ROUND TWO: Classified Info (Part A)

"In this corner --

institutions and organizations committed to fighting the Cerebral Palsy fight and improving outcomes as they relate to CP." 

Hmmm. Seems understandable enough, doesn't it? On further review, however, what /who are those institutions and organizations? How would one decide which ones to include or exclude? For clarity's sake -- my own and anybody else's who may be keeping score at home -- I want to try to spell out more generally who I see as being on our side. Who the good guys are, in other words, in the CP fight. 

I've come up with a crude classification scheme. 

Here's some background. 

The goods-producing component of our society has traditionally been thought to consist of three (3) sectors. There's the public /government sector, the private /for-profit business sector, and the civil society /nonprofit sector. Others who think about such things also add a fourth sector -- variously called individuals, households, or "non-organizational forms." 

For purposes here, I intend to think in terms of those four (4) sectors, and, as would-be CP fighters come into my sphere of consideration I'll slot them -- like this:

Public /government ("public initiatives for public good")  Example: AHRQ, the US Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality  

Private /business ("private initiatives for private good") Example: TheraTogs, in Telluride, CO, makes "customizable physical rehabilitation systems that are worn under clothing to address neuromotor, orthopedic, and postural conditions", i.e., orthoses 

Individuals ("all other non-organizational forms") Example: Jilda Vargus-Adams, a pediatric physiatrist at Cincinnati Children's Hospital 

Civil society /nonprofits ("private initiatives for public good") See next.

Nonprofits represent the majority of my target audience (and Twitter "Following"s)* so far. Probably because I've paid them more attention, I've gotten a little carried away with my analytical knife and carved out these five (5) subsets:

Health. Example: American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), America's largest disability rights organization 

Philanthropy. Example: The Annie E. Casey Foundation "develops solutions to build a brighter future for children, families, and communities" 

Research. Example: CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research, a research center in Ontario, Canada that focuses on improving the lives of children and youth w/ disabilities and their families 

Education. Example: The Center for Social Innovation at the Stanford Graduate School of Business "educates leaders who can solve the world's toughest problems" 

Human Services. Example: Hattie Larlham Center for Children with Disabilities, an Intermediate Care Facility (ICF/MR) in Ohio that provides residential care to children and young adults

Classifying's always tricky. The further you try to go and the more subdivisions you try to create (to achieve clarity, presumably) the murkier things become. In this case, deciding to which of the four sectors an entity belongs can be tough enough. When you try to make even thinner cuts...well, let me give you an example. I'm pretty sure it's "proper" to classify direct-service agencies as Human Service nonprofits, but -- do independent therapy clinics belong in the same class? How about -- help! -- inclusive recreation groups?

The good news is that nothing here is set in stone; the whole thing's refinable. Also a tool like this only has to be useful. At this point, the categories above make sense to me. Already they've helped me see new patterns. (They've made me realize, for example, that I'm only following on Twitter a few durable CP-related goods providers.) And I'm starting to see other potential uses.

I'm curious to know: Do you classify other organizations for any reason(s)? Do you, or would you, do things differently? Is this useful to you? Does it trigger any interesting thoughts?

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*Trying to process Tweets from those I'm following is too much for my brain on its own to handle. They say making lists based on key words or tags (to compartmentalize) can help. So, I'm in the process of incorporating the scheme above at /on Twitter, too. What's your strategy for keeping up with what others are posting?