Bridging the Chasm: Nonprofit Organizational Effectiveness, Resilience, and Infrastructure

Call it what you may. There is a new call these days to strengthen nonprofits that foundations support. Survey what is being funded, what guidelines are out there. I have. What you find missing is the one essential thing for an organization’s resilience, effectiveness, and infrastructure.

Fundraising. Money.

It’s a subject rarely mentioned and more rarely funded. Why?

You can have the most awesome proven program, effective data that shows you get results on whatever you’re working on but if you don’t have the financial power to keep this program going, let alone spread and grow it. What’s the point?

Organizational Effectiveness and Infrastructure funding overwhelmingly go to some definition of “leadership”. We all know leadership is vital and important. But a leader with no budget is what?

We have a lot of wonderful leaders amongst organizations focused on the challenges facing people of color. Many excellent nonprofits with tiny resources to challenge giant issues.

All of this is simple logic. Yet somehow so many funders focused on social justice for example continue the top-down model of funding nonprofits, especially those of color. This creates an endless cycle of dependence on foundation grants. It’s how they survive but not grow. That’s because foundations give only 18% of philanthropy. The greatest part of philanthropy 70% comes from individuals. You can count the foundations that even talk about individual giving on one hand in the US.

Now the few foundations venturing into funding individual giving or fundraising are dabbling in new unproven programs for raising money. Apps, websites, conferences where people talk about philanthropy. Yet almost no foundations stop and support the 150-year-old proven method for increasing individual giving. Fundraising.

It would be similar to foundations wanting to fund methods of growing crops of a certain type. Lets say apples. They fund all kinds of innovative and unproven methods. Discussions about Apple farming, apps to show you where to buy apples. But don’t fund apple farmers who have been growing apples for thousands of years.

Through my discussions with many philanthropy professionals, I have discovered that one major reason this isn’t happening is the chasm between fundraisers and institutional giving professionals. There is also the historic distaste many have for fundraising and fundraisers. People joke about it, even put it down.

A lot of people who want stronger nonprofits simply don’t know a lot about fundraising, especially individual giving and especially Major Giving. Sadly, these areas are the expertise of large institutions, universities, hospitals, etc. Most institutional giving professionals don’t know that people of color have a tremendous capacity to give but are woefully under-engaged by philanthropy.

Ultimately the power is with the people, not the foundations.

Foundations can inspire, be catalysts and crucial allies. How can foundations bring out the power of the people? How can they help the people see their own inherent power to challenge the problems that face their families, communities and nation? The power of the people comes to two essential mutually supporting pieces. Organizing and Fundraising. We do the former but not the latter.

Let’s change what resilience and infrastructure truly mean. Let’s challenge the current model that nonprofits to stay small. We can do this in two ways.

1.??????Understand your grantee’s true fundraising power. Do they have staff, do they invest in it? Do they have many methods of fundraising? For me, this is the surest measure of an organization’s resilience. Can it grow beyond foundation grants?

2.??????Fund your nonprofits to improve their fundraising. Through consultants, professional development. Endow a development officer position or team. ?There are many ways.

3.??????Fund professional Development for small and medium nonprofits. Large nonprofits have plenty of access to knowledge to improve their fundraising. Check out organizations supporting people of color like Somos El Poder, a National Latinx Fundraising Institute, and others.

Thanks for reading my diatribe. Any questions, happy to help. Let’s start a discussion!

www.somoselpoder.org