A former aide to Democratic senators Gary Hart and Bob Kerrey, Bill Shore left political life in 1984 to found Share Our Strength, a nonprofit anti-hunger organization run like a for-profit business. Today, Share Our Strength earns over $30 million a year, which it distributes to more than 800 community-based organizations in the U.S., Canada, and the developing world. In his book Revolution of the Heart, published last year, Shore describes the nonprofit sector as "rich in compassion and idealism" but "entrepreneurially bankrupt." Shore argues that nonprofits should stop relying on government and foundation grants. By combining social idealism with hard-headed business sense, he contends, nonprofits can become financially self-sustaining. Then they will be able to spend their money "in accordance with [their] best judgment, and not in ways distorted by the desire to please certain grantmakers."

          Revolution of the Heart also contains a resource directory of organizations that strengthen communities, such as Break Away, a group in Nashville, Tennessee, that "matches college groups with local nonprofits to provide 'alternative' spring breaks focused on volunteering and community service," and Rural Coalition, an organization based in Arlington, Virginia, that "works to meet the nutrition and health needs of low-income rural populations, especially farm workers and rural minorities."

          Revolution of the Heart: A New Strategy for Creating Wealth and Meaningful Organization by Bill Shore (Riverhead Books).

Reform Bureaucrats?

          While many welfare-reform advocates view work-oriented reform as a step towards reducing the size of government, Princeton scholar Lawrence Mead warns that we must not underestimate the importance of government in making reform work. Success in Wisconsin highlights the importance of government as an agent of change. Since 1987, welfare rolls in Wisconsin have declined by 26 percent. Governor Tommy Thompson has placed a two-year limit on cash welfare benefits, developed a state-of-the-art computer system for tracking welfare fraud, and has permitted local governments to contract out portions of their welfare services. Most importantly, however, Thompson has energized the bureaucracy by offering it a challenge: to help the poor gain financial security and independence through work. Today, welfare administrators in Wisconsin promote work and encourage people to seek support from nongovernmental sources, including extended families.

          "The Change in Wisconsin Welfare," by Lawrence M. Mead, Wisconsin Interest, Fall/Winter 1995. Wisconsin Policy Research Institute -- Tel.: 414-963-0600, fax: 414-963-4230.

          In his Francis Boyer Lecture at the American Enterprise Institute last winter, George F. Will argues that conservatism suffers from a potentially crippling contradiction. On the one hand, it advocates "blanket disdain for government." On the other, "conservatism's vision of civic virtue . . . depends on respect, even reverence for our political regime -- for our constitutional order understood as a formative enterprise." Conservatism's challenge is to resolve this contradiction.

          The Founders, Will argues, recognized and intended that our constitutional, popular government would bear responsibility for shaping the nation's citizenry: "Statecraft, as the Founders understood it, is soulcraft." Specifically, the Founders designed our Constitution to promote citizens that could govern themselves, principally by denying themselves dependence on government. That's why the Founders carved out a role for a strong central government. A strong central government, they believed, would relieve citizens of their dependence on local and state governments. Says Will, "The Founders hoped that one effect of exalting central government over other governments would be a diminution of the total amount of government -- local, state and national."

          National government, of course, was to be strictly limited by enumerated powers. But this government was not realized. The Founders had hoped that the acquisitive spirit characteristic of liberal society would be confined to the pursuit of wealth through commerce. Rather, our acquisitive animus was directed towards the central government, from which we have sought well-being. Liberal government has been our accomplice, promoting for some 60 years now the idea that it is the government's responsibility to provide for our material well-being.

          To reverse this trend, Will asserts, conservatives must change public opinion. Americans must consent to "government that censors their desires." And just as the Founders intended government to forge the character of its citizens and liberals have used it to fashion a citizenry dependent on government, conservative government must teach us that it is consistent with our constitutional principles to be less dependent on it.

