When suggesting this to a director of a nonprofit, he couldn’t understand why both parties wouldn’t choose to execute the loan in the least-bureaucratic and most inexpensive option and not through a registered financial institution.
To the best of my knowledge, Judaism, Christianity and even plain-old, agnostic ethics advocates giving someone a second chance. But is this true with nonprofit organizations? Does a charity that has made mistakes and lost our trust deserve our donations in the future?
Give me the “Outright No” any day of the week and twice in a recession; you win some, you lose some. The second, drawn-out no, is still a no, but wasted my time and got my hopes up over nothing. Why not tell me no from the beginning instead of playing achy-breaky games with my heart?
Unfortunately, nonprofit organizations are being subjected to this same treatment, even more so now after the recession and the Madoff scandal.
No, King Arthur hasn’t been reborn nor are we in Camelot. Heck, we’re not even in Kansas. What this is, though, is a serious attempt by the Israel Government and a number of foundations that operate in Israel to increase the cooperation, strength, and transparency of Israel’s nonprofit sector.
For years we have been witnessing charitable institutions hiring business executives in order to increase fundraising or professionalize the organization. I remember the big news when the President of Columbia University, George Rupp, accepted the presidency of the International Relief Committee in 2002. Some of us alumni were bewildered by the move — leaving the private sector for the public sector, unheard of!?!? However, what seemed like an isolated incident then, was actually indicative of many nonprofit organizations.
But is the reverse true? Are the corporate and public sectors luring away nonprofit executives in the hope of improving their social standing and/or activities?
I think that charities need to take a step back because, believe it or not, proper fundraising is a question more encompassing than “direct mail vs. email solicitations” and even larger than “Facebook vs. Twitter” (OMG!).
Fundraising is done at every level of the organization. Every employee that interacts with a donor can impact the constituent’s relationship with the charity. To highlight this point I would like to share a short story that happened to me just a few days ago. I think it illustrates how even small gestures can have large (and negative) consequences.
In the past I have written about the US dollars tough battle against a downward spiral. In short, the UnitedState’s dollar is fighting an increasingly gargantuan federal deficit and the prospect of continued low interest rates neither of which bode well for the strength of the dollar.
With that said, what happened last week that caused the dollar to soar against the shekel? Friday, October 23rd, saw the dollar close at 3.6972 while a week later on Friday, October 30th, the dollar closed at 3.7545 a jump of 1.5% in only seven days!
The sheer number of sites that allow a viewer to rate nonprofits has my mouse trigger happy, my head spinning, and my brain questioning the openness of the internet.
I started this soul searching recently after speaking to a nonprofit founder/CEO about the current (and extended) GreatNonprofits: Jewish Choice Awards 2009 campaign. After the conversation I was left with questions that have led me to believe that these types on online contests are not the best to spread the word about the world’s great charities nor are these polls a fair judge. Allow me to elaborate: