Can’t live with them and can’t live without them. Donors to a charity, any donor, is full of deep compassion. To give your money away is an act of love and goodwill. But philanthropy today is very different than it was 10 years ago, or even three years ago. here are a few highlights on the challenges of DEPENDENCY on Donors rather than partnership.
End of a federal program – One program provided smaller grants ($250-350k/year for 3 – 5 years) in a competitive cycle. They also provided technical support to the winners. After 20+ years of funding
a government shutdown – October 1, 2013 to October 17, 2013 the US Federal Government shut down. 16 days doesn’t sound like a long time, but for an organization that was heavily reliant on a USAID contract. A 16 day delay in funding, actually turned into a 45 day delay due to the ripple effects of the shutdown. This delay meant we could not pay bills, scores of Community Health Workers went unpaid and this shock to the system demonstrated the vulnerability of the systems we had built. The community was not in control. The healthy families depended on the US and us as an intermediary.
Private Foundation changes course
Sub-contract pivots too much – after hundreds of hours spent on an application, accepting an award, waiting on updates from the donor and then repeated changes to scope, location and funding, one subcontract never came through for reasons out of any one’s hands. These efforts often result in <10% chance of success, drain important resources and then even if awarded can be unreliable. For one example, funding can be “awarded” but delayed in receipt.
Delays – I can think of multiple times when funding was delayed. sometimes it gets delayed because expectations are unclear, for example the donor needs a report or something. Other times funding can be delayed because there is staff turnover at the donor agency. And still other times, delays can come for no known reason. Donors issue payment when is convenient to them for their fiscal year, investing, etc. These delays cause stress and anxiety among recipients and unnecessary confusion and hard feelings among communities told one thing then something else happens.
The good. Of course there is much good here with donors too. Radical givers, groups of people, volunteers and large institutional donors all share an interest in compassionate relief of suffering, especially preventable suffering and especially for the most vulnerable and helpless. We need investments to do good work and even if it is late or just for a year, we often say to ourselves it’s better than nothing. How else would we survive? We have to pay salaries and for stuff. What other way could we fund this, especially at scale (for us scale today is $800k/year which includes substantial nonprogram costs ($200k); scale tomorrow is more like $1.5M/year with 400k spent on admin/fundraising)
The better. Some of us are more grounded and realistic than others. Vision is still necessary to break assumptions and shift paradigms. While work warrants investment (i.e donations, cash, dollars, schillings, moolah), what if this important work, which should be paid for by local governments, is funded through entrepreneurial efforts. Here we envision community health systems supported through local payors and subsidized by for-profit enterprises attached to the health system. For example, microfiance lending, fee-for-service. Grameen Bank has done it, so has BRAC. These massive NGOs generate their revenue through a variety of market-based efforts that subsidize community development activities including health. Community health workers are a resource to develop that also feeds into the local economy and can be eventually transitioned to government financing as development progresses.