Posts Tagged ‘donors’

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The Joyce Foundation, the Independent Sector and the facts

November 2, 2011

Ellen Alberding’s interview with the Chicago Tribune in advance of the Independent Sector‘s meeting in Chicago earlier this week pressed nearly every one of the Nonprofiteer’s buttons.  Ms. Alberding, head of the Joyce Foundation, described the Foundation’s approach to what even she characterizes as a perfect storm of increased need and reduced resources in the nonprofit sector:

We do what any good business person would do when faced with reduced resources. We have become very focused on first maintaining support of our core grantees. Foundations are required to spend a minimum amount — 5 percent of our assets. On occasion, we will overspend that in order to keep our grantees whole.

In other words, business as usual.  Most likely the Joyce Foundation’s governing documents prevent its Board from spending its assets down to zero, but there’s no reason why the Foundation shouldn’t use more than the statutory minimum 5% of its $800 million in assets to sustain the work it exists to support.  Foundations are NOT businesses; they exist to give their money away, and only in some vague theoretical sense is an institution with $800 million facing constraints preventing it from giving away more than $40 million.

If Joyce gave only 6% instead, that would be another $8 million available to nonprofits in its areas of concern—a not-insubstantial 20% increase.   What is stopping the Foundation from doing this, other than a misguided sense that preserving its capital is more important than doing its job?

And then the cherry on the sundae:

It’s the position of the Independent Sector that a cap [on charitable deductions] will reduce charitable contributions across the board and diminish support for nonprofit organizations. I believe it’s the administration’s view that the 28 percent cap might have some impact, but it wouldn’t have a dire impact. (But) I think we have to listen to the organizations themselves, who feel otherwise.

In other words, notwithstanding reality, the prejudices of self-interested parties will dictate the organization’s behavior.    Their minds are made up—don’t confuse them with the facts.  But as President of the organization, doesn’t it behoove Ms. Alberding to make sure her members don’t make their decisions based on fantasy?

Grrrr.

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Posted in Boards of Directors, Conflict of Interest, Coverage of nonprofits, Finances, Foundation Hall of Shame/Stupid Foundation Tricks, Fundraising, Investment, Mission, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Philanthropy and Taxation, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders | Leave a Comment »

Dear Nonprofiteer, It’s all very well to say “call your donors,” but . . .

October 31, 2011

Do you have any advice on getting phone numbers for donors not connected to board/staff/etc?

We’re finding it increasingly challenging, and people are understandably protective of personal info.

Signed, Waiting By The Phone

Dear Waiting:

I don’t, actually, though I’m a big user of WhitePages.com, where lots of people “protective of personal info” will find to their surprise that they’ve been listed.  It’s worth checking, at least, because it’s much more comprehensive than the old phone book.  You do risk having people say, “How did you get this number?” though relatively few will want to yell at you for saying thank you, and it doesn’t hurt to say, “Your number is published on WhitePages.com so we thought it was public information; if you’d rather it weren’t you might contact the site.”

Another thing: make sure your staff carefully examines the front of any check you receive (does anyone still send checks instead of credit card numbers?).  It’s pretty standard to have phone numbers there, and that’s your first, last and only chance to copy down information you’ll need later.

Finally, modify your donor contribution card to ask for a phone number.  Some people will refuse to complete the card, but many will fill it in just out of habit and then you’ve got them.

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Posted in Fundraising, Management Advice Day tip, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders, Technology | Leave a Comment »

The power of thanks

October 28, 2011

So here’s something the Nonprofiteer heard yesterday: if an agency’s response to every initial donation is to have a Board member pick up the phone and call the donor to thank him/her, the likelihood of a second donation increases by something like 80%.

What’s terrific about that (other than the obvious, donor retention) is that picking up the phone is often the biggest hurdle Board members need to clear to become effective fundraisers.  So if they get used to picking up the phone in a completely non-threatening situation–when their only task is to say, “Hi, I’m a volunteer Board member of agency X and I just wanted to thank you for your gift–we really appreciate your support”–you’re halfway (well, maybe one-third-way) to getting them to pick up the phone and ask their friends to come to a benefit event or a fundraising lunch.

Sounds like the ultimate low-cost high-yield endeavor.  Has anyone tried it?  Is it as good as it sounds?

