Who Has Confidence in Minnesota Charities?
First, I need to apologize for breaking the cardinal rule of blogging – I haven’t posted in a month. Sorry, but it’s been crazy busy between leading workshops (nine in the past five weeks), traveling to talk to nonprofits around Minnesota , conferences, and working on a federal grant proposal. I am making a promise to myself to get back to a schedule of posting at least two or three times a month.
I haven’t been writing blog entries, but I have been talking to staff and board members at nonprofits about their financial lives – in particular about the constant dance of finding and attracting funding. We’d all like to be able to get “inside the head” of our potential donors and understand what motivates them to give, or not to give. While you can’t know everything about donors, there is some interesting research available about the perception of the general public about nonprofits. A very recent study was published by the Charities Review Council of Minnesota about charitable giving habits and perceptions of charitable organizations. The scientific study surveyed 606 Minnesotans on a range of questions such as: How much confidence do you have in charitable organizations? How much money do you think charities waste today? Other questions touch on perceptions of the quality of programs, salaries paid to employees of nonprofits, and obstacles to charitable giving. Overall, the study results show that Minnesotans are confident in the programs, overall financial management and ethics of nonprofits. There are several areas of concern, though, such as the 25% of respondents who have very little or no confidence in charities, and 58% who believe that charities waste a great deal or fair amount of money. It’s notable that the responses about money wasting by the federal government and private businesses were even worse. The report is available on their web site, or read either the full report or the executive summary.
I am particularly interested in, and bothered by, the areas of the survey about money, including questions about effective use of funds, waste of money, and a question about how much nonprofit staff should be paid. What I conclude from the very mixed responses to these questions is – and it’s not a surprise – that most people don’t understand how nonprofits work. I don’t now why they should, but it seems that this disconnect will continue to be a possible obstacle when nonprofits reach out to make a case for contributions.
The Minnesota study mirrors a national study of confidence in charities that has been conducted annually by Paul Light at NYU. One of Light’s observations in the 2006 report was the ongoing issues about administrative costs and misunderstanding of how nonprofits use funds in order to work effectively in the community.
My conclusion from all of these studies in that we need to continue to bang the drum of infrastructure and management effectiveness – bang, bang, bang.