          To do this, however, government must be respected. And here lies conservatism's paradox: "Conservatism depends on eliciting from citizens a public-spirited self-denial," Will says. "But that is not easily elicited in a commercial republic of the sort conservatism celebrates, where individualism enjoys maximum scope for private pursuits."

          Sure, conservatives fail to promote respect for the government through their "blanket disdain" for it. But more importantly, conservatism seems to promote the same acquisitiveness that liberals have promoted for so long. Conservative anti-government rhetoric renders the government just as servile as it has been under liberal regimes. "And respect is never accorded to the servile," he says. Will's advice: Abandon the populist banner and try instead to articulate how our Constitution and our government requires of our citizens greater independence and greater virtue.

          The Francis Boyer Lecture, by George F. Will, American Enterprise Institute, December 6, 1995. AEI -- Tel: 202-862-5800, fax: 202-862-7178. Reprinted in the Public Interest, Spring 1996.

          On March 13, 1996, the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise (NCNE) hosted its fourth Achievement Against the Odds Awards, honoring low-income people who have overcome adversity to improve their lives and their communities. NCNE is a nonprofit organization that provides training and assistance to grass-roots organizations serving low-income communities. It also promotes partnerships between businesses and community groups in low-income areas. The Allstate Foundation sponsored this year's awards. The winners for 1996 are:

          Steven Holter (Hartford, Conn.) has convinced members of his street gang to visit the elderly, collect food for needy families, and establish drug- and alcohol-free discos for teens. He now mentors Hartford teenagers and offers employment opportunities to youth through his construction company.

          Marcus Johnson (Indianapolis, Ind.), 16, is a member of the Marion County Commission on Youth and works for the Bicycle Action Project, a nonprofit group that fixes bicycles and instructs children in bicycle safety.

          Robert Nowlin (Baltimore, Md.), the president of his local neighborhood association, has led anti-crime marches and candlelight vigils to protest drug activity in his community, and lobbied for tough anti-drug legislation. He has organized a summer camp for children -- all of this despite being blind.

          Joel Perez (Elgin, Ill.), a former gang member, founded God's Gym, which provides recreation, and educational opportunities to 300 "at-risk" youth a day.

          Linda Rogers (Capitol Heights, Md.) has been addicted to drugs, subjected to abuse, homeless, and incarcerated, but now she trains low-income people in building maintenance and clerical administration for Crawford/Edgewood Managers Inc. She will soon become the assistant housing director of a newly renovated single-room occupancy facility (SRO) in Washington, D.C.

          Tonya Smothers (Birmingham, Ala.), a former foster child, financed her own college education and is now financing college for her younger sister. Only 25, she has already founded a block-watch program, organized graffiti clean-up days, and spearheaded outings for local youth.

          Eugene Hughes (Washington, D.C.) in 1975 founded Mid-Town Academy, which offers young people a place to congregate, receive tutoring, and learn vocational skills.

         For more information, contact NCNE: Tel: 202-331-1103, fax: 202-296-1541.

          You know when you play a game of football, you don't call up Washington every time you want to know what's the next play. . . . Too many people in America believed in the past that in order to do something you had to dial the equivalent of 1-800-BIG GOVERNMENT to find out what you should do, but the real strength of our country has always been individuals make those decisions, families make those decisions, communities make those decisions, to tackle the problems we face.

          So when you play a game of football, you are not always looking over your shoulder at Washington to figure out what the next play should be. There's no way it could be done. . . . For almost 200 years in America, we had the belief that we could do it on a community level, working together, often voluntarily, whether it is churches, synagogues, charities, schools, hospitals, professional associations, cultural activities, sports activities. We always did things on a local level.

          Well, now, this new age we're entering into, we can rediscover those basic strengths so you don't have to dial 1-800 BIG GOVERNMENT to figure out what the next play should be, to figure whether you should throw the Hail Mary, charge, fourth down and you got one yard to go, whether you should punt or run.

          -- Malcolm S. "Steve" Forbes, quoted in the New York Times