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Posted in Benefit events, Boards of Directors, Fundraising, Management Advice Day tip, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Personnel Issues, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders, Volunteers/Volunteerism | 3 Comments »

Beyond “Will not!” “Will so!”

October 27, 2011

Kudos to the Nonprofiteer’s nonprofit consulting colleagues Campbell and Co. for sponsoring a study by the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy to determine the impact on giving of increased marginal tax rates and a cap the charitable-giving deduction.  While some of us have been arguing that both of these moves toward social justice should be supported by the nonprofit community, and others have been arguing that the world will come to an end if every penny of tax savings isn’t afforded to the generous rich, these institutions decided to look for the facts.

The facts–as elegantly stated in a Congressional Research Service study that came to the same conclusion–are these:

The estimated effects of the cap and other elements of the budget package depend on whether the proposals are compared with the current tax rates of 33% and 35% or the rates scheduled for 2011, 36% and 39.6%. Compared with current rules, estimated effects are between one-half a percent and 1% decline in charitable giving . . . . When compared with tax rate provisions in 2011, charitable deductions are estimated to fall by about 1.5% if only the cap is considered, but if income effects from the entire budget package are included contributions actually rise 2.5%.  The relatively modest effects of the proposal arise because (1) the effect of caps on the subsidy value is limited, (2) only a fraction (about 16%) of charitable giving is affected, and (3) because evidence suggests that behavioral responses to changes in subsidies are relatively small.

(Emphasis the Nonprofiteer’s.)  To paraphrase: the tax subsidy isn’t much reduced; that small reduction doesn’t affect 84% of charitable giving; and, in fact, charitable giving isn’t all that tied to tax benefit.

So whether we take the IUPUI findings that charitable giving is likely to decline modestly if these tax reforms are enacted, or the CRS findings that it might actually go up, we should realize that everyone who’s hyperventilating about the impact of these changes on their poor struggling private school, museum or hospital should just take a deep breath.   Given that the reforms will support many of the social programs, environmental protections, educational institutions and health care options the nonprofits themselves seek to provide, it’s about time for the community to stop whining and agree to pony up.

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Posted in Advocacy, Arts Organizations, Coverage of nonprofits, Current Affairs, Disease charities, Education, Environmental, Finances, Fundraising, Health care, Higher education, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Philanthropy and Taxation, Private Philanthropy, Social Service Agencies | Leave a Comment »

Charity begins at home—and that means taxes

July 13, 2011

About a month ago the Nonprofiteer received a note from a public relations officer at the Jewish Federations of North America describing the Federations’ opposition to placing caps on tax deductions.  Being well aware that the debt ceiling negotiations are completely out of her control (and probably out of anyone’s control at this point), this letter failed to move the Nonprofiteer to leap to her telephone and urge her Congressbeing to beat back this latest assault on the nonprofit sector.

But it wasn’t mere laziness that kept her from the front lines in this particular battle; it was actual disagreement, based on the letter’s own summary of the horrifying proposal:

Specifically, the Administration has proposed limiting tax benefits for charitable contributions for those earning over $250,000 (married) or $200,000 (single). The tax benefit of all itemized deductions, including charitable contributions, would be capped at 28 percent and the Jewish Federations want the charitable portion to be exempted.

Thus, an extremely modest proposal for assuring that the wealthiest citizens pay some additional portion of our shared tax burden is considered a threat to the health and well-being of the hundreds of thousands of people served by the Jewish Federations.  This, despite the fact that deductibility’s impact on giving is far from clear.

Listen up, gang.   You want to see a threat to health and well-being?  How about cuts in Medicaid, in Medicare, in the Affordable Care Act, in Social Security, in food stamps, in child care, in education?  The fundamental problem of the American economy is that we don’t pay enough in taxes to support the services we very reasonably demand.  We don’t pay nearly as much in taxes as our quite conservative neighbors to the north, or our counterparts in Europe or Japan.  So we don’t have the health care, the educational system or the family support services we need.

Even complete abolition of the charitable deduction wouldn’t make much of a dent in the shortfall we’ve created out of pure political cowardice and foolishness.  The deficit is not the result of social spending but of three simultaneous wars piled on multiple tax cuts.  So the hideous notion of a cap on deductions fails on the Willie Sutton basis: you don’t rob nonprofits because that’s not where the money is.

