"And to be fair, nonprofits don't try very hard to discourage such illusions. They can't afford to. People running nonprofits are almost always anxious about mo

"And to be fair, nonprofits don't try very hard to discourage such illusions. They can't afford to. People running nonprofits are almost always anxious about money. They can't afford to talk back to big donors." Nonprofits can be realistic about this without being cynical about it. I worked with a very good nonprofit that had the fundraising mantra "don't give until it hurts, give until it feels good." As in, recognize that donors give because giving makes them feel better about themselves and the world they live in, and that's OK and something to encourage -- you just have to connect it to the mission. That means, yeah, you have to take restricted funds and do benefit dinners and other partially-wasteful stuff, and you have to emphasize the photogenic parts of your work more than others. But more importantly, you have to clearly tell the story about your theory of change to your donors, so you're attracting the right donors and educating them to support your mission. They're the "right" donors because the more they learn about how and why you're spending their money, the better they feel about themselves and the world. That sets up a virtuous cycle where you're adequately funded and you're incentivized to do better at your actual mission so you have more to share back. If you get _that_ wrong, and your donors feel good about their donations for fundamentally different reasons than what you're actually spending them for, that's when you end up with funding undercutting the mission.