Ingrid Srinath
On 10 Apr 2013, at 10:19, Charles Haynes <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 12:39 PM, Ingrid Srinath > <[email protected]>wrote: > > >> Charity J: Spends virtually nothing on donor acquisition... Deploys >> virtually the entirety of the small sums they collect to feed starving >> children. Saves their lives but does nothing to expand the number of lives >> they can save or to prevent more children from being reduced to starvation. >> >> Charity Q: Spends about 50% of their revenues on expanding their donor >> base, auditing programmes to improve effectiveness/efficiency, building >> knowledge on causes of and remedies to poverty. Consequently, reaches >> greater numbers of children with greater effectiveness each year, changes >> policies that cause poverty or prevent its reduction, develops programme >> innovations that are widely replicated by other charities and governments. >> >> Which would you choose to support? > > > Could a charity spend "overhead" in ways I support? Sure. Do they? Not > usually, usually "overhead = fundraising." I.e. they are spending money to > raise money. > > The problem is one of opportunity cost. If charity J spends 10 units > directly on starving children, while charity Q spends 50 units on starving > children and 50 units on raising funds, you might say that charity Q does > more good. You might even be right. However, this analysis neglects the > opportunity cost of that 50 units of fundraising. > > -- Charles The only issue I have with that logic is that it prevents any organisation from achieving sufficient scale to have significant impact. The charity sector may be the only one I know where success in terms of growth/size is penalised by those who support the sector.
