An Interview with Carl Colonius,

Co-Founder and Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Youth Corps

Julia (Tennant) Henzerling

Adams State University

February 19, 2013

Introduction

Rocky Mountain Youth Corps (RMYC) has been serving youth in Taos County since 1995. RMYC has changed literally thousands of lives through positive experiences with teamwork on the landscapes, communities and schools of northern New Mexico. Carl Colonius, co-founder and executive director of RMYC, has been recognized as a leader in youth advocacy. He was honored last year at the White House as a “Champion of Change” for his work creating jobs for youth. He served as Chair of the Board of Directors for the National Association of Service and Conservation Corps. Colonius focuses on programs in New Mexico, while pushing for systems change in environmental, social, and racial justice nationally and worldwide. The organization’s mission reads: “Rocky Mountain Youth Corps inspires young adults to make a difference in themselves and their communities. Through training and team service, Rocky Mountain Youth Corps is a stepping stone to new opportunities” (Rocky Mountain Youth Corps, 2011).

Colonius was interviewed on February 19, 2013 about the challenges, perspectives and nuances of the organization, viewed through the lens of the four quadrants of nonprofits as defined by Peter Frumkin in his book On Being Nonprofit: service delivery, civic & political engagement, values & faith, and social entrepreneurship (Frumkin, 2002). Frumkin developed this matrix of four quadrants based on the contrasting views of nonprofits’ orientation based on supply of services vs. demand of services, juxtaposed with contrasting views of the kind of value that results from services, or, as he describes, its “moral nature (Frumkin, 2002, p. 23). What results is a way of thinking about the functions of nonprofit organizations, revealing synergies as well as tensions.

Service Delivery

Frumkin explains that “service delivery” is a way of thinking about an organization that works on proving services based on needs that are not supplied by either the government or by the market. This quadrant focuses on the role of the nonprofit organization as an instrument in fulfilling popular needs of the community. “[This] sector’s instrumental value is measured in terms of its concrete outcomes” (Frumkin, 2002, p. 23). RMYC easily falls into this category by directly serving youth and directly serving the community. Finding jobs for unskilled youth addresses a crucial need that neither the government nor the private sector can fully serve. At the same time, through the work that RMYC engages them in, these youth are able to develop skills while staying out of trouble.

The economic logic of the service delivery function stems from what Burton Weisbrod described as “government market failure.” He explains that there is a constant adjustment to the equilibrium between the private, public, and nonprofit sectors to deliver services when the “consumer-voters” express unsatisfied demand for collective goods. When it is not socially optimal for the private sector to supplement collective goods, “nonprofit organizations develop because certain organizations are needed to serve as ‘extragovernmental providers of collective consumption goods’ which supplement government output and offer an alternative to private output” (Frumkin, 2002, p. 66).    

In the case of Rocky Mountain Youth Corps, the tangible services delivered are more of a by-product of the intangible service of youth development—a collective good that is difficult to quantify, and one that the private sector cannot address in an optimal way. RMYC delivers services to the community such as the restorative work on forest trails, weatherization of homes, and after-school programs. This work forms the building blocks of its core mission—youth development.  The projects create a sort of “classroom” where youth can develop skills such as communication and interpersonal skills.
As Colonius points out, “The essence of the youth corps organizational model is that we are about instruction and teaching, both soft skills—cultural sensitivity, gender sensitivity, and conflict resolution, as well as hard skills…we have certifications that increase employability” (Colonius, 2013). Young adults can learn proper use of a chainsaw and earn a formal S-212 safety training certification, or participate in lead-based paint and mold mitigation trainings that apply to the work of home weatherization. These hard skills can transfer to job training and workforce development sectors. Corpsmembers do real work in wildfire prevention, weatherization of low-income homes, the development and construction of recreational trails in the national forest, and eradication of invasive species. However, as Colonius says, “it’s through that work that our corpsmembers learn about themselves, about the community, and about where they want to go” (Colonius, 2013).

Besides government market failure, Frumkin points out the work of Henry Hansmann, who described “contract failure” as an explanation for nonprofit activity. When the public cannot trust a private provider in the delivery of certain goods, they will turn to the nonprofit sector because of the “non-distribution constraint”—because nonprofit organizations are legally bound to avoid personal gain, they become more trustworthy.  Colonius explains that he spends a significant amount of time promoting this kind value RMYC can bring to the market: “We work our way sideways into all sorts of agency relationships…we’ve got a participating agreement with the USDA…[and the] Department of Interior recognizes Rocky Mountain Youth Corps as a contractor that is efficient, effective, cost effective, and…can be considered for replacement staff; a pool of young people that might be interested in careers in their agencies” (Colonius, 2013).

