would be, is there any singing?
Is there any clapping or laughter or games that are played? So the whole litany in thinking about this,
all the different types of civil society organizations that are out there and all the possible things
that could go on. Also, is there organizing? Like, are you organizing in sort of four,
taking the initiative with some sort of agenda or event that you're wanting to pull off? Are you mobilizing
people? Is the event one that's going to be mobilizing people to take action? Do you talk about public
sphere issues, like things outside of the purview of Rotary, but more in the broader public world? Do
you make decisions? All the different types of decisions, everything from the mundane to who's going
to order the food next week to should we
Should we split off into two different groups or something like that? Planning and strategizing leaders,
who leads the group? Is it paid staff? Is it volunteers? Social boundaries. Some groups are more exclusive
and they say that this group is only for men. No women are allowed. Other groups are highly inclusive
and they actively sort of recruit people who aren't normally coming to the meeting to come. Action types
and style.
put together this huge sort of survey to begin to observe and analyze civil society organizations. Now,
as researchers, in order to actually implement a research project, we need funding. Thankfully, AmeriCorps,
which is really committed to civil society and civic engagement in bolstering communities, said, hey,
this is exactly what we're looking for.
We fund a lot of community initiatives throughout the country, but we have no way of really measuring
and assessing the effectiveness in terms of civic engagement and building leaders. And it'd be great
if you guys could develop this and implement it so that we can use it to assess the effectiveness of
AmeriCorps. So they gave us funding and we were able to start the Observing Civic Engagement Lab, and
we were able to hire
a bunch of research assistants, all students from IU, who, because in order to pull this off, you not
only need a good survey collection or data collection tool, but you need people to collect the data.
So this is just a few of them. Right now we have 50 RAs who are working with us, observing organizations
throughout Bloomington. And so the first city that we did was Bloomington. And the number of civil society
organizations in Bloomington, they have it on here, is,
Let's see. So there's over 600 civil society organizations in Bloomington. We are currently observing
60 of them. So any meeting that they have, we will send an RA out to that convening and they'll sit
in the back of the room and document all the different things. So there's everything from small little
neighborhood association gatherings to the outrun Hoosiers event.
because that's a civil society organization. And so that, you know, their big event is the run,
the race. And so there'll be, you know, over a thousand people there. And so, yeah, it says 30 research
insistence. Now we're up to 50. So by the end of year three, we expect to have data from more than 3000
convenience. So again, what we're doing,
for the past couple years is collecting this data. And just to give you a snapshot of the variety of
convenings and organizations that we observe, it's across the board in terms of like groups like Habitat
for Humanity, the Coin Club, the, well,
There's several of them that we're observing. And so this was so successful in terms of, so what we
do with each of the organizations that participates, we give them a quarterly report saying, hey, here's
the data that we've collected on your organization. Here's the things that we've observed in terms of
who's showing up, what's the trends for your organization, and how does it compare to other organizations
in Bloomington?
And so a lot of times, the organizations are very interested in their own internal dynamics. Even though
they're members of their organization, they haven't really stepped back to assess, well, how effective
are we at doing this or that? Or how much diversity is in our organization? Or how good are we at making
and implementing decisions that we make? And so this was so successful that
A year ago, an entity called the Trust for Civic Life, which is a group of foundations around the US
who have committed to bolstering civic life in rural communities, came to us and said, hey, we are funding
a bunch of communities, 100 rural communities throughout the US, giving them money to sort of build
up their civic infrastructure. And they said, we have no way of assessing how effective we are at bolstering
civic life, like in a granular way.
what are these groups doing? So they say, could you take this method that you've developed and deploy
people to other places around the country? And so we started three new sites, Dubuque, Iowa, Adirondacks,
New York, and Kootenai County, Idaho. And so we basically implemented everything that we're doing here
in Bloomington in these three new locations. And so it's kind of an overview
of what we're doing with the OSS lab or observing civic engagement lab. But I'd love to hear kind of
any questions that you have or ways in which this could be applied to Rotary or other organizations
that you're connected with. Okay, I think Hank has the microphone or how should we do this?
Okay, yep. Hi, so we actually participated in the Observing Civic Engagement Lab. It was the Bloomington
Rotary Foundation, which is our 501-CT philanthropic arm, which I always thought was kind of odd that
it wasn't the Bloomington Rotary Club. Now, the Foundation Board meets four times a year. Bloomington
Rotary Club meets 50 times a year. Do you have any thoughts about that? Well,
Yeah. Yeah. So it's voluntary. So, um, I guarantee you someone from our lab has probably reached out
and asked, Hey, would you like to be observed? And now sometimes it takes a whole board to decide and
say, yes, we were open to being observed. Um, we would, I mean, we would love to observe you guys.
