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Ask Slashdot: With Grants Drying Up, How Is a Tech Non-Profit To Survive?
helios17 writes "Non-Profits like this have traditionally gotten started from the money grants provide. Most grants award vehicles, computers, and even pay for organization rental and utility costs. The problem fledgling and even established non-profits are encountering is the dwindling number of grants allowing for Operating or General Support costs. What good is a vehicle received via grant if you can't afford to put fuel in it? With the number of Operating or General Support grants shrinking and those available funds competed for heavily, should we be looking on line for help? Can efforts like this be a better way to approach it?"
Lobbying is obsolete.
Why are the grants drying up? Despite the much-hyped "austerity", in reality the government has spent more money in each of the recent years than ever before.
So where is all the damned money going???
Create a product, something that people want and fills a need. Sell it at a reasonable profit. Stop stealing money from society. The gravy train is ending, don't wait for it to jump the tracks. People are wising up to these criminals taking all our hard earned cash and pocketing it.
Call your non-profit "American Freedom Overseas" and wait for the fund money and volunteers to come flowing in. And those volunteers know some shit. They could set up a self-contained command center in Cuba in 5 minutes! The only problem is that they'll try to convince everybody else they talk to how the free market will fix things and how their leader Erik Prince got the Order of Merit recently which fairly recently was posted and quickly taken down from Cryptome.
Oh well, at least we know that delusional idiots either believe in or are exploiting other delusional morons who believe in imaginary gods, like in the crusades, but now! This hot on the heels of the Rabbis who have blessed female Mossad agents to Fuck the enemy.
-- Ethanol-fueled
A dotcom multimillionaire - should be plenty kicking around Austin TX. S/he could bankroll the operations part of it so you can get the rest through volunteered time and donations in kind. That also has a PR aspect, since you can publicize that someone with a reputation and money on the line vetted your charity. Otherwise, let's face it, lots of charities and non-profits have been started by people with good intentions, who were unable to deliver on them, for many of the same reasons that small (for profit) businesses fail within the first few years.
Donors and grant-givers are increasingly more careful about who they give money to. Even ignoring the scams, they want to know that they are having the greatest effect for their money. Of course it is not always true, but larger organizations tend to have less overhead and better accountability in showing what is being delivered for the money they receive. Then of course there's the elephant in the room: Are you really sure you are helping? Perhaps you should be doing something else that the community you are serving needs more.
Knight suggests that you donate the $3 you would have paid for the book straight to Reglue/Helios. I'm just curious if they get the full $3 or how much of a cut clickandpledge.com and the credit card company gets. Anyone have any ideas?
Declare yourself a non-profit. Make a product. Sell it for a ton of money. Do what you want with your tax-free money.
You never hear about the government laying people off unless they misbehave, and government salaries and benefits are way higher than the private sector.
I worked for The Seattle Foundation for a while (a while ago) and they serve as sort-of an intermediary between people wanting to donate and non-profits seeking funding. Donors vastly prefer to fund capital acquisitions over operating costs - it's just sexier and feels cooler to people who think in terms of growing things (money, power) by default. "Hey, I got them this new truck," sounds better than "I paid for gas and an oil change for this old truck they've had for a decade." You will find donors who believe in a cause and fund both, but they also want to have the freedom to say no and not be taken for granted.
I have to wonder if some of this is the changing values of our population and culture.
Never understimate the power of human stupidity -Lazarus Long
Think hearts and minds funding:
Step 1. Find any US gov funded anthropologist. Chat with them about US gov funding, regions of the world with the US is handing out big aid grants.
Step 2. Sell, present your tech skills in a new light. Your helping sell brand USA to the world, diverting impressionable young people to good US projects.
Allowing US tech, methods, Universities, hardware, software to filter down to places where its been seen as too expensive, distant or difficult.
Step 3. Find some history project in need of interesting OCR/scanning tech. ie scan torn-up documents, old books, allow locals to create open source fonts, put their past together using US help.
