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I posted in the general BFC thread to see if there was any interest. One person said yes, and I want to complain about my job someplace less embarrassing than my group chats, so welcome to a nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO) and philanthropy thread. What is an NGO? Let’s ask our BFF Investopedia: quote:An NGO is a nonprofit, citizen-based group that functions independently of government. NGOs, sometimes called civil societies, are organized on community, national and international levels to serve specific social or political purposes, and are cooperative, rather than commercial, in nature. Nonprofits and NGOs are, well, non-governmental institutions whose function is not to amass profit but instead to provide a particular service. In the US and elsewhere, they typically enjoy tax-exempt status and do not have to pay taxes on donations. Donations made to an NGO are also typically tax-deductible. People used to call these organizations charities, but in my experience that’s slipped somewhat out of common parlance. You may recognise household names such as the Red Cross or Habitat for Humanity; NGOs also include advocacy organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Some of them have, uh, issues. If you went to college, your college probably shits in your inbox every week to ask for donations because it has its own fundraising arm in the form of a foundation. In all likelihood, though, there are also dozens of local NGOs in your area doing the human services work your government opted out of directly providing in the 1980s, providing everything from housing for the homeless to minimal-cost medical treatment to domestic violence shelters to arts and culture ... The list goes on and on. How do NGOs make money? quote:How NGOs are Funded This is where the big distinction from, I suppose, an ordinary corporation stems from. Corporations provide a good or service in the pursuit of profit; NGOs do it because it’s the right thing to do. What this amounts to functionally is a sector that grows when the public sector shrinks and the private sector doesn’t deem it profitable to pick up the slack. This means that to keep the lights on many nonprofits will have various and sundry income streams such as membership programs, merch and a department devoted entirely to begging for money. Should I work for an NGO? Saying what you do will be a hit at parties and God will probably let you into heaven, but the salary will be lovely so hopefully you just (clenches fist) care so drat much or are married to a BFC person who makes BFC bucks. The revolving door between other sectors and industry-adjacent NGOs is very real so a lot of people come thru when they’re burnt out on private sector or government work and are married to an engineer. Yeah I said it twice and I’m gonna keep saying it. Bitch How’s the NGO sector doing now? Eh ... Well, in 2016 NGO jobs accounted for about 10 percent of private sector employment in the US. 2016 was a lifetime ago. In the era of COVID, who the gently caress knows. Charitable giving always takes a hit when the market does poorly. Turnover rates are high because salaries aren’t competitive with the private sector. But the burden on social services organizations is higher than it has been in years. People who give a poo poo continue to have to learn how to do more with less. Some fun reads re: current events:
Whenever you put in hours at the food bank over the holidays you’re a nice guy, but whenever a rich person starts a foundation they are a philanthropist. This is mostly because they don’t want to pay taxes and also want something cool to be named after them. Many goons were alive in the 1990s and remember when everyone hated Bill Gates for being an annoying piece of poo poo. Well, he cured malaria actually, so gently caress you. Or did he? He didn’t. But everyone thinks he did, so he might as well have. Philanthropy is an industry unto itself and is somewhat more opaque than general nonprofit work; in fact, funders and NGOs enjoy a difficult power dynamic. I could talk about this all day, but basically: if you donate enough money to an organization to get your name on a brick on a hospital walkway, that does not make you a doctor so maybe try not to let it go to your head. Still, donating money, time or resources to nonprofits is a good way to get a tax break if you do enough of it. You may even consider joining the board of an organization whose work you support that might be able to use your connections or expertise. There are even ways to “donate” your skills directly. alright but what is the thread about really I’d like to see if anyone else works in this hell sector and how they’re doing. Barring that, I’m happy to answer questions about the weird world of NGOs, from structural questions to (general) programmatic questions. I can also talk at length about philanthropy and charitable giving, which is an even weirder world than you might think. For some brief background I work primarily as a computer toucher but have also done programmatic work in various capacities at arts and culture, political, housing and philanthropic organizations. This is good because these are all in-line with my interests, degree, life experience and professional experiences but not everyone is so lucky. I am a good fundraiser. I have a long volunteer history. I am also a leftist so I have a lot of troubled and dire ideas about the sector to begin with, but this ain’t C-SPAM or TMR so I’ll keep it civil unless asked directly about a thing that strikes a nerve.
