1/ After 10+ years in the nonprofit sector, I’m convinced that relying on donations is an ineffective way to scale impact. Here’s why the donation trap is a broken model:
-
Show this thread
-
2/ Fundraising doesn’t scale well. The bigger nonprofits get, the more money / time they spend fundraising, and the less they spend on programs that help people.
2 replies 2 retweets 7 likesShow this thread -
3/ Some people think this is ok. The argument is that while impact per dollar may go down as nonprofits scale, the total impact (eg # people helped) may increase. “Nonprofits should be able to invest in growth for future returns just like Amazon!”
2 replies 1 retweet 5 likesShow this thread -
4/ The flaw in this argument is that donations are a zero sum game. They’ve been 2% of GDP in the US for 40 years. The American Red Cross isn’t expanding the pie. They’re “raising” $2B that likely would have gone to other nonprofits.
2 replies 1 retweet 5 likesShow this thread -
5/ Nonprofits fight this issue by claiming they only spend x% on fundraising. Usually, this is inaccurate and results from institutional pressure + accounting gymnastics + fuzzy definitions about what constitutes “programs” vs “fundraising” as a % of people’s time.
1 reply 1 retweet 5 likesShow this thread -
6/ In summary, the bigger nonprofits get, the more they focus on fundraising, the less they help people, and the more we would have all been better off if that money had gone to smaller, better nonprofits.
2 replies 3 retweets 12 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @ChaseAdam17
Do bigger nonprofits really spend more on fundraising / are smaller nonprofits really better? Conventional wisdom (not that that means anything) is that there are too many smaller nonprofits and they’re not better
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @barenblat
That’s what I’m arguing, but I’d love to be wrong. I agree conventional wisdom is there are too many small nonprofits, but I don’t agree it’s that they’re better. Usually I hear people pitching small nonprofits, not big ones like the Red Cross (ppl seem skeptical of those).
2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
Now that I think more, I wonder if conventional wisdom is that there *should* be more big good nonprofits, not that there are. I’d like that too, tho I think that’s ppl incorrectly mapping ideas from industry where big = efficient, but nonprofits don’t seem to work that way.
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.