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FWIW, I'm actually familiar with non-pros, at least in Baltimore, MD, US. I have friends who work for non-pros, mostly because they're lawyers who need to pay t

FWIW, I'm actually familiar with non-pros, at least in Baltimore, MD, US. I have friends who work for non-pros, mostly because they're lawyers who need to pay the bills somehow. More than a few have told me that the majority of their time is met filing for grants, doing "shady" book-keeping and fulfilling whatever minimum requirements needed to earn said grants. The shady book-keeping has caused more than a few to leave. No, of course not all non-pros are that way. But, comparing church to a non-pro seems as useful as comparing the NFL to a non-pro, which until this year, the NFL was a non-profit. [0] This was why I was curious if you had data to back up your claim. I am far from a church apologist. Very far from it, but in my N=1 anecdotal experience, the only difference between church and a non-religious non-pro, is the religion. Not at all an attack towards you, I was hopeful you had data to back up your claim. I am still hopeful. I do not like churches. [0] http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/why-the-nfl-decided-to-start-paying-taxes/391742/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/why-the-...

Frondo 11y ago
I guess I'm not sure what kind of data you're looking for. I don't think the data set exists that says "Nonprofits are/are not tax-shelter scams that spend most of their time doing shady bookkeeping". I don't know if there's a data set that breaks down how many people get helped by nonprofits, either, because the stuff they do takes on so many different forms (and how would you quantify the work, say, an environmental nonprofit does in terms of human benefit?). I do know that, if you were curious, there is a very far-reaching community of nonprofit professionals online, and they'd do a much better job than me explaining the social-benefit-type of work their employers do. I'll ask around tomorrow, too (I have a bunch of nonprofit-employed friends, who work in programs and not administration). I'll return to this thread if I get anything good to share. (And yes, there's definitely corruption in the nonprofit world, I won't argue with that, my beef is with churches that do almost nothing for the community and still enjoy the tax-exempt status and that "we're a charity, ergo we're good for the world" sentiment.)

Frondo 11y ago

I guess I'm not sure what kind of data you're looking for. I don't think the data set exists that says "Nonprofits are/are not tax-shelter scams that spend most of their time doing shady bookkeeping". I don't know if there's a data set that breaks down how many people get helped by nonprofits, either, because the stuff they do takes on so many different forms (and how would you quantify the work, say, an environmental nonprofit does in terms of human benefit?). I do know that, if you were curious, there is a very far-reaching community of nonprofit professionals online, and they'd do a much better job than me explaining the social-benefit-type of work their employers do. I'll ask around tomorrow, too (I have a bunch of nonprofit-employed friends, who work in programs and not administration). I'll return to this thread if I get anything good to share. (And yes, there's definitely corruption in the nonprofit world, I won't argue with that, my beef is with churches that do almost nothing for the community and still enjoy the tax-exempt status and that "we're a charity, ergo we're good for the world" sentiment.)