4 ms·

One open secret of nonprofits is that donations of goods or time are usually much, much less efficient, desired, and effective than donations of money: http://s

One open secret of nonprofits is that donations of goods or time are usually much, much less efficient, desired, and effective than donations of money: http://seliger.com/2014/04/20/volunteers-nonprofits-really-want-their-money-not-their-bodies/ http://seliger.com/2014/04/20/volunteers-nonprofits-really-w.... Nonprofits still need to cultivate volunteers, as volunteers tend to also be donors and volunteers want a tangible sense of community, but if you're really looking at cost-benefit, focus on money.

munk-a 7y ago
Which really brings up the question of having a charity based social support structure instead of just delegating that to the government and letting a few hundred million required to run the entire thing be written off as a sig fig error of the military budget.
- harryh 7y ago
  Annual donations to charity per year in the US are in excess of 400 Billion (so about 1000x more than your off the cuff estimate). Rather than being a rounding error in the military budget, this is about 2/3rds of total.
  - lmm 7y ago
    > Annual donations to charity per year in the US are in excess of 400 Billion Yes, but how much of that is "social support" versus, say, wealthy people structuring expenditures they were going to make anyway to be more tax efficient.
    - harryh 7y ago
      There are some stats here on where the money goes: https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=42 https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&... I'm not really sure what "wealthy people structuring expenditures they were going to make anyway" even means.
      - taejo 7y ago
        If Richie McMoneybags was going to buy a million-dollar painting, but instead decides to donate those million dollars to the McMoneybags Museum of Million-Dollar Art That Richie Wanted to Buy Anyway (that's in a wing of Richie's house and is only open to the public once a year), that probably counts.
        harryh 7y ago
        No, it does not count. The IRS isn't stupid.
        taejo 7y ago
        Excuse my mistake, the McMoneybags Museum is not in a wing of Richie's house but down the road, and it's open not once but twice a year (or by appointment). https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/business/art-collectors-gain-tax-benefits-from-private-museums.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/business/art-collectors-g... The IRS isn't stupid, but they also don't have the resources to audit everyone who makes a dodgy claim.
        tptacek 7y ago
        You answered his question but didn't rebut his data, which shows that arts contributions are a small fraction of total charitable giving, almost half of which appears to go into services for people (health, education, human services), followed by religious giving.
        lmm 7y ago
        Is there any reason to believe that "donations" in those categories are less likely to yield similar personal benefits for the "donor" than those categorized as art?
      - rdtwo 7y ago
        Think Clinton foundation and everyone else’s similar personal “charity”
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Eh. It depends. Most nonprofits probably need money more than they need "show up with a pulse and do what you're told" type labor. However, donations of skilled labor and capital can often deliver more value than their cost because the organization receiving them could not go out and purchase equivalent goods/services for what it cost the person donating those goods/services to give them up. Most churches tend to use this model as much as they can and it works out quite well.
protomyth 7y ago
Once again, that's a very specific type of nonprofit. That is not true of every nonprofit and certainly not true of churches or small nonprofits. The closer the organization is to acting like a government agency, the truer that article is. Plus, that's a really cynical way to look at people who want to help their fellows, and shows the difference between professional nonprofit workers and people who are just trying to help their fellows. At the point that advice is practical, you are in the NGO world.
- XorNot 7y ago
  Life is full of people with good intentions who manage to accomplish not nearly as much as someone who cares less but is just plain better at the job. I mean, the sum of human misery in this world is vast - how someone individually feels about how they contribute is somewhat irrelevant if it only manages to break even on the management overhead they create to the system as the whole.
  - protomyth 7y ago
    The "just give us your cash, we don't really want any help from you, leave it to the professionals" mentality has probably hurt giving and allowed more fraudulent activity. Things people care about and do are important. Throwing some dollars at a charity doesn't make it real and certainly doesn't create the advocates and friends a charity needs to survive. A charities inability to utilize volunteers is on them and very much a failure of the charity. If a person wants to run a charity learn to understand charity in a personal and community way, not as an exercise in strictly logistics with no human elements. That lack of interaction will cause problems in other parts of an operation.
- rubidium 7y ago
  Agreed. We run a summer camp for kids in a poor neighborhood. We've got plenty of money. What we need is people who are willing to actually spend time with kids!
  - nitrogen 7y ago
megablast 7y ago
You mean the entire premise of the article we are all talking about?

