I'm glad that O'Neill wrote about religion in the book because I feel that religion is a very interesting case study when examining the non-profit sector. It's no surprise to me that "eighty to ninety percent of church revenue comes from donations" given that religious organizations quite often bring attention to problems in society that can be fixed with the help of volunteers. (O'Neill, 59) As O'Neill explains, religion is a very influential thing in America and around the world, and that influence often leads people to volunteer as a congregation, etc. for other local non-profit organizations. For other religions such as Islam, it is required to donate to charity; it states in the Qur'an that when attempting to go to the pilgrimage to Mecca Muslims are told not to selfishly save for many years, but instead take that money and give to someone with in the community who needs it and the intention will be recognized as virtuous as making the hajj to Mecca itself. Churches, mosques, temples, etc. do not JUST serve as a place to worship for many people, they serve as child care facilities, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, food banks, etc. and it is truly amazing that type of motivation a religious organization has over their volunteers. I read an article recently in the Register Guard that non-profit organizations not affiliated with a religious organizations are now attempting to connect themselves to a church or temple not necessarily religiously, but sometimes just to hold their events or meeting on church property with the logic that it will attract a more generous audience. It is interesting to me that religion and non-profit organizations are in the same sector but once you think about it, it does make sense; look at the wide variety of people (culturally, ethnically, economically, etc) that attend or practice some type of religion, you can practically mirror that same diverse image to any non-profit organization and see the same variety.
The other articles about the possible implications of the recession to the non-profit sector were interesting to me as well. I was not surprised that large non-profit organizations saw very little decrease in donations and funds raised, but I cannot imagine the decrease that small, more local non-profits saw the past few years. My work with the American Cancer Society has helped me see what types of people volunteer to what degree and at what age, so I think that economic status might not have a lot to do with the volunteer aspect of non-profits. What I'm meaning to say is, that if your involved in a volunteer position, you are probably giving your time to that organization because you might not necessarily have the funds to donate and so you see your time as a more valuable contribution, and although the poor are getting poorer as Harford described, people are still looking for ways to give their time to an organization in lieu of a substantial monetary donation.
The blog post by Dan Pallotta was really intriguing to me especially because this is something I think about when I donate or encourage others to donate to an organization. I agree that measuring an organization's effectiveness is not the best way to evaluate but the commitment to effectiveness is better. Then again, I do not completely agree that we necessarily need an apparatus to evaluate effectiveness vs. overhead at all. What if people were just responsible for researching were their money went when they were donating? I do not think this is something that needs to be given a lot of thought too, because as we've read so far, must Americans give to local non-profit organizations or their own religious organizations, so this might only benefit a minority of those donating funds.
I struggled with the effectiveness blog post too. I think that grading a nonprofit is a challenging feat. I like the idea of knowing what your money is going to be accomplishing when you donate it, but is that realistic for the nonprofit? Being able to nail down exactly what each influx of money is going to be used for seems like it might be almost impossible. Special fundraising drives, maybe, but general day to day asking requires faith in the donator that their money is going to be handled responsibly. I think that the people who give regularly give because they see the organization doing great things in their community. I don't think that an effectiveness grade is going to change their mind. It might sway me as a prospective donor, but not if I already felt connected and a part of that organization it would not.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty interesting that most of today's non-profits and the services they provide originated from churches. I feel religion often gets a bad rap in academia. Sure some of the scripture (or all of it for that matter) is fabricated. We often see Pastors being scrutinized for illegal or immoral acts on the six o'clock news, but if you objectively look at our society, it's really clear that religion has taught us most of the values we hold dear. The bible or any other religious book teaches us to be kind and helping towards one another. It's generally a church that is first to come to the aid of someone in need. People are used to seeing and hearing about this. It makes sense to me that other non profits would benefit by being associated with a church as well. The post about rating organizations sparked a couple of ideas within me. I agree that people donating should do their own research, better yet they should get to know the organization on a personal level by not only donating but volunteering. At that level, there would be no question in the givers mind as to whether the charity was a worthy cause or not.
ReplyDeleteI like what you have written about the different uses religious organizations have in our community. But, I am a little confused in the next paragraph on the bit about volunteering and economic status. If a person lacks the funds to donate to an organization, so gives his or her time instead, isn't that a reflection of status influencing how/what you donate? I also agreed on your opinion on the effectiveness measure, however, I can see a need for it in situations where people are making donations routinely and may not be seeing any result, or when they wish to gift a large sum of money. In those cases I think the use of money ought to be accessible at the very least to the donors. But it's still over my head to some degree.
ReplyDeleteI love that you referenced Islam. I heard a lecture from a Moeslum in the community and was really intrigued that while a pilgrimage to Mecca is something you need to do before you die, you have to have extra money, after taking care of you debt and family in order to go. I love that taking care of your debts and family financially is something mandated and FOLLOWED in a religious sense.
ReplyDeletePeople help in ways that they can. If you aren’t rich with disposable income then you donate your time. It is equally important that money and time donations occur. If we get out of balance, say too many cooks, not enough food, like in the soup kitchen example then that can cause problems as well. Perhaps in the soup kitchen example, creative solutions can be reached such as using the volunteers to raise money to purchase the food.
I also like that you ask why people can’t be their own evaluation tool and I completely agree with that. Sometimes people can rely too much on others and don’t take the time to do responsible research of their own.