You did. You observed the Bloomington rotary foundation.
But not but this is a separate end which is a subset of the club. Yeah. Oh interesting. It's a 1c3.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah a 501 c4. Yeah, so we actually treat every organization independently Yeah, and so
we observe this organization. Okay, definitely and and yes, you reached out to us. Okay, why we did
it I believe teachers warehouse is one of your
Yes, yes. And they come in each Saturday and participate with us. However, I've been a little bit concerned
because they stay in one room and we have seven rooms that volunteers are working in. Yes. Doing all
kinds of different
So how do you implement that or do you? Yeah, so that's a great. That's a great example. So the teachers
warehouse is this incredible resource in Bloomington that has a lot of traffic. OK, it's full of ice
club. That's good. And so the challenges with organizations that have I'll say multi sites or multi
rooms is we typically have one observer. Her site that we go to and so this happens with
religious congregations as well, like they break up into different Sunday school rooms and stuff like
that. So we're only able to capture, I'll say the core of what goes on and recognize that even when
we have someone in the room, we're still missing some things. Ideally in those situations, we would
actually send two or more people, but then that just becomes logistically challenging and a little bit
more expensive. But that's a great point.
I want to know what you're finding out. What are the key, what are the key success factors? Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. So, um, big things, which I find really fascinating is we track, um, every decision event that
occurs within a convening. So a decision event could be something very mundane and very significant.
And when we look at the decision events, we say, okay, who initiated the need to make a decision?
And then once it was initiated, how many people contributed to the debate or discussion about the decision?
And then when they finally made the decision, was it a unilateral decision? Was it a vote? Was it an
anonymous vote? How do they actually decide? And then because we view these groups over time,
we can see, okay, did they come up with a plan to implement that decision? And then have they implemented
the decision. And what we find is, on one level, a lot of decisions are made, a lot of them are mundane.
And then the more significant ones, surprisingly, they make the decision, but in the time of making
the decision, they don't come up with a plan to implement. And so then as over time, we realize, okay,
a decision was made at time point one, but it was never actually implemented, partly because they didn't
have a plan to implement.
Another one, and this will seem very strange, or not strange, but just distinct, we measure how much
hugging goes on. Like do the participants hug each other? Like when they see each other, when they greet,
or is there no sort of physical connection in that way? Is there laughter? Is there crying? And so what
we're trying to get at is sort of the
the culture or the tone of the group in terms of its connectedness and cohesion. So even like, I mean,
another fascinating thing that I've seen is that a convening can be very demographically diverse. So
let's say like gender diverse, like a good even mix of men and women. But we not only tabulate that,
we say, okay, how much cross gender interaction occurs? So a group could be very gender diverse, but
all the men are sitting at one table and all the women are sitting at another table and there's not
much interaction. So what we're trying to do is just look at the internal dynamics across the board
that affect the health and the vibrancy of an organization. Yes, very impressive what you do. I'm just
curious from a researcher standpoint, how do you treat the data? Obviously you share it with the group
or organization, however,
Uh, outside of that, uh, is, is there, um, an agreement understanding that that's remain confidential
only with that group or, uh, cause I'm just kind of curious that outside entities might try to use this
information for nefarious purposes. Yeah. So, yeah. And that's a great point. That's something we've
thought through a lot. So one key critical thing is even though we're observing like I can be like this,
We never take down anyone's name, so there's no identifying information. We will write down things that
are said or whatever, but we won't. There's nothing that would identify any individual member in the
group. Also, we do not publicize that your group is part of the study unless you say you're okay with
us, you know, so like.
