A couple weeks ago I wrote about my revelation that Dan Pallotta is smarter than he looks. And he looks pretty smart—not just because he dresses well, which he does.
Dan regularly rants about the focus on overhead and its death-spiral inducing effects on nonprofits. I was skeptical, until one of my own beloved nonprofit buds came out with this statement in conversation: “If we had $500 million we could cure X.” My kid has X. I was a changed woman. Screw overhead; it’s about absolute dollars. I absolutely want $500 million so my daughter’s life is unencumbered by X.
I wrote about it, and joked (yes, I was joking), “To hell with GuideStar! Let’s raise $500 million any way we gotta.”
GuideStar was watching, like a spaceship with lots of antennae. It turned its big eye on me.
I got an email.
Then, I got a call.
I was worried. Then, I remembered, “I’m not a nonprofit.”
We talked. Gabe Cohen, media and outreach manager for Guidestar, referred me to a letter co-authored by BBB Wise Giving Alliance, GuideStar and Charity Navigator. Basically, GuideStar is totally onboard with raising absolute dollars. And, they have a good grasp on the challenges—potential fraud, donor disgust with expenses, being able to figure out what actually is needed using real numbers and real goals. I was impressed.
The evangelical Gabe shared with me not only that he and I had a shared university background (go Hokies!) but that his organization has a big interest in changing reporting so that donors can have more meaningful information with which to make decisions than simply using the expense-to-income ratio. To that end, GuideStar gives nonprofits the opportunity to submit more information than the 990 requires, to allow donors to see more. The results of their collection efforts are far more meaningful than what the 990 contains. The 990 is an antiquated form designed to collect data for entirely different reasons than to create meaningful output that can assist nonprofits and humanity.
And there it is: Collecting data meaningful to gaining better results is within our grasp. GuideStar understands that donors need a way to evaluate their gifts. But they also understand that the data has larger meaning and potential.
Coordinating GuideStar-esque, beyond-990 data collection with nonprofit organizations’ new bent to analyze the behavior of the humans they touch, both as donors and fundraisers, will yield meaningful epiphanies.
My hope is that GuideStar and other similar organizations will spend inordinate amounts of time composing the dataset definitions they will eventually collect. I hope these organizations will let industry professionals have input. I hope that professional statisticians are included. I hope that research departments of universities are represented. I hope that the data they collect is appended to the data collected on a massive scale by nonprofits about the behaviors of people who touch, solicit and donate the money. And, based on my interactions with Gabe of GuideStar and the aspirational tone of the conversations, I think they will.
So, from now on, no matter what business is compromised by the phrase, “It doesn’t fit into the income/expense ratio, even though, yes, I know it will raise money,” I will no longer call them DeathStar. Ever.
