Anyway, in his op-ed, Mr. Abruzzo makes a statement that I think bears repeating on this blog:

Contrary to its name and to what many believe, the nonprofit sector is not non businesslike; in fact, compared to government and the commercial sector, nonprofits are better managed and more efficient. Yet, by providing services that would otherwise be unaffordable in the marketplace, the sector relies on contributions and grants and it is this that makes the sector vulnerable during the financial crisis.

Bravo, Mr. Abruzzo! This is the truth, people. Nonprofts are created to fill a gap. That gap can range from a social services gap to a gap in opportunity to access certain resources or even a personal gap left in one’s family after a person passes away from a specific cause. The point is that nonprofits fill a gap that otherwise would not be filled by the government or private sector. As Mr. Abruzzo suggests, many of the services provided by nonprofits are unaffordable in the marketplace and thus the sector must rely on generosity to succeed.

Which brings me to my first point of this entry – please try to continue to send your weekly, monthly, or annual donations to your favorite charities! I’m not asking you to go out and find a new charity and start making donations to it (though if you’re in the business of donating money to new charities, let me know and I can hook you up with some good ones in Morris, Monmouth, and Mercer Counties). What I am saying, though, is that if you can afford to continue your existing donations to your favorite nonprofit organizations, please do so.

My second point in writing this entry is to reiterate a point that Mr. Abruzzo makes in his op-ed, namely that the nonprofit sector is not non businesslike. In other words, nonprofit does not mean “no profit!” In fact, nonprofit organizations have begun using the term not-for-profit instead of nonprofit to describe their business activities. The basic difference between a for-profit organization and a not-for-profit organization is that for-profit generate profits which can be distributed back to its shareholders, not-for-profits are not allowed to do this as per IRS regulations. That’s the difference in a nutshell.

Do not expect a not-for-profit company to expect not to make money on its activities. In fact, you should expect the opposite. The best not-for-profit organizations are financially healthy despite the current economy since they are built on a fiscally responsible framework made for success. I’m glad that Mr. Abruzzo kept that point in his op-ed. The world needs to know that a good not-for-profit organization should generate profits and even bank some of those profits. A good not-for-profit organization will not, however, break the law and redistribute those profits to their shareholders.

Remember this if you ever deal with a not-for-profit company!

Professor John Buzza has brought the Monmouth University Center for Entrepreneurship and students together with the RedeemHer Organization to open the thrift store. All proceeds from the store will be donated to the nonprofit organization RedeemHer.

Monmouth University students from Buzza’s entrepreneurship class are helping RedeemHer open the thrift store in Neptune, called Second Chances. The students and members of RedeemHer are involved in all aspects of the project, including creating a business plan, decorating, floor plans, sorting through donations, installing walls, public relations, marketing and staffing.

Wait. What? Is this an article that talks about how Monmouth University students are HELPING the community?! You know, from time to time I blog about the bias in the media, but that’s usually at a national level. There is also a bias in local media that is inherently anti-college student – but I’m sure you can understand why, right? Why would a newspaper – which is a dying breed to begin with – write articles that are pro-college students when the vast majority of those people living around college areas don’t like the off-campus population? It only makes sense that newspapers would be anti-college students, right?

Anyway, I’m glad that the Atlanticville has stepped out of the bunch and printed an article that praises some of the noteworthy work being completed by this particular class. This sounds like a good nonprofit organization and I’m sure that the students are getting one heck of an education by helping to build the business. Very impressive work on behalf of Monmouth University and a good article by the Atlanticville.

In the mean time, check out New Jersey Carpet Cleaning for the best carpet cleaning in the Garden State!

According to a series of proposed amendments to COAH’s current round-three regulations, Eatontown’s affordable housing obligation jumped from 92 units to 447 units, Tarantolo said.

“Where are we going to build [the 447 units]?” Tarantolo asked, adding, “I have no idea.”

According to Tarantolo, COAH officials used a geographic information system (GIS) to map out the available land in the borough where affordable units can be constructed.

A GIS is a system that collects various forms of statistical data and maps it according to its geographic location.

“When they worked out the new numbers, they did it using the GIS to determine the number of acres that were still green in particular municipalities,” Tarantolo said.

“As it turns out, COAH just arbitrarily took green space and said this should be developed and some of it should be for affordable housing.

“The GIS labeled some of our parks and open space as buildable land. We suspect they made a mistake.

“The parks and open space are already registered with the state as not being able to be built,” Tarantolo said.

If COAH removes the acreage from the borough’s parks and open space from the vacant-land calculations, Eatontown will see a significant reduction in its affordable housing obligation, Tarantolo said.

Let me put that in layman’s terms for everyone out there. The state used a system that said designated “green spaces” (i.e. parks and protected wildlife area) are okay to build affordable housing units on. Are you f’ing kidding me? Someone at the state was paid to sit down and figure out a new formula for affordable housing and they produced Round Three of COAH by saying that green spaces are legit for building on? What?!

