Political Action and Protest

Māori volunteerism, which has become embedded within the fabric of Māori communities, is a culture that derived from voluntary activity, introduced by immigrants in the early colonial settlements of Aotearoa/New Zealand.  Current literature, however, fails to provide sufficient evidence to pinpoint when this culture emerged; instead, literature discusses the contemporary culture of voluntary activity and attaches Māori terms to explain the behaviour.  This article provides an important new look at the origin to Māori volunteerism by identifying certain documentations in history where volunteerism was exercised by Māori.  It gives a voice to an activity that has been unrepresented, and recognises volunteers during 1800 to 1900 for their communal activity and contribution to building the society of Aotearoa/New Zealand.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, sponsored by US Senator Paul Sarbanes and US Representative Michael Oxley, represents a major change to federal securities laws. It came as a response to the large corporate financial scandals involving Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing and Arthur Andersen. Effective in 2006, all publicly-traded companies are required to submit an annual report of the effectiveness of their internal accounting controls to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Provisions of the Sarbanes Oxley Act (commonly-referred to as “SOX” and sometimes as “SarbOX”) detail criminal and civil penalties for noncompliance, certification of internal auditing, and increased financial disclosure. SOX is all about corporate governance and financial disclosure.

It is generally accepted that while SOX currently has specific regulations only for publicly-held companies in the United States, all American businesses, for profit and nonprofit, will in some manner eventually be affected by its provisions.  The purpose of this paper is to summarize the Act and suggest ways in which it impacts or will impact the nonprofit community relative to employees, volunteers, board selection, and best practices. 

For purposes of this article, “volunteer” will be synonymous with “employee.”  Non-American readers will find the last section of the article, “Broader Interpretations for Nonprofits,” useful for any country.

Synergist was a magazine published three times a year during the 1980s by the National Center for Service-Learning (NCSL), one of the lesser-known programs of the former American federal government agency, ACTION. NCSL provided resources and technical assistance to schools and agencies seeking best practices for service-learning projects for students. Synergist offered its articles at no charge and without copyright. The article reprinted here is the “Guest Speaker” feature from the Spring 1980 edition. It’s by a young Marian Wright Edelman, already director of the Children’s Defense Fund.

 

In her passionate essay, Edelman examines how students can combat small injustices to break the larger patterns of neglect bringing woe to millions of children. Still pertinent 25 years later, her words give a blueprint for taking constructive action as one person against the system.

Direct action organizing is a powerful instrument for change while engaging your organization’s supporters and volunteers. It is how ordinary citizens become involved in the democratic process and have an impact. Its tools are many, ranging from voter registration drives to lobbying local school boards, from letter writing to media campaigns. Grassroots organizing places power in the hands of people, enabling them to shape their community, its policies, priorities, and services.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) has decades of experience in successfully training staff and volunteers for activist efforts. In this Training Design, PPFA Senior Manager for Training, Jordan Fitzgerald, highlights techniques from their innovative “Live Action Camps.” Included is a PDF of PPFA’s Direct Action Organizing and PowerTrainer’s Guide.

The fiasco of the United States Presidential Election 2000 in Florida made a mockery of a democracy's fundamental activity: voting.  Mountains of paperwork analyzing what went wrong with election technology or election laws have accumulated in election offices, legislatures and courtrooms around the nation. "Hanging chads" and "recounts" became household expressions - and justly so.  Some elections districts had error rates as high as 5 percent, far greater than President George W. Bush's margin of victory. Technological and legal issues clearly needed attention to revive Americans' flagging confidence in the elections system after the controversy, as post-election polls showed.

What most of the analysis by government task forces, academics and pundits largely has overlooked, however, has been the role poor poll worker management played in causing problems on Election Day. The evidence, which ranged from the comic to the shocking, was everywhere. In one case, a poll worker accidentally took a bag of ballots home after mistaking it for his laundry. Poll workers in other Florida voting districts improperly turned away voters from the polls, mishandled machinery that led to vote-calculation errors, or weren't able to instruct voters on how to properly operate voting machines. Incidents like these indicate that, in addition to modernizing election equipment and updating old laws, governments should take a cue from the business community in recognizing "people problems" in their organizations. "Senior executives are beginning to devote the necessary attention to understand the links between human activities and desired business outcomes," Jessica Korn of the Gallup Organization said:

In terms of elections, the "business outcomes" are reducing the number of errors made during elections and making voting as painless as possible for voters. And while the business world can help point out the malady, the volunteer community can shed light on actionable solutions. The nature of poll workers' jobs makes volunteer-management principles in four areas - attitude and motivation, recruitment, training, and evaluation - especially apropos for improving the election process.

After dispensing with some helpful definitions, this paper will describe common election routines and how to apply volunteer-management best practices. The goal isn't to lambaste elections administrators - many of whom have made admirable innovations in election management or face significant barriers to reform - but to suggest ways they might better meet the needs and expectations of the public.