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0 pointsprotomyth6y ago0 comments

Once again, that's a very specific type of nonprofit. That is not true of every nonprofit and certainly not true of churches or small nonprofits. The closer the organization is to acting like a government agency, the truer that article is.

Plus, that's a really cynical way to look at people who want to help their fellows, and shows the difference between professional nonprofit workers and people who are just trying to help their fellows. At the point that advice is practical, you are in the NGO world.

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5 comments · 2 top-level

rubidium6y ago· 2 in thread

Agreed. We run a summer camp for kids in a poor neighborhood. We've got plenty of money. What we need is people who are willing to actually spend time with kids!

nitrogen6y ago

Maybe you can offer teachers (or others with existing professional experience with kids) a part time summer job to fill the gap in volunteers?

cableshaft6y ago

I only know a few teachers I know personally, but they all seem to really enjoy their summer break as a break from all their students. I'm not so sure those are the type that will jump on an opportunity to be around kids during their vacation.

XorNot6y ago· 1 in thread

Life is full of people with good intentions who manage to accomplish not nearly as much as someone who cares less but is just plain better at the job.

I mean, the sum of human misery in this world is vast - how someone individually feels about how they contribute is somewhat irrelevant if it only manages to break even on the management overhead they create to the system as the whole.

protomythOP6y ago

The "just give us your cash, we don't really want any help from you, leave it to the professionals" mentality has probably hurt giving and allowed more fraudulent activity. Things people care about and do are important. Throwing some dollars at a charity doesn't make it real and certainly doesn't create the advocates and friends a charity needs to survive. A charities inability to utilize volunteers is on them and very much a failure of the charity. If a person wants to run a charity learn to understand charity in a personal and community way, not as an exercise in strictly logistics with no human elements. That lack of interaction will cause problems in other parts of an operation.

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