Think brand name US tech and the 'free' code/software they help write with your expert skills over time.
Local empowerment, respect and great media/branding long term.
The wonderful art, culture they can present back in the USA that you helped uncover, save and gift to the world.
Cross discipline with a strong local element. The U.S. Department of State is the best friend you can have long term, as with other gov groups that will notice you over time.
If any part of the US gov asks for any small favour, always say yes, long term you might be well funded for all costs if you "help".
Get a list of your congress critters and other parties congress critters charities - get to know the faith or medical ie the international projects they like to be seen with.
Write a letter, frame what you get back and keep talking to their staff long term, work both sides, with your 'tech skills' and how inspiring their projects where/are.
Drop that political name depending on the right or left blog/press if interviewed - a few lines of good news spreads fast.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Many grants restrict how the funds are used. Many do not allow for equipment, capital, licenses..etc they will only fund the project directly and a small % of operating costs. Unrestricted funds is hard to come by. Useless..
The mistake I see with so many non-profits is that they are run without trying to make a profit. Go make a profit, make as much as you can (just don't pay dividends). They are businesses at the core, even if non profit businesses. Forget that at your peril.
Learn to love Alaska
Spoken like a true fucktard with not a hint of social responsibility, completely oblivious to the debt that you owe to your society and to the civilization that has given you your education and the underpinnings of everything that you know and possess.
Just sayin', you know.
I have worked for a variety of non-profits and written grants for them. I'm surprised that there ever was money for operating expenses available for tech-based non-profits since every foundation I've petitioned for grant money has specifically said that they do not provide operating costs. Instead, I write grants with a specific project in mind. This could be "build a new wing to the university library", "Fund staff to inventory the museum collection in storage," or "run a week-long day camp for inner-city youth that teaches non-violent conflict resolution methods."
Unless you have some kind of revenue stream, you are going to be relying on donations and volunteers just like a community clothes closet for the homeless. Sounds like now that the gravy train of easy money is drying up these tech non-profits are being forced to demonstrate how they benefit the public good. I'm sure that there are many worthy causes, but now their in the wild competing for the same dollars and mind-share as food pantries, elder advocacy groups, and animal shelters.
hint: if you're functioning on grant money, take the fucking bus
"non-profit" doesnt mean you cant support your expenses, it simply means that your company isnt out for profit.
(most of this stuff should be obvious, but the laser pointer is included to help you pass the time making dinosaurs chase after the little red light while you wait to be rescued)
It's kind of funny - before clicking the link to even see what kind of non-profit it is, I thought of a non-profit know that collects old computers, images them, and sells them. That was before I read that the link had anything to do with that. Basic desktops really haven't advanced that much in the last few years, so there are a lot of "old" computers being given away or sold for garage sale prices that are perfectly usable. A sizeable portion of the time, people are replacing computers and the only thing "wrong" with them is a bunch of malware.
So you want to fund giving away refurbished computers? Sell the best ones. Selling one for $250 will fund reimaging / reconfiguring 10 others. Sell one for $125, that will probably cover your costs of five giveaways.
Earn your money, then buy a kid a computer... Would be better for both of you.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
He's not the one running a non-profit, asking for free money. He's an author who's giving away two of his books for free, and asking people to make small donations to Reglue, which is a non-profit in the Texas area I think.
It seems you didn't actually read anything on his site, like you claim.
Why should your non-profit survive when compared to any of the others? The overwhelming majority are staffed with good people with good intentions who work for very little money. The problem is one over-saturation for the market and a donation fatigue from a public that is burned out. There are hundreds of thousands of non-profits in the US alone and every single one of them thinks that /they/ are the most important.
When a business starts to think that they 'deserve' our money we accuse them of entitlement (e.g. Circuit City) and vilify them. A non-profit really isn't any different in that they serve a function that costs money and in order to survive need to take in money. Like a business they can merge, be bought or go bankrupt.