Habitat for Humanity, we've asked them, hey, is it okay if we let the public know that you're part of
this study? And if they say yes, then we will let, you know, because people would want to know what
groups are part, and we only disclose the ones who have said, yes, you're allowed to share that with
us. So with the data, you know, this is IRB-based research, and since Institutional Review Board, so
like any other type of academic research, there's a lot of protocols
for ensuring confidentiality and privacy. And so we maintain all of that. How do you determine if an
organization is really civil? Well, there that aren't. Yes, we are very inclusive. And so what we've
found, I mean, this is just really fascinating, especially as we expanded to new cities, we actually
want to collect data on
all types of organizations because they're part of society and we want to know what goes on inside these
organizations and what makes them attractive, what makes them repulsive, what makes them successful,
what makes them ineffective. So we really, if you're a voluntary association, we would love to observe
your activities. Thank you, Brad. Excellent. I've read many of the things that you've showed
earlier, and for lots of reasons, I've been interested in this. And it was only about, I got late to
the party of the work of Theda Schofield. Schofield. Schofield. Scottsville. Sorry. Scottsville. And
it's related, so a double question. If I understand part of her argument, we've been moving, especially
in voluntary associations, more and more away from membership toward management.
top-down decisions. Related to that, an observation that may or not be right, as I participated in voluntary
groups, associations, I find less and less familiarity with how to make decisions, how to set an agenda,
how to make a motion, how to amend a motion, how to vote properly.
way out of line. Either I'd be interested in your comment on either either of those things. Yeah, so
definitely. It's civil society has become, I guess, formalized or what they would say is, you have national
organizations that sort of run these groups from national headquarters out of DC and the the grassrootsness
of civil society organizations is sort of being lost.
or it's dampening. And so that's something that's definitely occurring, partly because it's more efficient
and cost effective to just have one national headquarter and just sort of have one standardized thing
that you send out to all your affiliates around the country. There's some upsides to it, like it is
efficient, but it loses the essence of local leaders coming together to
to build something. The other one with the formalness of organizations in terms of making decisions
and certain protocols, that is declining. And we've actually captured that in our data of seeing how
many organizations actually have an agenda and have sort of a Robert's Rules of Order in terms of how
they run their meetings. And that's fewer and fewer. We only have, for us,
three years of data. So we can't really make big claims, but it's it's something that would just the
proportion that are actually doing it is lower than what we would expect. Two questions. Do you monitor
financial efficiency?
like where the money goes, how much is for management, how much that gets out to a charity or something
like that, and what you do with the data. Yeah, so and that actually relates to the other project that
I'm doing with collecting IRS Form 990 data, which is the annual tax return that the Rotary and all
these nonprofits file. And so we look at separately sort of the organizational characteristics. So some
of the finances, who's on the boards, how much turnover there is,
That is publicly available on the IRS website. Yeah, it's still organizational records. Yep. How much
comes in through charitable contributions? How much comes in through government grants? And then what
are the expenses? What do they spend money on? So I've been asked to check online to see if there's
any questions. Okay. Hey, we have one question and it's actually,
For me, for your first project with the civil society, do you classify by sector? Like whether it's...
Go ahead. Yeah, yeah. So that's a great point. So, you know, there are different categories of civil
society organizations. So, you know, one big one would be religious congregations.
would be like neighborhood associations. Other ones would be advocacy groups. And so we break it down
into about 10 different major categories. And really our goal is to get a broad representation of entities
from each of the different categories. And then I have a second question. It's about your second project.
Where can we find information about your foundation project?
Yes, that project. Okay, so you go to the philanthropy lab at IU and that's where you can, so it's the
philanthropy, it's probably philanthropylab.iu.edu, one of those. But if you Google it, it'll come up.
Thank you. Thank you for your presentation today. Question, have you worked with school boards and have
you learned anything as a result of working with school boards?
So school boards are public and government entities. I mean, even though they're voluntary, so we don't
do schools because they're government entities. We don't do like news initiatives and stuff like that.
So we don't have data on that. That would be good data though, Tyler.
I have a broader question. What is the trend nationally in this kind of civic engagement? Yeah. And
where is it moving? Yeah, so the whole reason why Trust for Civic Life was initiated. So again, this
is about 10 major national foundations that had historically
Funding typically goes to urban areas or suburban. And what gets overlooked is rural communities. And
so this was an intentional commitment to say, hey, listen, what's being overlooked is these
rural communities. And in particular, their civic infrastructure, like their ability to sort of have
a thriving civil society is being undermined because it's the infrastructure in terms of civil society
is becoming deteriorated.
And so they made a concerted effort to say, hey, if we provide seed money to these communities, we can
help sort of revitalize civil society. And that's kind of what we're trying to measure is, is this strategy
an effective way? Because one of the arguments would be that when civil society sort of gets reduced,
there's a vacuum and other groups can kind of come in and set up shop and sort of take over the community.