Despite the fact that nonprofit organizations can address government market failure and contract failure, they are still faced with competition from the private sector. Frumkin states that government social service contracts awarded to for-profit firms has grown to almost 25% of the total share in the last two decades (Frumkin, 2002, p. 78). RMYC has an interesting situation in that it must lobby for the opportunity to provide services, even though their mission is youth development. “We are challenged with the role of selling a work force that, when they first come to us, are unskilled, inexperienced, and oftentimes [have] a poor attitude. Go ahead—market that crew!” Although RMYC has a very positive track record, they are still facing this growing competition with the private sector for federally funded contracts. In order to combat this challenge, they hired a prominent marketing firm, Booz Allen Hamilton, to conduct a study on the efficiency of their performance: “We’ve got a study that recognizes youth corps as an organizational model as the most cost effective way to, let’s say, build a trail. If the Grand Canyon park staff builds a new trail it’s going to cost $10. If the youth corps is contracted to build that trail it’s going to cost 65% less, because we are able to leverage all sorts of other resources” (Colonius, 2013).   

Civic & Political Engagement

The other aspect of the demand-side orientation—besides simply identifying the need and delivering on it—is the intense desire for people to “be a part of something bigger than themselves (Frumkin, 2002, p. 29).” When individuals work together to address their collective needs, they form a bond that mobilizes their energy to engage with the government and create, change or eliminate policies so that they align with these needs. This is what Frumkin calls the “expressive rationale” (Frumkin, 2002, p. 24). Carl Colonius stresses the importance of advocating for youth at the local, state and federal levels. In Frumkin’s words, Colonius is “enlarging the debate” so that more solutions can be found for youth: “…nonprofits can and do influence local priorities in ways that shape national priorities or challenge international conventions (Frumkin, 2002, p. 53).” Colonius explains that advocating for youth is a big part of his work. He spends time with local, state, and federal officials to lobby for this at-risk segment of society. “Nationally there are 6.7 million young people between the ages of 16 and 25 who are sitting on the couch. You talk about 30, 40, even 50% in some sectors with this high school dropout rate. If you’re losing half of your high school population every year, then a youth corps is a part of a solution” (Colonius, 2013).  His work lobbying for government contracts in order to hire more youth is a chance to cross-pollinate this message. There is mutual benefit in that the government gets more efficient delivery of services, allowing, for example, the national park service to enact a wider agenda—at the same time the mission of youth development is enabled.

Frumkin links democracy and nonprofit organizations: “when individuals have alternative, nongovernmental means of accomplishing social ends, they are freer because their destiny is more linked to their own will” (Frumkin, 2002, p. 31). In his book Democracy In America, Alex de Tocqueville remarks on the value of civil associations to the “common man” to get things done and to  accomplish “a whole range of private and public purposes” (Frumkin, 2002, p. 36). Tocqueville’s emphasis on the equal rights of citizens as being crucial to their ability to band together and form associations that are proactive is parallel to RMYC’s mission for giving youth a chance at an equal footing in life:

Even if you take the lower third of your high school population without a high school degree and is thus relegated to what is minimum wage—which is not a livable wage—you’re never going to be able to own a home, you’re going to be renting, you’re going to be essentially powerless to move beyond that [minimum wage] job. And that’s not  a glass ceiling, that’s concrete, there’s logs on the top of that—that’s a hard ceiling to break through. (Colonius, 2013)

Giving these kids a better chance leads to another aspect of civic and political engagement: the building of social capital. The trust built through community service projects “spills over into the political realm and creates enthusiasm for public life that is connected to more active political engagement and participation” (Frumkin, 2002, p. 40). Social capital is built through interpersonal communication and through the involvement with a group of people.  There are dynamic forces at work in the forming of both weak and strong connections between people that work together on a project. There is great value in both weak and strong ties—in fact, “weak ties take people out of their small inner circles and extend access and options” (Frumkin, 2002, p. 44). At RMYC, youth get a chance to experience a range of human connections and learn how to navigate within and among them.