But.   If there were what Everett Dirksen called “real money” hidden in the charitable deduction for wealthy families, it absolutely should be subject to revision, for the same reason every other deduction and credit and tax dodge should: because those dodges enable the wealthy to pay less than their share, and because this society needs more money than poor people’s taxes provide to continue those services necessary for us to remain a member in good standing of the developed world.

The Jewish Federations’ objection to this proposal—while completely understandable from their perspective—suggests that even the nonprofit sector has become infected with the shortsighted quarter-to-quarter thinking which addles Wall Street.  Rather than consider the long-term good of the society they serve, the Federations are concerned about balancing next year’s budget.  And while the Nonprofiteer doesn’t blame them for that—that’s their job—you’ll pardon her if she sides with (and cites) a different giant of the American Jewish community, Samuel Goldwyn*:

“Include me out.”

———————–

*Per Wikipedia: “In 1916, Goldfish partnered with Broadway producers Edgar and Archibald Selwyn, using a combination of both names to call their movie-making enterprise the Goldwyn Pictures Corporation. Seeing an opportunity, Samuel Gelbfisz then had his name legally changed to Samuel Goldwyn, which he used for the rest of his life. “

Could this possibly be because the alternative combination of their names is Selfish?

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Posted in Advocacy, Coverage of nonprofits, Current Affairs, Finances, Fundraising, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Philanthropy and Taxation, Private Philanthropy, Social Service Agencies | 5 Comments »

Tom Sawyer was wrong

June 2, 2011

This branch of Habitat for Humanity has chosen to charge volunteers for the privilege of helping out.

When the Nonprofiteer pointed out that volunteers give more readily to the agencies they serve than non-volunteers, she wasn’t advocating admission fees.   Volunteers may have paid to paint Tom Sawyer’s fence, but Twain’s point was that they were stupid.  Your volunteers aren’t.

Even if mandatory “contributions” (oxymoron watch!) weren’t offensive in suggesting that volunteers’ time has less than no value, they’re practically the definition of penny-wise and pound-foolish: people will pay what you require (or not) and then regard their giving to the agency as being done for the year.

Or forever.  Please stop this idea before it kills again.

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Posted in Benefit events, Charity scandals, Coverage of nonprofits, Current Affairs, Earned income, Finances, Fundraising, Housing, Management Advice Day tip, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Personnel Issues, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders, Social Service Agencies, Volunteers/Volunteerism | 4 Comments »

Eliminating the charitable deduction: It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

May 19, 2011

As governments at all levels scramble for resources, the idea of eliminating the charitable deduction from the income tax code has begun to attract support.  Many people who work in nonprofits say this would damage the sector, because people would be less inclined to give and those who did give would give less.  Let’s assume this is true (though Americans’ passion for voluntary organizations long predates the tax code; Tocqueville, anyone?).  Is the health of “the sector” really the relevant concern?

It may be that people will give less to their churches or alma maters or prestige arts organizations if deprived of a tax benefit for doing so.  But that money will be in the public treasury, where it will go for health care and education and environmental protection (and even a pittance for the arts).  So wouldn’t the goals of nonprofit hospitals and nonprofit schools and environmental nonprofits and arts nonprofits actually be advanced if the government had more to spend on these essential services?

In other words, as with health care, the question isn’t whether people pay; it’s how.  You either pay for health care by giving money to an insurance company, or by paying taxes and letting the government insure you. (The latter model, in use in this country only for the aged, produces the greatest efficiencies and greatest satisfaction among patients, families and caregivers; but of course extending it to the rest of the population would set us on the road to serfdom.  Hayek himself endorsed public provision of health care, so what are we arguing about, again?)

Likewise, you pay either way for education and schools and environmental protection and so on; it’s just a matter of which pot you’re anteing up in: the private nonprofit or the public.

So there’s a real discussion to be had about whether the charitable deduction is a good idea for the entire sector, or whether in fact social service and social justice nonprofits–-the ones that struggle the most for philanthropic support–-would be better off without deductions but with a bigger public fisc.

(Yes, the money might go for defense, or subsidies for oil companies, or some other boondoggle.  It’s our responsibility as citizens to prevent this; tax deductions were not designed to protect us from self-government.)