Frankly if more non-profits started to merge it would enable greater economies of scale and efficiencies, just like a business. It would also enable them to spend more money on their mission and less money on overhead. Services from secretarial to bandwidth to phone banks could be shared at greater efficiency across more organizations.
Perhaps my answer seems callous, but the bottom line is that no organization is entitled to survive. Non-profits need to embrace what the business world has done and go through a series of mergers for the greater good. Are your clients better served by your merging with another organization because you are stretched so thin that you are no longer effective?
People typically start and run non-profits because their ego tells them that they can do better than the person already running a like kind service. Society as a whole would benefit enormously if non-profits put their missions before their egos. These warm hearted organizations need some cold blooded business acumen.
Have you considered making a social network for cats instead? Ms. Naemeka will understand.
Yeah he asked Slashdot for advice on fundraising for a non-profit technical entity. He didn't ask us for money, just advice. You act like he stuck his hand in your pocket and grabbed your wallet while kissing your wife.
They are doing something. They are gathering information on what their next fiscal move should be. Instead of just asking random idiots like you for money, they foolishly assume that you might be worth more than a couple of bucks.
Ok, fine linux is politics, blah blah blah. You gonna buy those shiny Windows licenses for them? Neither is anyone else.
Also, did you read the book? Do you know its crap? Do you even have half a decent reason for attacking an author who is, literally, just trying to help? Didja stop and think "wait....maybe..THIS...is what that pesky marketing crap I keep hearing about is. Oh well, i don't have time to worry about that I have to update NoScript and AdblockPlus++ cause advertising is for suckers!" Nah, you just bash everyone involved cause you're butthurt about this week's episode of Game of Thrones. If you'd read a book you might have seen that coming btw...
They are doing something. They are providing computers for disadvantaged kids. They are not brand new, they do not run the latest Windows and have all the shiny games installed. But that's cause they are tools, not toys. They are making the most of what they can get, and doing actual, tangible good for the children of their communities. I didn't half their webpages but I got that from the front page on both. If you did not, you need to calm down, take a deep breath, and go read them again. They need money for running their day to day operations. Utility bills, gas, insurance, etc. All those things cost money. A car really is useless without insurance and gas to run it, money to get regular service on it to make it last as long as possible and stretch that donated vehicle's life out as long as possible.
Lots of investors/donators no longer want to foot that bill cause they don't see it as "helping" is the point of the submission. You didn't address that at all and went on some rant about how you think they should be running their business, a business which you admit you have no idea what it actually is.
On the actual topic, yes Submitter, if you cannot get grants to run your non-profit general expenses, then you have to turn to fundraising for it. I feel that giving away a product and hoping for donations is probably less effective than actually either selling items directly or partnering with another for-profit organization and getting a cut of sales for a limited time. you'll get your agreed cut, they get to call that whole thing a charitable contribution on their bottom line, and their customers get to feel good knowing they did something to help while getting something they wanted anyways.
Huh??? The idea of grants being served by the "inteligencia in government" -- honestly, it sickens me. What is the inteligence level of a typical person in civil service relative to the typical startup employee or entrepreneur? Oh help me please... I've worked for civil service in the past, and I know the real story.
Honestly, we all know that the "Inteligencia" in government cannot fight out their way out of a paper bag. So, how does it serve the public good for these designers of waste, these perfect jewels of the moric, and even criminaly graphic behaviour, to decide that even one charity deserves funding in the interest of society?
If a tech non-profit cannot sustain itself by garnering public support through donations for it's work in the public interest... dude... it doesn't deserve to survive.
example:
old slogan: we give used computers to poor people
new slogan: by recruiting young people into the Infosec milieu, we help america defend against the goddam commie chinese hackers and the motherfucking russians who are trying to make our power system go offline so they can invade our country, kill our leaders, and convert us to non-americanism.
i have seen people get layed off and fired all the time in the government.