munk-a 7y ago

Which really brings up the question of having a charity based social support structure instead of just delegating that to the government and letting a few hundred million required to run the entire thing be written off as a sig fig error of the military budget.

harryh 7y ago
Annual donations to charity per year in the US are in excess of 400 Billion (so about 1000x more than your off the cuff estimate). Rather than being a rounding error in the military budget, this is about 2/3rds of total.
- lmm 7y ago
  > Annual donations to charity per year in the US are in excess of 400 Billion Yes, but how much of that is "social support" versus, say, wealthy people structuring expenditures they were going to make anyway to be more tax efficient.
  - harryh 7y ago
    There are some stats here on where the money goes: https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=42 https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&... I'm not really sure what "wealthy people structuring expenditures they were going to make anyway" even means.
    - taejo 7y ago
      If Richie McMoneybags was going to buy a million-dollar painting, but instead decides to donate those million dollars to the McMoneybags Museum of Million-Dollar Art That Richie Wanted to Buy Anyway (that's in a wing of Richie's house and is only open to the public once a year), that probably counts.
      - harryh 7y ago
        No, it does not count. The IRS isn't stupid.
        taejo 7y ago
        Excuse my mistake, the McMoneybags Museum is not in a wing of Richie's house but down the road, and it's open not once but twice a year (or by appointment). https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/business/art-collectors-gain-tax-benefits-from-private-museums.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/business/art-collectors-g... The IRS isn't stupid, but they also don't have the resources to audit everyone who makes a dodgy claim.
        tptacek 7y ago
        You answered his question but didn't rebut his data, which shows that arts contributions are a small fraction of total charitable giving, almost half of which appears to go into services for people (health, education, human services), followed by religious giving.
        lmm 7y ago
        Is there any reason to believe that "donations" in those categories are less likely to yield similar personal benefits for the "donor" than those categorized as art?
    - rdtwo 7y ago
      Think Clinton foundation and everyone else’s similar personal “charity”

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

Eh. It depends. Most nonprofits probably need money more than they need "show up with a pulse and do what you're told" type labor. However, donations of skilled labor and capital can often deliver more value than their cost because the organization receiving them could not go out and purchase equivalent goods/services for what it cost the person donating those goods/services to give them up. Most churches tend to use this model as much as they can and it works out quite well.

protomyth 7y ago

Once again, that's a very specific type of nonprofit. That is not true of every nonprofit and certainly not true of churches or small nonprofits. The closer the organization is to acting like a government agency, the truer that article is. Plus, that's a really cynical way to look at people who want to help their fellows, and shows the difference between professional nonprofit workers and people who are just trying to help their fellows. At the point that advice is practical, you are in the NGO world.

XorNot 7y ago
Life is full of people with good intentions who manage to accomplish not nearly as much as someone who cares less but is just plain better at the job. I mean, the sum of human misery in this world is vast - how someone individually feels about how they contribute is somewhat irrelevant if it only manages to break even on the management overhead they create to the system as the whole.
- protomyth 7y ago
  The "just give us your cash, we don't really want any help from you, leave it to the professionals" mentality has probably hurt giving and allowed more fraudulent activity. Things people care about and do are important. Throwing some dollars at a charity doesn't make it real and certainly doesn't create the advocates and friends a charity needs to survive. A charities inability to utilize volunteers is on them and very much a failure of the charity. If a person wants to run a charity learn to understand charity in a personal and community way, not as an exercise in strictly logistics with no human elements. That lack of interaction will cause problems in other parts of an operation.
rubidium 7y ago
Agreed. We run a summer camp for kids in a poor neighborhood. We've got plenty of money. What we need is people who are willing to actually spend time with kids!
- nitrogen 7y ago

megablast 7y ago

You mean the entire premise of the article we are all talking about?