This is another version of the argument the Nonprofiteer has made elsewhere about the generosity of billionaires versus the reinstatement of a significant inheritance tax.  (We Democrats should make a point of calling it “the inheritance tax,” because that’s the whole point: at the moment, people who work for their money pay income taxes on it while people who inherit their money don’t.  Or we could call it “the windfall profits tax,” which is what it is: a tax on the windfall profits of people whose only contribution to society is having picked the right parents.  And the Nonprofiteer speaks as a windfall recipient.)

When the government collects inheritance taxes it can spend the money on things we as a democratic society think important: health and education and social services and, yes, roads and weapons systems and a bunch of other things about which the Nonprofiteer’s opinions are in the minority.  If the government doesn’t collect, billionaires’ offspring can spend the money on the things they as potentates think are important, which might be eradicating malaria and endowing charter schools but which might, yes, be paying scholars to produce support for the elimination of public education or the abolition of all regulation, or even paying legislators directly for said elimination and abolition.

The tax code is designed to provide the government with resources to do its job.  Its job, among other things, is to provide essential services to citizens who cannot provide those services for themselves; and the more money it collects, the more services it can provide.  What’s important is that those services get provided, not that they get provided by the sector that happens to employ the Nonprofiteer.

So the question here is not, “Is it good for the sector?” but “Is it good for social welfare and social justice?”  The answer is not clear-–crunching the numbers would be a huge job for which the Nonprofiteer is totally unqualified-–but let’s make sure we’re asking the right question.

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Posted in Health care, Insurance, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Philanthropy and Taxation, Private Philanthropy, Public private partnerships, Social Service Agencies | 9 Comments »

Dear Nonprofiteer, Victory on points?

April 22, 2011

Dear Nonprofiteer,

I recently saw an offer to serve on a non-profit board where there was a monetary donation requirement each year, but the amount could be substituted by service or other activities through the scale pasted below. Here’s the way they phrased it:

To ensure active participation, members earn points for financial contributions and volunteer service. We ask that a contribution of $250 be made in order to remain as an Associate Board member. You can, however, combine a cash donation of $100 with your fundraising and volunteer efforts by earning these points:

Sample Opportunities to Earn Points
Opportunity Points
Additional cash contribution of $50 50
Plan a Board Social or Fundraising Event 50
Serve in a leadership role 50
Secure $100 event sponsorship 15*
Represent [agency] at a public fair or presentation 15*
Sell a ticket to a fundraiser 10*

I was wondering, is this a common practice? I’m actually thinking about recommending it for another board where I’ve been asked to donate money.

Signed, Victor on Points or Technical Knock-Out?

Dear Knock-Out:

The Nonprofiteer knows that some larger organizations use this point system, but for smaller organizations she thinks the record-keeping and arguments about “what counts” are more trouble than they’re worth.  Obviously it depends on the size of the required contribution, but in general everyone on a Board should be expected to give AND participate, and in roughly equal measure.

This is expressed in a number of different formulations: Board members offer the three Ws (Work, Wealth and Wisdom) or are expected to provide the three Gs (Give, Get and Govern). Whichever initials you use, the point is the same: Board membership is not an either-or proposition but a yes-and one. The best way to assure fulfillment of these expectations is to adopt a clear statement of them for Board members, and go over that statement with every Board recruit. “Every Board member is expected to make a $500 contribution, and buy a ticket to the annual gala, and attend monthly Board meetings, and serve on a committee . . .”. That way, no one agrees to join the Board who isn’t prepared to do all those things.

People are fond of making exceptions to this in two cases: for Board members perceived to be significantly poorer than the rest of the group, and for those perceived to be significantly wealthier or better-connected than the rest.

In the first case, the Nonprofiteer’s advice is: don’t count the money in other people’s pockets. Poor people are more generous than rich people generally, and thus are often less upset by minimum Board gifts than their wealthier counterparts. If a rich Board member can just write a $500 check while a poorer one has to ask 10 friends for $50, well, that’s just another example of ways in which poor people have to work harder than rich people. And, as $500 per year is less than $10 per week, most working people—regardless of their assets—can afford it.

