Duke Sanford School of Public Policy

I appreciate the responses to my blogs on the Intrepid Philanthropist site last week. I think my favorite line was this, from Laura Deaton: “Love outcomes, hate sector-bashing.” That certainly boils it down.

Like Deaton, a number of others—both on the blog and in many private emails—thanked me for placing the vital effort to improve the effectiveness and impact of nonprofits in a context of appreciation for the sector’s distinctive purpose and history. It was clear to me from the reaction that people are sick and tired of the caricatured, overly simplistic critiques of the sector.

Others, of course, took issue—especially those whose thinking I had argued against. Perhaps most adamant was Dan Pallotta, who believes I misrepresented his book by suggesting he was attacking the sector, when he says he was only criticizing “nonprofit ideology.” I certainly intended no misrepresentation, of course—and we had a lively exchange in the comments section.

Where are the spokespeople for the nonprofit sector’s distinctive value?

Where are the people who will stand up and take issue when Jack and Suzy Welch write, as they did in their BusinessWeek column in 2007, "In most nonprofit situations, as long as you don't screw up, you're pretty much guaranteed lifetime employment." (Not so at the three nonprofits where I have worked, but true of some of the companies I consulted to in a past job as a corporate management consultant.)

The Welches go on to liken the nonprofit and government sectors—which they appear to believe are one and the same—to "a foreign country" (this is apparently quite an insult in the Welch family) and encourage a reader working in government to come over to "the other side," saying, "the change of scenery will do you good."

This kind of ignorant and derisive rhetoric in a major national magazine should not go unchallenged; but, today, too often, it does.

In subtle ways, those of us in the nonprofit sector contribute to the lack of appreciation for its strength when we act as though every good idea came from outside it and simply import the language and frameworks of business. Worse, doing so often leads to poor management choices and reduced effectiveness, because the sector needs frameworks that are responsive to its distinctive context and purpose.

Ironically, the person to make the most cogent argument on this topic in recent years is a business guru, Jim Collins, in his terrific monograph Good to Great and the Social Sectors: Why Business Thinking Is Not the Answer. “We must reject the idea—well intentioned but dead-wrong—that the primary path to greatness in the social sectors is to become ‘more like a business.’ Most businesses—like most of anything in life—fall somewhere between mediocre and good,” he writes. “So, then, why would we want to import the practices of mediocrity into the social sectors?” Why indeed.

Sean,

I agree we are likely operating well below our capacity to achieve impact.  (I also believe business and government are performing sub-optimally.)  I think the reasons are many so I'll just name a few.

The natural pull against staying focused is extremely strong. This pull comes from a desire to respond to the suffering we see—sometimes without recognizing how limited our resources are relative to the problems we are addressing.  It also comes from a realization of the interdependence of so many social problems. Can you really make dramatic progress on global health without also addressing global development, for example? But what is the right balance? In an interview with CEP, the late Rodger McFarlane of the Gill Foundation discussed this challenge very eloquently: http://strategy.effectivephilanthropy.org/

Yesterday, I argued that the nonprofit sector is under attack and discussed the critiques of those on the outside who promise that “business” and “market” thinking is the secret to greater effectiveness. But those of us within the sector also do ourselves a disservice by playing into the critiques, and failing to speak with a loud and clear voice about the nonprofit sector.

Let me emphasize at the outset that I’d be the first to argue the sector needs to improve. That’s what the organization I lead, the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), is all about—with a particular focus on foundations. But to deny that philanthropy and the nonprofit sector have made great contributions is preposterous.

Yet how many articles by those within the sector have we read that make the same argument as Mark Kramer’s recent cover story in the Stanford Social Innovation Review?:

American philanthropy and the nonprofit sector it supports are under attack. The attack comes both from outside the boundaries of the sector and from within it.

Hyperbole? I don’t think so.

With recent books from Philanthrocapitalism to Uncharitable receiving prominent play—and their authors being feted by those within and outside the sector—there is real danger that an appreciation of the nonprofit sector’s distinctive identity and purpose will be lost.