Non-Profits Need New Mission

    Non-profits are looking up from the bottom of the same hole that federal, state and local governments are distressed with; how did we get here?

    Answer: Mission creep.    I  see the same set of  circumstances today as have developed over the years, and ever more apparent today.   Namely, non-profits, primarily charitable organizations, have allowed themselves to be convinced that their mission MUST expand because of the “need” and because Directors want larger organization to support more individual and staff pay.  

   So where do they wind up?   Not enough funds to cover expanded missions, but giving levels which would have been sufficient for their original mission.   Why less funds? Partly because Directors are usually paid, and as Non-profitsp’s get larger, some paid staff is added as well.   More volunteers are needed, more space, more overhead and occupancy costs, and here’s the killer; each year the percentage of revenues devoted to salaries and overhead increase, absent a top line revenue growth occasioned by extraordinary fund-raising.  

   So Directors expect more money (after all they are running a larger organization, and have more responsibility, right?), staff deserve raises, there ARE costs in acquiring, managing, and insuring volunteers, among other things.   It all adds up to a self-serving expansion, and much whining, and gnashing of teeth when donations and fund-raising “dry up.”  

   If you want a suggestion for non-profits , here it is;   Get Real! Reshape and rebuild your mission to one that normal levels of fund raising can support, even if that means forgoing expansion into another area, or adding new clients.   It doesn’t help that non-profits are part of the fastest growing “industry” in the U.S., each justifying their creation and the “needs” that spur them, each in isolation to be commended for altruism.  

   But, I wonder how they would manage their egos and motives if they had to devote their talents to supporting already existing non-profits profits with the same or very similar missions, locations, and importantly, fund-raising and donation sources.   Think of how much more efficiently, and productively their “clients ” would benefit; how costs would go down, and revenues devoted to clients would go up.  

   Anyone who thinks that No’s don’t compete for Donors has their head in the sand. Anyone who thinks that NP directors don’t drive Boards to authorize ever-increasing efforts just hasn’t been there.   It’s time to re-think fund raising and commit to an “endowment” goal in which a percentage of each years fund-raising is set aside, with the ten-year goal of generating enough inflation-adjusted income to support the basic mission, with a smaller percentage each year contributed to the trust, which would shortly allow for increasing support levels for Clients. And, the Board must absolutely be sufficiently independent to make sure that the endowment is used or diluted because of the “need.”  

   Nobody will starve, counseling will occur, missions will be maintained.  

   In the end, more will be done for more clients, and non-profits will have created an institution that doesn’t close shop because an economic downturn forces a re-examination of budgets and costs which have become onerous , and/or a closure or reduction in services to those in “need.”