In the second case: if someone tells you s/he’s too busy to actually do anything but s/he’ll be glad to be on your Board, remember this motto: if they can’t do the time, they can’t do the crime. Someone willing only to lend his/her name and write a check should be placed on an Advisory Board (create one if you have to, or dub the person a “Special Advisor” and put him/her on the stationery), not on the Board of Directors. If you do put such a person on the Board proper, s/he will have all the legal responsibilities of Board members without being there to discharge them—a recipe for disaster and hard feelings, should the agency be socked with a bill for unpaid withholding taxes or a lawsuit from an injured client.

In short: the Board is a governance institution, and governance includes assuring that the agency has the resources it needs to fulfill its mission You shouldn’t have to negotiate with your governors about their tasks, which is what a point system suggests. Rather, they should be the ones setting their own goals and meeting them, and attracting others who will do the same.

And that’s the final reason not to use this point system: no one wants to serve on a Board of lazy people. Your group is more attractive to prospects if everyone’s revved up and ready to go on every possible front. You can find such people, provided you don’t declare defeat and stop looking.

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Posted in Benefit events, Boards of Directors, Finances, Fundraising, Management Advice Day tip, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Personnel Issues, Private Philanthropy, Volunteers/Volunteerism | Leave a Comment »

Emanuel and the foundations: What price access?

March 29, 2011

In fundraising there’s an old saw that if you want someone’s money, you ask for his advice.  Leave it to the ever-innovative Rahm Emanuel to turn this observation into an ultimatum, telling people equipped with useful advice that it won’t be heard unless it comes wrapped in money.

That, in effect, is the meaning of Mayor-elect Emanuel’s request to a group of Chicago foundations that they pay the costs of his transition, costs  traditionally covered by leftover campaign funds, of which Emanuel has plenty.   In a city whose political culture has long consisted of being punished for disagreeing with or disobeying the mayor, the foundations faced an unattractive choice: call the mayor-elect on his inappropriate pick-pocketing and look forward to 40 years in the desert, or pay the man the $2 (or $2 million, as the case may be) in order to be heard.

The Nonprofiteer doesn’t blame the foundations for ponying up, though she wishes they hadn’t: their job is to influence public policy and make change, and the mayor’s office is an important route (sometimes the only route) to doing so.  But the Emanuel administration-in-waiting should never have asked for this sort of tribute.  Whether intended or not, the request makes it appear that access to city government is restricted to those who tithe.  There’s nothing new about that—the title “City That Works” has always ended in a silent “For Pay”—but Chicagoans might be excused for having hoped for something new post-Daley.

Many in the nonprofit sector are dismayed at having to compete with city government for the foundations’ largesse, and that’s a legitimate concern, though a belated one: the Daley administration never hesitated to ask private and foundation donors to subsidize city expenses with money that would otherwise have gone to independent community groups.  (Can you say “Millennium Park”?  “Olympic bid”?)  But the Nonprofiteer is more concerned about a new mayor’s implying, and establishing a precedent for the idea, that even being heard on the 5th floor requires big bucks.

Some wag once said that New York was about culture and Washington about power, but Chicago was all about money.  Plus ca change . . .

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Posted in Advocacy, Campaign finance, Current Affairs, Finances, Foundation Hall of Shame/Stupid Foundation Tricks, Government grants, Nonprofits--General, Private Philanthropy, Public private partnerships, Relations with funders, Strategic Planning (and the tactical kind, too) | 7 Comments »

Dear Nonprofiteer, For whose benefit, exactly?

February 9, 2011

Dear Nonprofiteer,

I have an ethical dilemma that I need help sorting out. I’m really bothered by this and I want to know 1. if I am seeing this from the wrong perspective and 2. what you would advise doing.

I am a wardrobe stylist and I make custom dress shirts & suits. Fairly often, when approached, I donate gift certificates for custom shirts to silent auctions, which raise a nice amount of money for fund-raising organizations.

Here is the issue: In the Fall of 2009, I donated a gift certificate to a well-known organization that runs after-school and extra-curricular programs for children. I was told that the gift certificate was for the silent auction that coincided with an annual fund-raising event. Obviously, I was told proceeds from this event & auction would go to support the local children’s organization.

Last week, I got a call from the former President of the Board of Directors of this organization. He was really excited to finally have his custom shirts made. The organization had given a gift certificate to him while he was on the board, as a thank you gift for his service.

