A brief but interesting read on the sometimes delicate foundation of assumptions shared by nonprofits and those who support them.
A brief but interesting read on the sometimes delicate foundation of assumptions shared by nonprofits and those who support them.
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I think this statement is pretty bogus: “The minimal research effort applied to the way charities or NGOs are run and how well they do contrasts sharply with the minute scrutiny applied to the work of business and government,” especially as it regards private business. Publicly traded companies have to disclose a great deal, but the vast majority of small- and mid-sized businesses that many of us deal with every day are far more opaque than any charity that has to file a 990. The Economist as an institution provides minute scrutiny of business and government, but the average consumer/donor/taxpayer? Not so much.
And they start down that road with this bit: “..a recent survey by Hope Consulting of the richest 30% of American households, found that only a third investigate a charity before donating to it, and of those, three-quarters spend less than two hours on that research,” but offer no comparison to, say, the amount of time people spend researching candidates for election (especially below the federal level), or how they select vendors with whom they spend similar amounts of money to their charitable contributions.
Nonprofits should certainly embrace transparency, track and report effectiveness, and not be afraid to fold if they’re not serving their mission effectively. But the suggestion that they are doing a worse job of it than other sectors holds little or no water.
Thomas
You make some fair points. The amount of scrutiny certainly varies by sector, size of the organization, et al. I would argue an important context for thinking about these sometimes disparate levels of examination should include two things: the higher level of trust enjoyed by our sector, deserved or not (e.g., 70% or 94%, apparently dependent on one’s tax bracket) and the support our sector enjoys as a result of a privileged tax status. As a result, the public has a right to expect greater transparency from the neighborhood nonprofit than the corner grocer. IThe author’s assertion that ‘minimal…effort’ has been applied to analyzing how nonprofits betrays a lack of familiarity with the sector, a lack of research…or both. On the whole, I thought the article made some points worth considering.
Fielding