And so the idea is let the community be the community, but it needs the support system to thrive. Thank
you very much for your presentation. I did some work in this field, and one of the things that I would
always ask grantees, and then what happens? And so you kind of touched on that when you said folks coming
up with a plan, but then not actually implementing it, or worse,
having a concept of a plan, but not even getting into the planning process. So I think, I mean, the
larger things I worked on both nationally and internationally was HIV testing. And so it was more and
more people are getting tested. But the question is, then what happens? So you've tested 20,000 people,
5,000 are positive, then what happens? Do you refer them? If they're referred, what happened to them?
If they got care?
I mean, if they got into a hospital or a doctor city, then what happened? I feel sometimes a lot of
organizations or trainings, which are notorious, everyone's getting trained, but then what happens,
right? So are you, in addition to measuring and sharing this information, are you also able to give
some guidance to people about here's maybe a blueprint or a roadmap or framework which you can think
about actually
getting to the next level, that is getting something done. Yes, yeah, that's a great point. So one of
the things that we started doing about a year ago was sending out these quarterly reports. And I was
kind of like, oh, it's data people aren't going to be interested in. But we email it to the leader.
And I was amazed at how many replied back to us saying, hey, can we talk to you about these things that
you're observing about our organization and how it relates to other organizations? And so the value
was often to the leaders of the organization who care about the health and success of their organization.
Some of the training things that we offer, like there's a distinction between organizing and mobilizing.
And this is just one example where a lot of times groups will have these big events that are like big,
I'll say pep rallies of getting a lot of people to come, but then it sort of it fizzles out. Whereas
organizing is sort of this continual motion of building and developing leaders within
and periodically mobilizing, but really it's the work of organizing and developing a core base of leaders
that can grow so that your organization can actually grow at scale. I'm told we have a question online.
I have a very simple question. You've mentioned several things about rural engagement, and I just wonder
if you're working in concert with the Center for Rural Engagement here. Yes. Are you? Yeah, so Kyla
was here and she had delivered, but one of the things that we want to do even more with CLE is our Center
for Rural Engagement is expand two places beyond Bloomington, because it's in a sense,
we can send people out relatively easily from Bloomington to these surrounding rural areas. And again,
wanting to see what are the civic hubs within different rural communities and what makes them effective.
And you can go to the next county over and they don't have any civic hub. And so what's different, we
also look at a lot, especially in Indiana with community foundations and the role that they play in
strengthening civil society within all these different counties.
So I'm told we have just time for one more question and I'm gonna suggest with you the online question
because maybe those of you who are in the room might be able to talk to Brad after we're done. Perfect.
There's two questions. One is, are you finding out about participation by age and the impact of social
media on the state of civic engagement? I'm gonna combine that into one. Okay.
Collect data on age. With all the things, the demographic data that we collect is basically whatever
is observable. And so we don't do precise age, we do general age groups. So we probably have four age
groups. With religion, we only document religion if it's observable. So if someone is wearing something
that indicates their faith. But yeah, and we try to capture as much as possible demographically. And
then social media, the impact of social media.
So we do look at online convenience and sort of online communication of these groups. It's much, much
more difficult to track because even though organizations will post things, a lot of times individuals
who are members of the organization will post, but it's hard for us to capture those because that's
their personal stuff in the sense that they could be posting about a whole litany of things. So we only
capture what the organization officially
online and how active their online engagement is as an organization. Brad, so we get the best possible
report. I'd like to give you a hug.
Thank you very much for speaking to us today. I just think that these types of organizations are so
important to communities, but they're really important to people. And I'd love to see younger people
more involved and just for their overall health throughout their lifetime. So thank you very much for
your presentation. In honor of your presentation, we'll make a donation to Amethyst House.
I want to thank today's volunteers, some of whom, you know, volunteered at the last minute.
Winston Schindel, Lynn Schwartzberg, Leslie Kutsenko, Jim Sims, Alan Barker, and a couple of duties,
although he's doing it on Zoom. Hank Welter. I want to also thank our club assistants, Mandy Stewart.
If you haven't met Mandy yet, please make sure you do so. And Tyler, who really scrambled and did a
great job today.
So our next regular meeting will be on February 10th. It's here in the Georgia room. Club member Dr.
Scott Shackelford will speak to us about securing democracy in the digital age. So Tyler, if you would
share the graphic for the four-way test, please stand if you are able and join me. Of the things we
think, say, or do, first, is it the truth? Second, is it fair to all concerned?
Third will build goodwill and better friendships. Fourth will be beneficial to all concerned. And fifth,
is it fun?