Thousands and thousands of nonprofit organizations are spending today (August 17, 2018), distributing information about their organizations, raising money, sending out tweets and writing Facebook posts about what they do:  helping the homeless, the hungry, the sick, the poor, the unjustly incarcerated, the abused, the orphaned and so many more. The depth of the nonprofit network is profound.

Two things are striking about the work of nonprofits in our country. The first is that the work of being a just society has been shifted to the shoulders of those who carry out nonprofit programs. The money that we send to our government to take care of everyone in our country is being diverted for specific causes that matter to those in power – military might, tax reductions for the rich, fossil fuel exploration, and so on. The result is that we need an army of nonprofits to meet the most basic needs of our citizens: food, clothing, housing, health.

While scrounging money and donations and volunteers to help them, the work that the majority of nonprofits are doing is work the government should be doing. It is work an irresponsible government has the money to do and chooses to misappropriate. It may not be an illegal use of government funds, but it is certainly the intentional use of our shared wealth for causes dear to our elected officials, rather than for the needs of all citizens.

The second thing that is striking about this day is the willingness of nonprofit workers to make a dent. There is no pretense among nonprofit services of solving systemic problems like health care or hunger. Those are mountainous issues that need to be solved at the federal level. However, since those issues manifest at the local and regional level, nonprofits all across the country are working to make a dent locally and regionally. To fill needs in this community. To help people with this issue. To address the fallout from government policies showing up among these people. To extend kindness and compassion to the suffering individuals who live and work alongside us.

Ken Burns produced a film (“Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War;” released 9/9/2016) about one American couple, a minister and his wife, who undertook a relief effort during World War II to organize an underground escape route for people trying to flee the Nazis. Their mission in Prague was to make sure that various banks in different countries had money to help refugees who escaped. They collected funds and deposited them in banks where the refugees settled, to support their basic needs. They also connected refugees with employers abroad. Having an employer-sponsor was like having a ticket to freedom.

Reverend Waitstill Sharp was apparently a modest fellow. He retired to our area, and preached from time to time in a local church. When the subject of his heroics during the war arose, he would remind people that he and his wife were only able to save hundreds, when the need was there to save millions (“Unexpectedly Timely,” by Richie Davis; Greenfield Recorder, 2/24/2017).

That idea – saving hundreds when millions are in need – is what keeps nonprofits going.  The lesson is there for all of us. We can make a dent. We may not be able to solve the issues that are marginalizing so many of our fellow citizens, but we can help. We can help one, even if we can’t help dozens. We can help dozens, even if we can’t help hundreds. We can show compassion and kindness to the individual right in front of us, the one by our side, the ones who are part of our village.

This day reminds us that we, too, can help.

A million kudos to the nonprofits trying to raise up those who have been marginalized and impoverished by the policies and priorities of our government. Your work is both heroic and heartbreaking.  So many inequalities and injustices have been created. The process of making justice  and equality out of what is left is arduous. I am grateful beyond measure for your work.