OPINIONISTA: We need to rethink how the non-profit sector is financed By Shelagh Gastrow
The Way we Think about Charity is Dead Wrong
At the same time, the outcomes of business are essentially making money, whilst non-profit outcomes are based on different values and seek social change. Frequently, it is the very people who own or benefit from business who are the most critical about non-profit expenditure. Donors around the world have started to ask themselves whether they should be investing more in non-profit overheads to ensure sustainability, confidence and improved effectiveness. Recently two philanthropic foundations in the United Kingdom have come out publicly to state how they fund organisational core costs and the benefits of doing so.
Having run an organisation that received unrestricted funding, I am aware of the significant advantages of such funding. On a practical level, the organisation becomes more efficient. Besides the delivery of specific programmes, organisations battle with a range of issues such as ageing IT systems, the inability to develop, update and enhance staff skills and myriad maintenance requirements to ensure efficiency can be managed.
The Peter Cundill Foundation views the advantages of unrestricted funds in very practical ways including repeatable reporting, simplified accounting, reduction in the complexity of reporting, lowering of audit and fundraising costs. The issue of flexibility is also mentioned as an advantage in that “if an organisation is well run, money is allocated to where it’s needed to maximise impact and that may change within a grant cycle”.
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