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I've recently learned a somewhat uncomfortable truth: pretty much every nonprofit needs to constantly be spending effort wrangling up funding or it will die. It

by tivert 3y ago

I've recently learned a somewhat uncomfortable truth: pretty much every nonprofit needs to constantly be spending effort wrangling up funding or it will die. It's annoying and uncomfortable truth, but it's true. The money won't find its way into the door on its own.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
candiddevmike 3y ago
Octoprint isn't a non-profit?
burnte 3y ago
For-profits have to spend money to keep bringing it in, too. Every company has an Accounts Receivable person, even if it's a one-person business you spend a lot of time bringing in business and bringing in payments. Everyone's quick to buy, few are quick to pay.
- matisseverduyn 3y ago
  Not enough people realize how high CAC (customer acquisition cost) really is, even for established businesses selling proven products (took a pic of a display board outside of AT&T: free iPhone and $800 to new customers). I think they see people finding overnight success on a weekend project, like these popups on ProductHunt, not realizing that they're ultimately piggybacking / riding the wave of someone else's huge CAC / marketing budget (in this case, OpenAI). Same happened with blockchain, etc.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    ProductHunt type products are marketing using sweat capital/equity so it looks “free”
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- toyg 3y ago
  My shopkeeper granddad used to say that one should always get paid as soon as possible and pay out as late as possible. That's cashflow management in a nutshell, really.
  - burnte 3y ago
    Yep.
PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
Although ardour.org is not technically a non-profit, we're an organization that does not make or distribute a profit. Our approach, for about 14 years now, has been that continuing to refine and improve the software tool we offer our supporters keeps the revenue flowing.
koreth1 3y ago
And a tricky part of this, for certain kinds of nonprofits, is that you'll be penalized for it because your efforts to raise more money will be classed as overhead and will lower your efficiency rating on various charity-rating lists. A nonprofit that spends 1% of its funding on fundraising and barely scrapes by each year will be rated as more cost-effective than a nonprofit that spends 10% of its funding on fundraising and grows its donations by 15% a year, even though the latter is ultimately going to be able to devote far more resources to its programs.
- swatcoder 3y ago
  That's not a bug. Small nonprofits generally are more cost-effective. If they deliver on the cause you want in a scale that makes sense to you, they're where you want to put your charity for the greatest impact. But maybe they can't organize around your cause because the coordination and scale is too large. That's what large non-profits are good for. They burn efficiency on overhead, but can coordinate larger and grander projects. It's a whole ecosystem. Experienced people are almost never comparing the cost-efficiency of a small organization and a large one for the same cause; they're using it to compare peers within whatever other criteria.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    Could someone set up a charity whose goal is to fundraise for other charities
    - bombcar 3y ago
      Yes, and some of the largest most famous actually operate that way.
    - wincy 3y ago
      I knew a guy who did this. He lived in a 15,000 square foot mansion.
      - quickthrower2 3y ago
colechristensen 3y ago
I’ve been thinking for a while about how to start a foundation that targets sort of the “midcap” of projects that need support. Raise a bunch of money, get an endowment going, and regularly fund medium size/medium usefulness projects both in a continuous way and on a grant-for-feature/limited-project way. Trying to focus on quality so most of the money goes towards people who actually get things done (as opposed to funding awareness, funding fundraising, and misc “not doing things” efforts) not that none of that overhead stuff would get done, but only a quite small portion.

by tivert 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

candiddevmike 3y ago

Octoprint isn't a non-profit?

burnte 3y ago

For-profits have to spend money to keep bringing it in, too. Every company has an Accounts Receivable person, even if it's a one-person business you spend a lot of time bringing in business and bringing in payments. Everyone's quick to buy, few are quick to pay.

matisseverduyn 3y ago
Not enough people realize how high CAC (customer acquisition cost) really is, even for established businesses selling proven products (took a pic of a display board outside of AT&T: free iPhone and $800 to new customers). I think they see people finding overnight success on a weekend project, like these popups on ProductHunt, not realizing that they're ultimately piggybacking / riding the wave of someone else's huge CAC / marketing budget (in this case, OpenAI). Same happened with blockchain, etc.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  ProductHunt type products are marketing using sweat capital/equity so it looks “free”
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
toyg 3y ago
My shopkeeper granddad used to say that one should always get paid as soon as possible and pay out as late as possible. That's cashflow management in a nutshell, really.
- burnte 3y ago
  Yep.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago

Although ardour.org is not technically a non-profit, we're an organization that does not make or distribute a profit. Our approach, for about 14 years now, has been that continuing to refine and improve the software tool we offer our supporters keeps the revenue flowing.

koreth1 3y ago

And a tricky part of this, for certain kinds of nonprofits, is that you'll be penalized for it because your efforts to raise more money will be classed as overhead and will lower your efficiency rating on various charity-rating lists. A nonprofit that spends 1% of its funding on fundraising and barely scrapes by each year will be rated as more cost-effective than a nonprofit that spends 10% of its funding on fundraising and grows its donations by 15% a year, even though the latter is ultimately going to be able to devote far more resources to its programs.

swatcoder 3y ago
That's not a bug. Small nonprofits generally are more cost-effective. If they deliver on the cause you want in a scale that makes sense to you, they're where you want to put your charity for the greatest impact. But maybe they can't organize around your cause because the coordination and scale is too large. That's what large non-profits are good for. They burn efficiency on overhead, but can coordinate larger and grander projects. It's a whole ecosystem. Experienced people are almost never comparing the cost-efficiency of a small organization and a large one for the same cause; they're using it to compare peers within whatever other criteria.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Could someone set up a charity whose goal is to fundraise for other charities
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Yes, and some of the largest most famous actually operate that way.
  - wincy 3y ago
    I knew a guy who did this. He lived in a 15,000 square foot mansion.
    - quickthrower2 3y ago

colechristensen 3y ago

I’ve been thinking for a while about how to start a foundation that targets sort of the “midcap” of projects that need support. Raise a bunch of money, get an endowment going, and regularly fund medium size/medium usefulness projects both in a continuous way and on a grant-for-feature/limited-project way. Trying to focus on quality so most of the money goes towards people who actually get things done (as opposed to funding awareness, funding fundraising, and misc “not doing things” efforts) not that none of that overhead stuff would get done, but only a quite small portion.