How the Independent, Entrepreneurial Founder of a Nonprofit Depends on the Public for Donations

So, really, why not set the "charity" up as a business, run it yourself the way you want to, and be done with it? Well, of course nobody would or could purchase the service, such as literacy education, training for developmentally disabled kids, finding lost puppies or rabbits a home, etc. So they are left with the option of starting up a new nonprofit to get done what they want to do.

But here's another angle on this: If the answer is that the easiest course is to ask the public for the money to offer the service free, then why not do the strategic planning necessary to get the fundraising process started on the right foot from the very beginning? If you're going to depend on the public's generosity and pocketbook to help you do your service to the poor, hungry or illiterate, why not forgo the satisfaction of mission accomplishment long enough to start take the strategic step of cultivation and solicitation of the donors on which you're going to depend right from the start? Why not build fundraising infrastructure right from the very beginning? It doesn't make sense to start teaching or healing or exhibiting or pet placement first, and then give only hindsight and a few crumbs of resources to your fundraising effort, when, in fact, you're going to need that public, individual, family support in increasing amounts as the years roll on.

Well, the most common response that I've heard to this is that "the foundation I just applied to for a grant is adamant that they want all their dollars to go to mission accomplishment. We only have about 10% we can use for administration, and they do not want any of their dollars to be used for fundraising – that would be anathema to them, and we would lose the grant. Besides that, we want to be able to tell our sponsors for the golf event and the auction that their money goes to serve people, not that it goes for fundraising" So you can see where this dialogue is going to go, can't you?

The situation is set up as an impossible proposition right away. Nobody wants to fund fundraising. And in their haste to find the "low-hanging" fruit (mostly defined as foundations and special events) they have failed to notice that the foundation or the imagined sponsor is seen holding the "sword of Damocles" over their heads and making it impossible for them to move strategically in the ways they need to do before moving ahead with accomplishing their mission with their target audience. It's a catch-22 situation, precipitated because the founder is unwilling or unable to take the time to do the strategic planning necessary to work through this dilemma right from the start.

Ah, but we now need to back up a bit and discuss a really thorny little issue that has to do with the motivations for start-up founders as they come to their work. We'll tackle that tomorrow.