The United States has locked most of our most caring people into the least effective and stupidest organizations possible: Non-profit social service agencies. These agencies seem good, since they do good things like deliver hot meals, pass out bags of surplus food and pat themselves on the back all the time. But the reality is that most non-profits aren’t good, they’re just “not bad.”
Non-profits are primarily patronage and public relations programs. They are also a kind of outsourcing initiative, with non-profits saving money by doing work that should be done by higher paid and better benefited government employees. As patronage and public relations programs, non-profits are very effective. A big part of what they do is link politicians to people who care about issues, by inviting the pols to thank you galas, ribbon cuttings and other p.r. events. Non-profits spend a great deal of their time and resources gathering money – which positions them as key nodes in the fund raising networks that politicians depend on.
Cross posted: Political Porn
Some non-profits are more bad than good, such as food banks and homeless shelters. Nations without poverty don’t keep people out of poverty by passing out corporate waste products (surpluses) as charity, and don’t house the poor in temporary and dangerous shelters. But these are two of the most popular kinds of charities for those who really care about the poor. It’s ironic that those who are most concerned about poverty end up contributing the most to the systems that feed off of it. We’d be better off without food banks and shelters, as this would end the dangerous myth that these kinds of systems work.
But enough of what sucks. Today I start “The Good Guys,” a weekly blog series, highlighting people and organizations that go beyond the typical suckyness of most non-profits. The criteria for what makes a Good Guy (and Gal) is simple:
- Speak up to power, even if it means less funding and more trouble with power brokers
- Build organizations from the bottom up, even it this is harder and takes more time
- Focus on political solutions, not feel-good band aid solutions
- Don’t waste time of stupid non-profit and lefty ideologies, and are instead focused effective ways of getting their values realized
I will feature the first organization next Friday.
Cross posted: Political Porn
Tom,
I’m going to try real hard to respond to all of this without breaking the “don’t be a prick” rule. But I do notice how often you almost seem to ask for it with these broad kind of judgemental diaries.
I’ll also own my bias. I happen to run one of those non-profits that you just slamed with your broad brush. So I’m not the most objective of folks.
With that being said, you just don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not here to defend all non-profits (I don’t get in to the types of generalizations that you seem to) because there are definitely some that I have problems with. But you also don’t know how much time, and very precious money, many non-profits spend on advocacy at all levels for the people they serve. I see people from non-profits “speaking truth to power” on a daily basis. Of course this is not to mention the lives that are literally saved by the work they do every day.
I take great offense at what you have just written and have NO idea why you would take on organizations that are in the trenches trying to help the very people we hope to be standing up for. This just seems like meaningless discord you are trying to promote.
Completely agree NL. I happen to be the Human Resources person for a non-profit that works deliberately with other local non-profits to help provide services such as parenting skills, financial literacy, mentoring for young adults, substance abuse prevention, etc.
Some non-profits are more bad than good, such as food banks and homeless shelters. Tell that to my grandmother who has administered a food bank for several years. You better have good reflexes or you’ll get a ladle hurled between your eyes.
While I’m sure the rebuttal to our objections will be the fact that he used “Most” in the title, this diary serves to tear down rather than build up. I am moving on.
Yes, it is a tearing down kind of diary. As it is a tearing down kind of point. Since I think most NPs suck, I’d like to see them go – get taken down.
I don’t really expect everyone to share my point of view on this. And I expect most in nonprofits will not share this point of view.
But I still think it is a worthwhile point to make.
Although she works with non-profits, and couches her criticism in more nuanced terms, Janet Poppendieck comes to quite similar conclusions in her book Sweet Charity?: Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement. I reviewed it for the Christian Science Monitor, “Emergency Food: A Moral Safety Valve?”, which begins:
I don’t doubt your sincerity, integrity, hard work, good intentions… any of it. That’s not the point. The point is, hunger is growing despite your best efforts–and the efforts of thousands others like you. Something is fundamentally wrong on a systemic level, and non-profits are part of that system.
Tom may actually have let you off the hook. By making his claim so strong and sweeping, he made it easy for you to leap to the defense of the work you do. If he had been more nuanced, you might have felt more troubled by the contradiction–as I’m sure you must from time to time all on your own.
The huge big box ones, as they grow, not unlike blogs 😉 tend to accumulate obligations other than the one their founders may have intended.
Someone said something the other day about international aid orgs not affiliated with the US, and I was tempted to reply that any such entity would in all probability be on the US list of terrorist organizations.
NGOs in the crusade theatres have been exploited so hard that the lives of those caring people are in danger, everything from being forced to bargain, well let you feed those if you promise not to feed these, to US gunmen impersonating aid workers to gain access to populations to exterminate them.
For contributors who want as much as possible of their money to go to the people who need it, the small local-acting hands on org, whether faith based or secular is a better bet than the megaliths, who whether they like it or not, become musclebound with administrative costs and politics.
I do know what I am talking about. I have been the ED of a non-profit. I have organized with non-profits. And most suck.
Most is not all. There are examples of non-profits that don’t suck – but these examples don’t negate that most others do suck.
My experience is similar to Tom’s (for the BAD NPs), and for many I agree with Duct’s characterization. Too many orgs chasing money to stay alive, without delivering the services.
and yes, there are good ones – hence the start of this new series
changed the world around us, the tone, tenor, and specifics of it, for decades. I’ve worked a lot with a lot of non-profits. Wacky idealists building organizations from the ground up — because it’s the right thing to do.
Let me list just two:
*The organic agriculture movement here in WA state (where Tom is also) and nationwide.
I read the other day that 20% of people in the US now were buying organic. Maybe not 100% –but that is HUGE. HUGE. Why? Well, we need to move further in that direction, and if you don’t know why, please find out.
*RMI. Rocky Mountain Institute. Promoters of alternative energy. About 22 years old. They literally were the group that stopped the expansion of nuc reactors for electricity in this country — with facts. They’ve consulted with local state and international gov’ts, and utilities to pioneer green projects and conservation projects.
For over a decade they’ve been speaking out about some wacky transportation concept that people laughed at them for. Perhaps you’ve heard of it now… hybrid vehicles?
Locally, where the bleep do you think our recycling projects came from? Non-profit entrepeneurs, thank you. With goofy businesses full of bins nationwide, that people drove up to, to off-load their recyclables.
Au contraire, thre are heaps of good in this country that once started out as a non-profit. Always have been, always will be.
it is interesting that none of the non-profits you mention are social service agency non-profits, which are what I specifically call out.
I was wrong to not inlcude the food movement, co-ops, etc in my writing (and thinking) about non-profits that don’t suck. Thanks.
“Social Service Agency” non-profits usually suck.
It was the broad brush.