Nonprofit leaders offer their two cents on L.A.

  PRIYA SHARMA/Daily Bruin Barbara Nelson,
dean of the UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research,
speaks with John W. Mack (left) and Johng
H. Song (right).

By Kelly Rayburn
Daily Bruin Contributor

Nonprofit organization leaders spoke Thursday at a briefing
sponsored by the UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research
about their role in the Los Angeles community.

John W. Mack, president of the Los Angeles Urban League, one of
the largest nonprofit organizations in Los Angeles and Johng H.
Song, executive director of the Korean Youth and Community Center,
the nation’s largest service organization serving Korean
Americans, spoke.

Thursday’s event was the first of a three-part program
bringing policy leaders to campus.

UCLA Urban Planning Professor Gene Grigsby was the event’s
moderator.

Grigsby opened the discussion by asking questions about the role
of nonprofits in addressing race issues and economic
re-structuring, the success that the organizations have had in such
endeavors, the critical obstacles that remain, and advice the men
might have for graduate students.

Much of the conversation focused on the efforts of these groups
to help the Los Angeles community recover from the 1992 riots.

“The riots were a manifestation of a whole series of
problems, issues, hurts and ills, that had been building and
building like a volcano ““ and it erupted,” Mack said.
“It is an absolute necessity of viable nonprofit
organizations to be voices, so that these hurts and needs can be
addressed.”

Song agreed, “It was a devastating experience. Two
thousand of our small businesses were burned.”

Both the KYCC and the Los Angeles Urban League aided in the
economic recovery after the riots.

While the KYCC helped, and is still helping small
“mom-and-pop” shops reopen, the Urban League created an
Inglewood-based program to help underrepresented groups open small
businesses and provide opportunities for employment.

The two nonprofits have also collaborated, along with many other
organizations ““ as well as UCLA ““ to help people find
employment opportunities.

The two speakers agreed that such collaboration is essential to
building bridges in the Los Angeles community.

“This thing called diversity is a make or break challenge
for Los Angeles,” Mack said.

Mack also spoke at length about what his organization is doing
to help Los Angeles students. He said he was a vocal opponent of
Proposition 209 ““ a 1996 initiative that ended affirmative
action in the state ““ and had some pointed criticism for the
Los Angeles Unified School District.

“Generally speaking I would say that the LAUSD has failed
in educating our children across the board, but particularly in
educating minorities ““ African Americans and Latinos,”
he said.

Mack noted, however, that within the failing system there are
many excellent teachers and principals, as well as some community
tutoring programs.

The Los Angeles Urban League has opened a center on Crenshaw
Boulevard where students can go for tutoring and have access to
computers.

“There will be no hitchhikers on the information
superhighway,” Mack said, stressing the need for children to
have access to technology in order to be educated properly.

While Mack’s comments focused largely on education, Song
mentioned the difficulty that nonprofits have in keeping themselves
adequately staffed.

“Many people use KYCC as a stepping stone,” he
said.

People do not consider working for a group like KYCC a real
career, he added.

In the last decade KYCC has had 700 people come and go.
Currently it has 45 staffers.

Patrick Horton, a second-year urban planning graduate student,
was at the event and used to work for a Los Angeles nonprofit
organization.

“People are not going to be motivated by just altruism,
but also by the practicalities of life, like being subject to the
enticement of high salaries, having a personal staff, etc.,”
Horton said.

But what nonprofit opportunities lack in competitive enticements
they make up for in the value of their missions, Horton said. He
also added that students fresh out of college and nonprofit
organizations have a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Students looking to enter the “real world” can use
nonprofits as something to sink their teeth into, and at the same
time nonprofits have access to highly-skilled people, he
explained.

Mack concluded with some encouraging words for the graduate
students who attended.

“Understand that you can make a difference. You can impact
public policy more than you think,” he said.