By Anita Ruff, Executive Director, Oasis Free Clinics
This morning, I found myself watching a Ted Talk from 2013. These short, no-notes presentations are designed to be engaging, entertaining, and often thought-provoking. I stumbled on Dan Pallotta’s speech while idly browsing the internet. With the provocative title, The Way We Think About Charity is Dead Wrong, it caught my attention. As an executive director of a charity, I was curious to hear what he thought wasn’t working for the nonprofit sector.
It turns out, Mr. Pallotta had a lot to say about how charities are regarded in this country. Namely, the success of charities is measured all wrong. He breaks it down into five areas: compensation, advertising and marketing, taking risk on new revenue ideas, time, and profit to attract risk capital. Mr. Pallotta said, “If you put these five things together – you can’t use money to attract talent, you can’t advertise, you can’t take risks, you can’t invest in long-term results, and you don’t have a stock market – then we have just put the humanitarian sector at the most extreme disadvantage to the for-profit sector on every level, and then we call the whole system charity, as if there is something incredibly sweet about it.”
He also talked about how nonprofits are often rewarded based on how little they spend on overhead instead of their overall social impact. Nonprofits are frequently challenged with the financial expectation that most donations should go to the needy or to fund the cause, leaving minimal resources for innovation and growth. As Mr. Pallotta put it, “Morality is confused with frugality.”
In Maine, we have more nonprofits than many other states. According to the Maine Association of Nonprofits, we rely on nonprofits to provide basic services that, elsewhere, might be provided by state or county governments. Because those governmental agencies aren’t providing those services and yet they are still needed, nonprofits look to our communities to fund them.
As the executive director of Oasis, one of my primary jobs is to make sure our organization has the resources needed to accomplish our mission: To strengthen our community by providing no-cost medical, dental, and prescription assistance services to our uninsured neighbors in need. More often than not, it means having the financial resources to employ staff, pay our mortgage, purchase necessary medical, dental, and office supplies, have insurance and internet, etc. In other words, most of what we need to provide our services could be viewed as “overhead.”
I’ve had many conversations where I’m asked, “What percentage of my donation goes to directly helping your patients versus the overhead?” This idea degrades the value of overhead and its need in the nonprofit sector. In truth, the overhead provides the foundation for our ability to do good and do more.
I’m not saying that nonprofits shouldn’t be accountable for how they spend the resources they are given. I believe strongly in good stewardship of and transparency for our donors’ gifts, and at Oasis, we have a system of checks and balances to minimize malfeasance. But I also agree with what Mr. Pallotta said, “The next time you’re looking at a charity, don’t ask about the rate of their overhead. Ask about the scale of their dreams.” Those are the conversations I’m eager to have.
Our area nonprofits do amazing work to address huge issues – lack of healthcare, hunger, homelessness, isolation, sexual and physical violence, environmental changes. They also bring people together through art, music, theater, and more. Nonprofits both fill the gaps and strengthen the community, and the experience of living, working, and visiting here would not be the same without them.
Chances are good that you will be given the opportunity to support a local charity almost every day of the week. Whether you are asked to round up your purchase at the hardware store, attend a benefit night at an area restaurant, or respond to a mailed request, there are multiple ways to give to causes that provide meaningful contributions to our community.
Your local nonprofits need your financial support. We wish we didn’t, but we do. We work hard to make the generosity we receive go as far as possible to make a difference for the people we serve. We all have big dreams for our organizations and are eager to share them with you. Thank you for believing in and supporting our organizations.
Oasis Free Clinics is a non-profit, no-cost primary care medical practice and dental clinic, providing exceptional, patient-centered care to uninsured members of our community. For more information, please call 721-9277 or visit www.OasisFreeClinics.org.
Recent Comments