During the recent government shutdown, tensions rose for everyday Americans across the socioeconomic spectrum. Furloughed government workers wondered how they’d pay the bills while receiving no pay. Individuals and families leaning on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits worried about how they’d keep food on the table when payments weren’t issued on November 1.
Amid the frustrations with Washington’s stubbornness, citizens, business owners, and community organizations across the country stepped up to quickly help. Certain banks offered zero-interest loans to bridge gaps while government paychecks were withheld. An owner of eight grocery stores in West Virginia began a program to provide free meals to any child in need. Throughout the rest of the state and country, individuals and businesses made donations to trusted organizations serving their communities.
It shouldn’t take something as drastic as the longest government shutdown in our nation’s history to shine a spotlight on the role of civil society in driving meaningful social impact. Nonetheless, the episode provides a golden opportunity to praise civil society organizations and illuminate their vital role as a middle ground between and complement to market transactions and government programs.
In an institutional environment of free people and free markets, individuals are empowered to marshal their resources and skills to provide value through the voluntary exchange of money for goods and services. Buyers see the good or service at least as subjectively valuable, if not more, than the money they exchange for it. Sellers perceive the money they receive for those goods or services in the same way – at least as valuable as the time and talent put in, if not more. Through these voluntary exchanges, people are made subjectively better off. The merchant who “builds the better mousetrap” or otherwise more effectively makes consumers’ lives better, or the employee who helps keep an enterprise’s efforts humming along freely and justly, accumulates wealth through their work.
That wealth can take several pathways.
Federal, state, and/or local governments will take their cut via taxation. From there, the individual can exchange it for goods or services that make his life better – thereby putting new wealth in the hands of another resourceful individual. The individual can save part of that wealth, putting it away for a rainy day, an emergency buffer, a big purchase, to facilitate a comfortable retirement, or a variety of other future uses.
But that wealth can also be deployed through charitable contributions to civil society organizations to drive social impact. These voluntary associations perform functions that neither markets nor governments handle perfectly. They fill gaps left by market activity. In the realm of government activity, civil society both compensates for failures and complements successes. In any case, these organizations are well-positioned to meet social objectives that aren’t neatly solved through micro-scale market transactions nor large-scale government efforts.
Civil society has key advantages in driving charitable efforts and meeting social needs. They are better able to capitalize on local knowledge of the community’s needs. Their smaller size and freer operational structure facilitate quicker adaptation to changing
needs. The voluntary nature of these associations fosters deeper relationships among donors, the organizations themselves, the community being served, and the network of other similarly situated groups serving the same community but in different ways. The presence of multiple civil society organizations and low barriers to entry into that service space encourage innovation, friendly competition, specialization, and collaboration among groups to serve the community in diverse yet still effective ways. These elements cultivate an ecosystem of accountability across donors, beneficiaries, and throughout the broader community.
Recent events illustrate the good that can emerge when civil society steps up to meet social needs that aren’t being met through other institutions. We see greater innovation, accountability, local responsiveness, and pluralism. Short-term crises can serve as catalysts for longer-term service. There’s enough need in the world and room in the civil society ecosystem for everyone to discover their meaningful way to contribute and be a force for good.