Values and Faith

While the demands of society motivate the service delivery and civic engagement perspectives of nonprofit motivation, other perspectives derive more from the supply side of the sector. Beyond the desire to simply deliver needed services or to engage politically, people are often motivated by the need to express their faith and values through the work. In the Journal of Economic Literature, Susan Ackerman writes about the psychological premise of economic activity, and stresses that a “standard economic framework” cannot fully explain nonprofit activity and “the power of ideas and emotions in motivating behavior” must be a part of this understanding (Ackerman, 1996, p. 701).” Frumkin points out that because the nonprofit sector has a moral dimension, it is differentiated from the state, and this allows these organizations to identify with their own added value. (Frumkin, 2002, p. 97) This sense of value is important for people to avoid feelings of alienation between the private world and the institutional world. Peter Berger and Richard John Neuhaus labeled organizations with this moral dimenstion “mediating structures” which create a linking function of “connecting the massive structures of the state to the little platoons that are meaningful to individuals” (Frumkin, 2002, p. 99).

Colonius tells how RMYC’s organizational values, shape the work day, how they guide his staff, and how they provide the drive to overcome the many obstacles on the path to fulfilling RMYC’s mission. “We’ve got PT in the morning (physical training), and then we circle up and we make announcements and we welcome new people…and we end our PT circle with our mantra: ‘Work safe, take pride, make a difference’ and hopefully it seeps in. It’s hard to fake that day after day after day after day” (Colonius, 2013). He also explains how the values of the organization provide energy for dealing with the inertia that comes from trying to overcome obstacles—he encourages his staff to become “creative problem solvers” and to push against constraints as he must do constantly.

I am certainly hard to ignore, and have a certain level of belligerence that allows me in. When someone in authority says ‘Well we’re not going to do that’ and if that’s the first time you’ve heard that, you think, ‘Oh, well that must be how it is…’ But it doesn’t have to be like that. ‘Why isn’t that going to happen? That doesn’t make any sense. That’s what those funds are designated for—and here’s an example of that relationship taking place in Colorado or in Texas or in Ohio—why can’t we do it that way?’ (Colonius, 2013)

Besides this driving force to overcome obstacles, values and faith in the nonprofit sector also can serve as a deterrent to the “marketization” trend in management and policy creation. In  an increasingly complex and competitive environment, organizations often succumb to the notion that the private market is the correct model for organizational strategy. This can be dangerous. Scholars have noted that marketization trends such as  commercial revenue generation, contract competition, and the influence of new and emerging donors can affect the special position of values-based nonprofit organizations to maintain their reach toward the broad range of human problems. (Eikenberry, 2004, p. 132) In the quest for getting government contracts, these marketization trends can put a focus on measured results, and this can run counter to the nonprofit sector’s emphasis on democracy: “…faith-based organizations march to a somewhat different beat…[they are] clearly in tension with standards based on pure efficiency and simple measurable outcomes” (Frumkin, 2002,p. 117). This aspect of a values-and-faith-driven organization gives it a crucial role in helping to maintain civil society.

Social Entrepreneurship

The last of Frumkin’s four quadrants of the nonprofit sector also derives from the supply-side motivation of services. Rather than the expression of values and faith, this quadrant allows for the expression of the nonprofit as a “vehicle for entrepreneurship” that has a charitable point of view: “One of the great attractions of the nonprofit and voluntary sector is that it has become a place where new projects can be designed and implemented by people who are willing to take a chance (Frumkin, 2002, p. 129).” Joseph Schumpeter emphasized the creative aspect of this perspective, and the valuable linking of innovation to entrepreneurship, and “attempted to move beyond the economist’s usual affinity for explanations based on rational choice and efficiency maximization” (Frumkin, 2002, p. 131). 

Works Cited

Ackerman, S. (1996). Altruism, nonprofits, and economic theory. Journal of Economic

Literature, 34(2), 701-728. Retrieved from  HYPERLINK “http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2729219?uid=3739816&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101856993207” http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2729219?uid=3739816&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101856993207

Colonius, C. (2013, February 19). Interview by J Tennant [Video Tape Recording]. Interview with Carl Colonius, Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Youth Corps.

Dees, J., & Anderson, B. (2003). Sector-bending: Blurring lines between nonprofit and for-profit. Humanities, Social Sciences & Law, 40(4), 16-27. doi: 10.1007/s12115-003-1014-z

Eikenberry, A. (2004). The marketization of the nonprofit sector: Civil society at risk?. Public Administration Review64(2), 132–140. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2004.00355.x

Frumkin, P. (2002). On being nonprofit: A conceptual and policy primer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Rocky Mountain Youth Corps. (2011). About. Retrieved from http://youthcorps.org/about/

Salamon, L. (1999). The nonprofit sector at a crossroads: The case of america. Humanities, Social Sciences & Law, 10(1), 5-23. doi: 10.1023/A:1021435602742