I recently rewatched Dan Pallotta’s fascinating TEDTalk about how our society’s values around charitable giving may actually inhibit the capacity of nonprofits to achieve great things, like eradicating homelessness or curing breast cancer. He singles out the requirement to “keep overhead low” as a major problem that prevents service organizations from scaling their work in a way that could truly transform society.
Even though my daily work at the helm of a service organization keeps me keenly aware of the importance of organizational infrastructure, I found myself thinking hard about Palotta’s message. Is he pitting the financing of overhead against the support of programs that directly serve people with profound needs? Thinking as a donor, I always want to make sure that my dollars help meet those needs. I want them funding the hard working, on-the-ground staffers.
But I also know that this is not an either-or situation. As part of the leadership team at Tapestry, I am keenly aware that our programs, and the clients they serve, will benefit from enormously as we create more robust and effective overhead systems to support them. How we implement our technology, handle our finances, tune our marketing, reach out to the community, and plan for the future are crucial “overhead” activities that can dramatically impact the reach and effectiveness of our programs. We are determined to do them right.
And I think this is an important point from Dan Pallotta’s talk: infrastructure that is well-sustained and well-implemented can take service delivery to another level that has a dramatically positive impact on the community. I know I’ll be thinking about these ideas as I make my yearly gifts to organizations around the Valley.
What do you think of Dan Pallotta’s talk? What is your vision of dramatically positive changes that Tapestry 2.0 could make in our community?
I recently saw Dan Pallotta speak at the Net Impact conference in Minneapolis. He is a truly talented presenter. I think his cause with the Charity Defense Fund is admirable- changing the way we (the donors) think about the distribution of our donation and providing resources to charities. Love it. But what concerns me is that the CDF will provide resources and support to all 501(c)3 nonprofits, even ones that may be at odds with the organizations I may want to support...think Foundation for Life vs. Planned Parenthood. I asked Mr. Pallotta about this distinction and he didn't have a response- in fact he blew me off a little. Later, on Twitter I posed this question again: will my donations to the CDF be directly supporting the efforts of an organization I wouldn't otherwise support simply because they, too, are a nonprofit? The response I got was that they want to help the good guys. But what's the definition of good? I think this is a complicated effort. Instead, I'd rather just give my donation directly to The organization j want to support and keep Mr. Pallotta out of the equation. Change in any organization needs to come from within. The CDF won't change the way charities distribute donations and overhead. And frankly, I just don't trust them.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your thoughtful reply, Alexandra. It certainly is a complicated question. Without being for or against CDF, I hope everyone continues to give directly to the nonprofits organizations they care about. This TED Talk simply poses some interesting questions about how such organizations can best utilize the gifts they receive from generous donors like you.
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