How to Deal With Uninformed Nonprofit Watchdogs Around the Holidays

Around this time of the year, we nonprofits work to bring in year-end donations, incurring paper cuts and envelope-tongues in the process (seriously, the glue stick is your friend). Around this time also is when people start pushing guides about which nonprofits to give to, warning of shady nonprofits that spend too much on overhead and leave nothing for the people they are supposed to be serving.

These guides often sound like this: “Don’t give to these horrible organizations! Only $0.03 of every dollar goes to the people they claim to serve! The rest goes straight to the greedy CEOs’ salaries! They sit on crystal-encrusted chairs and feast on caviar and unicorn steaks! Meanwhile, their staff live in actual houses and drive cars! They are paying their mortgages and buying organic blueberries with your donations! Organic blueberries!”

Here’s an example of that.