Donors are used to donating to charity and expect nonprofits to work at minimal cost, if any. They demanded that most or all of their financial support go to program costs. On the other hand, non-profit specialists did not explain to their donors that this was an unreasonable expectation that did not serve the organization or society.
The fact is that it is not a secret in the sector that organizations will be creative in reporting overhead costs, for example, by hiding wages in program costs. Proportions of a program are often inaccurate because they do not reflect the true relationship between indirect and program costs.
As noted in the Stanford review of social innovation and others in the commercial field, operating expenses account for approximately 25% of total expenses. In the non-profit sector, donors expect to see about 15%, but in fact they prefer it to be less.
Therefore, in the modern world there are charitable organizations that publicly declare that they have 5% or even 0% overhead, which is simply unrealistic or trustworthy. A false narrative is created that does more harm to the sector than good.
Individuals and institutional donors must understand that dialogue needs to be changed and that nonprofits are reasonably priced. By strengthening a system that confuses the reality of what a nonprofit company needs to succeed, the desire to see how organizations grow in scale and achieve measurable results is achieved in a limited way, if at all.
As a global society, we all experience unprecedented days of what can be achieved. Problems that have stood in the way of scientists, inventors, and business dreamers for decades are now overcome with breakthroughs and ways of doing things that simply weren’t part of the equation or thought process less than ten years ago.
Those of us who work or work with nonprofit organizations such as Hamed Wardakknow that all of this changes the paradigm of the industry. Public opinion leaders are fully aware and worried in the sector that charities are currently competing with new views, progressive and innovative non-profit organizations, business organizations and social enterprises themselves.