This is the kind of stuff where in ancient Rome you’d find yourself in the Colosseum with some pretty big cats. In New Jersey, though, we reward our morons by giving them taxpayer-funded raises and one of the most ridiculous publicly-financed benefits packages in the nation. Way to go, New Jersey!

Why is this so hard for people to understand? If you want to provide increased housing options for our existing residents, then you need to start redeveloping brownfields across the state. For those of you that don’t know, brownfields are former industrial lots that need serious environmental attention before they can be rebuilt. Many community based groups are doing a magnificent job of making former warehouses into usable community facilities or housing units. Just look up in Paterson where there are a growing number of housing options (yet still not enough).

As for COAH – it might be time to throw it out the window. The system is obviously broken when we are counting our preciously scarce open space in as “buildable lots.” Frankly, it’s that type of idiocy that gives this state a bad name. Fire the person that dreamed up this farce and start again. Now!

A city minister will have until July to find a new place to call home and a new building where he can practice his ministry.

State Superior Court Judge Lawrence M. Lawson denied Broadway resident Kevin Brown a stay of the city’s use of eminent domain to take the building where he lives to make way for the Broadway redevelopment project.

Brown has also been trying to establish a place of worship in the building at 162 Broadway for more than a decade. The building is owned by The Lighthouse Mission and is located in the Broadway Corridor redevelopment zone.

This little blurb provides a decent background on the situation in Long Branch. And what an outrage it seems, right? Here is a Pastor who is trying to establish a place of worship for his congregation and attem — wait. There IS a congregation that is being displaced, right? Back to the article…

Brown has been battling the city for more than 10 years to open the Lighthouse Mission Church at the Broadway location.

So there isn’t an actual mission located at this location? There isn’t an actual place of worship that is waiting to open its doors? Hmmm… When I mix that up with other information that the Asbury Park Press has run on this story and you’re talking about a different story entirely.

Instead of a Pastor, his congregation, and his mission being ousted from their only home we have a Pastor with no congregation and no mission being removed from this building. And what of this building? A recent Asbury Park Press article talked about how this building was vacant on the first floor (the proposed location of the mission) and how the Pastor lived upstairs.

Folks, there are a conglomeration of financial institutions who WANT to infuse this area of Long Branch with money, economic advancement opportunities for residents (i.e. jobs), affordable housing options, and artistic/entertainment space. And this plan has not been able to go through because of a non-existent mission and a liquor store?! This is why it takes decades for any real change to happen in our communities.

I’m as much against eminent domain as the next guy. I think it’s vulgar that in the great American political experiment we’ve allowed a pro forma increase in tax revenues to replace existing taxpayers and homeowners. We’re not supposed to operate that way in this country. Yet, this is also a country where we try to work in the best interests of each other. When an entire area is asking for redevelopment, asking for an infusion of private, non-taxpayer money, and asking for their community to get a face-lift, then we should be for that change. In other words, just as strongly as we defend our rights to own our property without eminent domain, we should be fighting just as strongly against lone holdouts in these projects who have questionable ideas on the possibility for their future development.

The Broadway Arts Center project needs to get moving and it needs to get moving immediately. I wish Godspeed to Pastor Brown in finding a place to live in this crazy market (though $450,000 will find you a great place in a nice area of Long Branch) and I admire Pastor Brown’s use of the legal system to plead his case at any and all levels of the judiciary, but now is the time to move forward.

The crowd topped 270 high school and college students and also saw a number of Monmouth University administration and officials present. The event lasted about an hour and a half and drew both laughs and tears through the event. Other speakers included Reza Zedah of the Sam Spady Foundation and the Lighthouse organization as well as Chris Brown, an Eatontown lawyer who focusing on risk management situations.

Overall, the event was a rousing success. Please see the uploaded pictures for a view of how great the night was.

I put this in my blog because every major media outlet in the tri-state area from local Monmouth County papers like The Link, Atlanticville, and The Coaster to regional papers like the Asbury Park Press to bigger outlets like UPN 9 News, NBC 4, and Fox News were all invited. Of the 15+ news outlets that were invited to attend, not one showed up – not even the campus newspaper, radio station, or television station. This is an absolute disgrace.

As fraternity men, we understand that the media loves to highlight the situations that focus on the negative aspects of less than 0.1% of fraternity men in this nation. But when so many news outlets are invited to very large gathering with a positive focus, it shows you what a disgusting media we have today that not 1 person came to cover it.

THIS is why blogs are starting to overtake the conventional media and why the internet is such a great tool to move information around the globe. When the media fails at covering real, good news – the bloggers pick up their slack.

Congratulations to the men of the Delta-Beta Chapter of Sigma Pi Fraternity on a job well done.