I was a little fuzzy on the gift certificate details, had completely forgotten that I had donated a certificate to the auction, and couldn’t remember anyone buying a gift certificate as a gift…but went the next day to fit him and thought it would all be clear once I saw the certificate.

I only realized at the end of the 60 minute appointment that HIS gift certificate was the one I had DONATED to raise money for THE KIDS and the facility. It apparently was not auctioned off at all, but was given to a Board member as a gift! (Now, it might not have had any bidders in the auction, but this is sort of unlikely, has never happened yet.)

So now I am out-of-pocket, a lot, for a board member’s gift, as opposed to the organization buying something for him (which is tax-deductible for them!) This is a $700 retail value gift. I feel deceived—this money was for kids, not the board president.

Thoughts? Advice? I’ve heard both sides. Someone from non-profit told me I was stuck, that it was perfectly legal & someone else said that I am not accountable to fulfill this certificate.

I would really appreciate your experience/thoughts on this matter.

Signed, Tailor-Made

Dear Tailor:

1) You are not seeing this from the wrong perspective.
2) But it’s hard to know what to do.

There’s no question about it: if you donated a gift certificate to be auctioned off for the benefit of the agency, you wuz robbed if instead it was used instead as a personal gift to an agency Board member. Nonprofit Board members aren’t supposed to be compensated for their services, though they may be recognized: I would argue that a $700 gift starts to sound more like the former than the latter. (I’m presuming the agency knows the value of the certificate.)

You’re not actually stuck: no one can make you make these shirts, and neither agency nor Board member would be likely to sue you to secure them (or equivalent reimbursement). But you have a business reputation to protect, and so the question is which will cost the least to you: telling the Board member you can’t honor the certificate because it’s not being redeemed according to its terms, or telling the agency you want to be reimbursed for their misuse of your gift.

It’s a matter of strategy: if the Board member is likely to become a regular customer, you’d rather not piss him off by refusing to honor the certificate. (Obviously you can only guess about that, but you’re a savvy person: your guess is probably correct.) If you’re likely never to see him again, then say you CAN’T (not you won’t) honor the certificate because its terms called for it to be auctioned, not given away. If he protests that no such “terms” appear on the face of the certificate, explain that those were your arrangements with the agency, and advise him to return to the agency and explain that its gift is unredeemable. You can say or merely imply that what the agency did was exactly like passing counterfeit money: giving him something valueless while pretending it was valuable. Smile when you say all this, but say it and repeat it as often as necessary to get the guy out of your shop.

If, however, he’s a likely future customer, then your only choice is to go to the agency and tell them what you’ve told the Nonprofiteer: that you were told the certificate was to be auctioned off for the benefit of the agency and it wasn’t; that you were willing to donate to the agency but not to its individual Board members; and that you’d like to be reimbursed for the $700 value of your misused gift. If you want to sound lawyerly (which is all the Nonprofiteer got out of her three years in law school), say that you won’t take the $700 out of the hide of the Board member because he’s an innocent “holder in due course,” that is, someone who was given something worthless while believing in good faith that it had worth. Do all this in person with the Executive Director, and then (unless s/he hands you $700 on the spot) reiterate it in a letter to the entire Board.

Getting the $700 out of the agency won’t be easy: they know you’re as unlikely to sue them as they are to sue you. But if they fail to cooperate, do two things: include in the aforementioned letter a statement that you will never donate goods, services or money to the agency again; and include an express or implied intention to make the agency’s misdeed public. You can say, “and I intend to post this on my Facebook page,” or “and I intend to tell alll my business colleagues to do likewise [withhold support] or “I intend to mention this to my friend the New York Times reporter;” or you can simply say, “I know the agency’s reputation for uprightness and am sure you would not wish to have it stained by any accidental misuse of a donation,” and let them infer that the stain on its reputation will come from you.

If the agency offers you refund of half the price or more, take it and walk away. If not, make the shirts for the Board member and do them so brilliantly that he’ll be on your doorstep demanding more–for which you can overcharge him with a clear conscience.

What a shame you’ve had this experience–it seems to validate the old saying, “No good deed goes unpunished.” But plenty of other charities will use your gift correctly, so please try not to be embittered.

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Posted in Benefit events, Boards of Directors, Charity scandals, Fundraising, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders, Social Service Agencies | 10 Comments »

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