Sarajean's notes

I was worried about what might happen at our annual planning meeting. last year this time we had a big meeting with lots of ideas but little came of it. This year I feel envigorated by the PSC planning committee meeting which took place on Dec 10. It was great to get other people ideas and to sus out what other people thought they could do and what they wanted to do. Now we just need to build our volunteer teams to get everything under way. I believe we can do two different types of activities 1. activist skills training and 2. network development if we had a few more people with time to work on the programs. We will hold meetings in January to help us better develop the plan. January 15 (Mon) 7:30-9:00 pm January 21 (Sun) 6:00-7:30 pm January 27 (Sat) 10:30-12:00 noon We would like people to attend any one that fits their schedule - so we can assess interest, time commitment and skills levels and then make a comprehensive 2007 plan. If interested, please contact rose.ito@gmail.com ,

On to a different angle today ... I sometimes forget the important role of arts related nonprofit nongovernmental organizations. being from the US, where many if not most arts groups are indipendent from the government, it is easy to forget that in many countries governments value culture and arts programs and see it as part of the national interest. in an interesting switch it seems many countries - such as England and Japan - are forcing arts institutions to become more independent. as the tax base decreases and as the enpenses forbring shows increases it seems that the gap between financial needs and fund availability can only widen. but they do not have staff or outside professionals with the skills or experience to suddenly do independent fundraising and manage the organizations in a non-bureaucratic manner. time will tell. some see trouble - i see a new opportunity for professional development in the nonprofit sector here in Japan.

I was lucky to get invited by Lucy from Metropolis to join a talk at the FCCJ given by Sadako Ogata. She was very charming - even in the not so exciting talk about the creation of a new JICA, which would be a merger of JICA and JBIC. This is going to allow for longer-term planning and more integrated program development. I do believe that she aims to work towards more people centered community development projects. Given the size and history of both government agencies it is hard to think that she is not facing resistance and frustration in changing the bureaucracy. all the ideas sounds great - implementation however may take longer than anyone expects.

JACO hosted 3 speakers from Guidestar International and it was an interesting introduction of their work and the expansion of their work beyond the US and the UK. They have developed a common platform and have a common server so that new local Guidestars can be developed at much lower costs than what it would take to start from scratch. They are working with South Korean, South African and German partners to start up local Guidestars. It would be great if we could get this going in Japan! Right now there are multiple online databases of Japanese organizations but since the data is so limited the usefulness is also not comprehensive. I love the idea that open records promote more giving which in turn promotes more accountability.