Scarcity, Uncertainty, and Hope in the Nonprofit Sector
At a rural philanthropy conference last year, the opening speaker began by asking everybody in the packed high school gymnasium to raise their hands if they worked more than 60 hours a week. A sea of hands shot up.
Next, they asked these nonprofit leaders to keep their hands up if they were compensated for their overtime. The hands went down.
Everybody at the conference were seeking a storied myth: consistent, reliable funding. We wanted somebody to believe in our mission enough to say that they would be there with us, side by side, trusting our work through the ups and downs as we work to build a better world.
But progressive nonprofit funding doesn’t work that way. Funding comes in bits and pieces. Grants offer funding one year at a time, with no guarantee that the programs you built with funding will continue to receive support the following year. Foundations fear that nonprofits will become dependent on the support they receive and lose the capacity to go out and fend for themselves. Sound familiar? The same argument was used to gut public assistance programs this year. This is the myth of American individualism played out throughout the nonprofit sector.
Real change is made through long-term partnerships. We see this kind of philanthropy working so well in conservative organizations like The Heritage Foundation. They don’t deal with a roller coaster of funding because conservative donors and foundations tend to make unrestricted donations with multi-year commitments. Conservative mega-donors trust that The Heritage Foundation knows best how to erode the foundations of democracy. To make it possible, they commit to funding for 20 years or more. That’s how you build effective nonprofits. We are experiencing the results of The Heritage Foundation’s consistent funding right now as their political plans are made reality.
Whether you’re wealthy or not, it’s important to understand this.
So many of us rely on nonprofits as a source of education, community engagement, assistance in hard times, and as a source of hope that the better world we dream of for our children might still become a reality. Nonprofits are the champions of the things that really matter in life. If you look to nonprofits for any of these things, you also need to understand their struggles.
The uncertainty involved in progressive nonprofits is a major source for burnout. Young nonprofit leaders I know live in a constant state of alert, afraid that the floor is going to fall out from under them. Most of them will personally absorb some of these financial fluctuations in order to ensure that their staff are paid and programs continue to run. Just look at those hundreds of nonprofit directors in the gymnasium saying they work 60 hours a week without asking for anything more. These are the people who stay up late weaving the fabric of our society and trying to repair breaks when that fabric frays.
If you want to see our world moving in a different direction, this essay is for you. The model we have been relying on to fund progressive causes in our world is not working.
Scarcity mentalities are taking over our collective consciousness: people are worried they won’t have enough. It’s adding additional uncertainty to an already uncertain part of society. When times are challenging, that’s the most important time to support organizations working for a better world. Scarcity breeds scarcity. When we support our nonprofit organizations, they help spread a sense of abundance in the world. That’s what nonprofits are for—they work for the good of all in areas where the returns come not in the form of money, but in human wellbeing.
We depend on your support. Tomorrow is Colorado Gives Day, our state’s biggest nonprofit fundraising day. Whether you choose to donate to Groundwork or another organization, consider your strategy and help break cycles of scarcity and uncertainty in the nonprofit sector:
- Give during uncertain times. As people tighten their belts and guard their wallets during these uncertain times, our society is relying more and more on the work of nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits have been conditioned not to share bad news, since it might scare donors away. Most organizations won’t tell you that the straw that breaks their back is coming soon.
- Offer monthly donations. Monthly giving creates stability. It’s also immediately clear if you stop giving, and nonprofits don’t need to play as much of a guessing game in year-end fundraising pushes. The smaller the nonprofit, the more they will benefit from this.
- Tell nonprofits that you intend to give on an annual basis. Consistency is so important, and organizations appreciate hearing that you’re on their team for the long-run. Groundwork would not be here if not for a single generous donor offering us $750 per month. (You know who you are—thank you!) That steadiness has made it possible for us to plan and dream over the past 5 years, to commit to projects without being afraid that the funding would dry up. We would love to hear from more donors that they are committed for multiple years.
- If you have a family foundation, shift your strategies to trust and fully fund organizations. Please consider a total spend-down and liquidation your foundation in the coming decade. Our world has crises that need urgent attention. The longer you wait, the more challenging it will be to solve problems. Endowments don’t make sense in emergencies—action does.
- Acknowledge and talk about the challenges and uncertainties of changemaking. Just as I wrote last week that we need to talk about giving and philanthropy more as a society, we also need to acknowledge that organizations we admire are enduring a lot of uncertainty. It’s a key part of the conversation.