:Forest Folk

Numerous people often wonder what the actual value of a paralegal degree is in today’s job market. With a Bachelor’s degree, you can expect to make up to sixty thousand dollars a year, working as a paralegal in a large city or for the federal government. This above average income is over half the income the average American makes.
The largest number of paralegals are employed by private law offices. That said, more insurance companies, corporations, banks, and real estate firms are beginning to employ paralegals as well. Choosing this career will allow you to pursue a large number of employment options.
Specialized paralegals who have focused their education on certain areas, like bankruptcy or product liability, will find that they have a plethora of jobs available to them.
The role of the paralegal continues to grow in the face of larger and ever more important tasks. Corporations want paralegals working in-house, creating a stable, long-term environment. They will not typically outsource their paralegal job opportunities to other nations.
As we’ve seen, the field of paralegals is most likely to expand into the private and public sector. Getting a Bachelor’s Degree online as a paralegal is well worth it; it is a great investment for the future. The field is expected to grow for the next decade, and more and more different types of businesses will need paralegals. This field is also somewhat insulated from outsourcing and minimally affected in a recession.

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Most non-profits focus their fundraising efforts on a highly defined constituency - children with Hodgkin’s Disease, avid birdwatchers, etc. However, when non-profits make forays outside these self-imposed boundaries, they often find new and lucrative fundraising opportunities.

Women are the primary donor base of the Southern Arizona Center Against Sexual Assault. Recently, however, SACASA reached beyond these parameters. Encouraged by success the first time it expanded its constituency, the organization then ventured beyond them with great results.

SACASA’s first move came in the midst of scandal. After a talk hosted by an adult survivor of childhood molestation, it found itself with new clients who paid the full fee for its services. What is different here is that these clients were men; the speaker was a man and headed a support group for men in the same situation as he.

Moving from women who had been sexually assaulted to men who experienced the same ordeal was not a stretch, but the organization ventured into uncharted territory and reached out to men with no obvious sexual assault history.

The organization, which had few male donors, board members, and volunteers, set as its goal making long-term large donors out of men. What the organization did have was married women who were long-term large donors, and it turned to their husbands for help.

These wealthy men provided knowledge and connections. They revealed that the men the organization was targeting, “movers and shakers” in the community, were likely to give funds if some of the blatant sexuality of the cause was removed and if the program was framed as a competition for which the reward would be prestige.

SACASA named the program the Men’s Anti-Violence Project, and bluntly stated to its potential donors that this was a giving circle reserved for high-profile men in the community and listed people that it already had on board. They asked for a minimum donation of $5,000.00. The “inaugural” members of the Project would be recognized by name at a press conference.

SACASA set a goal of getting 20 inaugural members at $5,000.00. They got 35, and then closed the “inauguration” phase to maintain the prestige and competitiveness of giving.

Not only has it raised at least $175,000.00, it did so relatively cheaply and in a way that raises its community profile. Further, these are likely to be long-term relationships as the men are pledged to another donation and have recruited other men to join and in bringing their wives into the organization.

SACASA succeeded because it had a well-executed plan. However, the foundation of the organization’s success was in identifying the right constituency. The interests of men were not antithetical to the interests of the organization’s traditional constituents, as demonstrated by the men who began to use the services. Rather, it was the case that neither the organization nor men realized that they had any similar interests. Money flowed when the connection was made.

Learn more about raising money and read about interesting fundraising ideas.

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Jessie Redmon Fauset (1882-1961) also viewed art as a means for political or propagandist ends. In her personal life, as in her art, Fauset strove to depict the middle class values of which she saw as the way to freedom and equality for her race. In one very revealing episode in which her personal inclination conflicted with social propriety, Fauset chose to stay within the boundaries of society set for her. On a trip to Africa, Fauset had visited alone the section of Algiers named the Kasbah. She returned the next day with two companions, only to be warned by a Frenchwoman that the “quarters are too dangerous to visit without an escort” (Wall 34). Notwithstanding the fact that she had been there alone already and now had two companions, Fauset adheres to the proper conduct the Frenchwoman informs her of.

Fauset had earned degrees from Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania, and had worked as a high school teacher for fourteen years before becoming involved in the Renaissance (Wall 35). During the years she spent as literary editor of The Crisis, from 1919 to 1926, she was also the “most prominent black woman writer” (Wall 36). Fauset published “poems, reportage, reviews, short stories, and translations” in addition to her four novels (Wall 36).

Being strictly conservative, Fauset “adapted the conventions of the sentimental novel to her own purposes,” which were to “explore the impact of racism and sexism on black Americans’ lives and represent the means by which black Americans overcame these oppressions and got on with the business of living” (Wall 66). However, the black Americans Fauset fictionalizes are middle-class, like herself, and firmly adhering to the values of the dominant society. The novels she wrote, There is Confusion (1924), Plum Bun (1929), The Chinaberry Tree (1931), and Comedy: American Style (1933), are social critiques of African American middle class life, and a condemnation of the racism and sexism that constrains African Americans. Wall asserts the basic theme of Fauset’s novels is “propriety for the New Negro woman was virtually a racial obligation” (80).

Fauset, in her art as well as her demeanor, attempts to dispel the stereotype of African American women as exotic, overtly sexual beings. In creating the image of the proper middle class African American woman, Fauset had to suppress her sexuality, and to conduct herself within the boundaries of social propriety. To Fauset, this was not a bad thing; she believed that her behavior, and the like behavior of other African Americans, would uplift her race from injustice and prejudice. In her preface to her third novel Plum Bun, Fauset describes her literary philosophy:

I have depicted something of the home life of the colored American who is not being pressed too hard by the Furies of Prejudices, Ignorance, and Economic Injustice…. And behold he is not so vastly different from any other Americans (Sato 67).

Her novels depict that, given the freedom to educate their minds without enduring prejudices or economic hindrances, all African Americans can achieve just as well as any other American. In other words, that African Americans do not possess any inborn, or inherent characteristics that distinguish them from whites; it is all a matter of social and economic boundaries that differentiates the African American race.

Bibliography

Sato, Hiroko. “Under the Harlem Shadow: A Study of Jessie Fauset and Nella Larsen.” The Harlem Renaissance Remembered. Ed. Arna Bontemps. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1972. 63-89.

Wall, Cheryl A. Women of the Harlem Renaissance. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995.

Mary Arnold holds a B.A. in literature and history. She is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Creative Writers.

Her writing portfolio may be found at http://www.Writing.com/authors/ja77521.

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