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May 12, 2020 04:50
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 11:23 |
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crazypeltast52 posted:Hi, I wanted to stop in. I changed board seats/roles for a small non profit I helped run. It was unpaid because our budget was about $500 when we started actually running it, but also wasn’t a huge time demand until later. Neat neat neat. Yeah most people who run big party fundraisers are hosed right now and it's difficult to pivot that kind of hype to virtual programming. A lot of groups here are tentatively just postponing things like golf tournaments, but I'll let you know if I hear any interesting ideas. How big is your board and are y'all brainstorming together? Doccykins posted:I'm a computer toucher for an INGO and lead a global team of technicians. Travel for work since coronas has gone to zero but on the flip side migration projects of pushing everything from on-site to cloud and video conferencing has accelerated so I'm basically working from home all hours of the day for about 2/3 market rate and a shoestring budget. During normal times I love the autonomy and the culture is much more relaxed than private sector (there's no up-or-out pressure and any assholes that just want a do-gooder ticket on their CV tend to get weeded out quickly) and being a very mobile workforce with users in the field constantly we have managed to be ahead of the curve by issuing new starters with proper laptops instead of desktops or zero clients for the last 5 years. This is really neat  I have no experience with international big-names. All my work has been metropolitan and regional, where there's a dearth of tech talent willing to accept NGO salaries in my area, so I'm always relieved to see other computer touchers doing great work in the civil sector. Unrelated, I talked about this a little in the COVID thread but I manage arts funds in a regional philanthropic organisation and performing arts groups seem pretty hosed for the time being. Would encourage folks to support arts groups where possible RN as they aren't particularly prioritized by response funding at the moment. Right now we've got a big firm out trying to assess when people will be comfortable returning to both movie theaters and THE THEATRE and the outlook is quite bleak.
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May 15, 2020 14:38
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Wow I totally forgot I had this thread. Glad to see some folks in here Trying to secure a remote job with a new NGO right meow because I've burnt out hard at my current one and that in combination with MH issues is affecting my performance badly. I am sitting on 300 unread emails right now so that's fun. Being a tech guy is fun. I hope everyone is on the prowl for a wealthy partner at this very moment.
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Sep 21, 2022 22:21
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After The War posted:It's funny, after 14 years on and off (mostly on, and full-time for the past 8) of development work, I am absolutely burned out on wealthy anybody. I usually don't even deal with them directly (and, for every nonprofit job I've had, I'm the only contact most "regular person" level donors have with the org), but I see people give us tens of thousands of dollars a year (or more) for decades and the exposure to all that wealth inequality is starting to get to me. Yes, I know it's better for us to have it (I really do believe in the cause) than for the rich fucks to keep it, but I'm being more and more bothered by the fact that they have it at all. Just seeing the heinous amounts of digits that get thrown around chips away at you, for sure. I was thinking about the services community foundations and donor-advised funds provide. Basically, they facilitate philanthropic giving both logistically and supposedly in due diligence terms - theoretically the foundation I worked at would do "homework" on a nonprofit and then theoretically show donors that, yes, this is a good place to put your money because we looked into it all. But there's genuinely very little that qualifies people at foundations and the admins at DAFs to make those assessments. The kind of metrics that funders ask for are often difficult for small organisations to generate or calculate accurately. So they fudge the numbers, and then funders fudge giving a poo poo about those numbers and make relatively arbitrary decisions about how to allocate resources. The idea that both a nonprofit and a funder have to run like a business has functionally made the fundraising process something of a smoke-and-mirrors situation, to me. The due diligence obligations that nonprofits have to funders are mostly nonsense. The push for equity in philanthropy (which in itself is a nonsense phrase) has made some more progressive funders pull back on their due diligence or means-testing. But that really only goes to show how bullshit it all is.
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Sep 23, 2022 19:28
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ELTON JOHN posted:gently caress YES. i love to HELP PEOPLE thank you elton very cool
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Nov 6, 2022 23:55
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 11:23 |
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Giving Tuesday is so dumb, for real. Glad it's over so I can get annihilated by CYE instead
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Nov 30, 2022 11:52
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