The Real Cost of Overhead

In these columns I address real-life obstacles and challenges that nonprofits face in creating sustainable funding to deliver their missions and achieve their goals. Readers write via email to receive a quick consultation and perhaps have their particular problems addressed in these columns.

As a thank-you to my readers, from now through the end of the year, I am sending a complimentary copy of my book, "The Eight Principles of Sustainable Fundraising," to the reader whose situation is used in each week's article.

I received an email last week from the executive director of a small cultural nonprofit in the Midwest. She detailed to me her recent experience of being plunged into what I call "donor hell."

I'm not exaggerating. Truly, Liz's organization underwent the near-death ordeal that you hope never comes — but it did.

For years, this little group was the undiscovered "jewel" of its community. It did so much with so little. It was a point of pride. Then disaster hit.

Frugality had reached the summit. Always operating on a small budget, this group wanted to eke out more. The executive director assumed custodial duties. Everything — and I do mean everything — was recycled. Being frugal — reducing administrative expense to put more into programming — became the overriding value.

On a particular day, a small group of leading supporters had convened to discuss an upcoming fundraising push. Notepaper was handed out. At one point in the meeting, a longtime leading donor flipped over her sheet. On the reverse was a portion of her confidential donor record. Expressing disbelief, others present examined their own sheets. On each and every page was a donor's confidential information — if only in clipped 4-inch-by-5-inch format sliced from an 8.5-inch-by-11-inch page.

I need not relate the rest of what ensued.