This would be the definition of irony.
You give away computer for free, and you can't afford computers of your own. So you want someone else to buy you a computer, in order to help manage your give-away-free-computers business. Ptysician, heal thyself?
Perhaps, just maybe, you should select a mission that you can actually achieve; you know, on your own: with your own skills, and your own money.
Form a Cooperative. It's what they used to do in the 30's during the great depression, and many have lasted since then. There are also newer types of multi-stakeholder cooperatives that allow for external investors while cooperative members retain the rights.
give away free books to raise money to give away free computers, what?
They provide a free, educational and enjoyable experience if you're into science, they ask for donations and they get them; they just broke 300 episodes not counting question shows over something like 6 or 7 years. While it's a sad state of affairs I agree, maybe providing something of value is the key.
Greetings Slashdotters:
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Get involved here: http://voqal.org/request-for-letters-of-intent-a-new-voqal-initiative/
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." -Henry David Thoreau
And deficits will still rise. This "austerity" thing should be called corruption.
"A Child's Exposure to Technology Should Never Be Predicated On The Ability To Afford It"
A Child's Exposure to Race Cars Should Never Be Predicated On The Ability To Afford It
"A Child's Exposure to Technology Should Never Be Predicated On The Ability To Afford It"
That was the Raspberry Pi Foundations idea. So they just went ahead and did it. No grant money required.
Seriously now: Handheld cellular-networked supercomputers are this short of being sold in newspaperstands and gumball machines for less than a days worth of MC Donalds burger-flipper wages. What do you need such a non-profit for?
I don't want to rain on the GPs parade, but this seems more like a pet project/hobby to me than anything else. If it really is a charity, well then, call it a charity and do charity work.
No one needs an organization that hands out free leftover computers anymore. Not with brand new Nexus 7s being sold for 179,- Euros in the bargain bin at the tech store just around the corner from where I work right now. That's my humble opinion anyway.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
China has been the most powerful nation in the world on average longer than any other nation. They also had a good culture that did not engage in much territorial expansion, like the Europeans did. The big dispute was over Chinese trade with foreigners. Amazing how some things don't change. I am not so worried about the rise of a historic China... The big question, is who won the Cultural Revolution?
"Non-Profit" is just a tax status. And yes, I know of some folks who became millionaires operating non-profits.
I fail to see how him complaining about people who feel entitled to be in his pocket makes him a "true fucktard."
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Doesn't look like a worthy cause to me. Not when every kindergarden, elementary and junior high skrool are over run with technology.
And the po' lil' chillen still caint read.
Many overlook the fact that the private sector simply will not fund everything we need (at least not at a price we can afford).
The assertion that if an organization can't find private funding, it doesn't deserve to survive is naive at best and fundamentally short sighted at least.
The fetish for "free market economics" and "small government" is incrementally destroying America because the markets aren't free, they are dominated by a few very large players and "small government" is just a code for disabling representative government.
America is in the process of committing political and civic suicide.
This is just a symptom.
You want money to combat the influence of money? Hmm... I think not.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Anyone who thinks grants have anything more than a minimal role in nonprofit sustainability does not understand how noprofit businesses work, unless they are supported by a unit of government as an agent for the provision of human services, like Chicago Area Project which gets the bulk of its revenue from state grants.
Nonprofits generally earn the preponderance of their revenue on a continuing basis from donations by individuals and/or organizations/businesses. They work to develop large networks of interested donors by having a properly constituted board of directors- meaning that board members designated as 'money people', whose primary purpose on the board is to assist in fundraising, must meet annual donation requirements- either directly from that board member's pocket, or through the network of pockets that board member is able to access. The combination of a good set of 'money' board members, a savvy development director, events, charged services, grants, and systematic/consistently applied overhead costs all lead to sustainability. Schools and hospitals have an additional tool- they can actually earn the bulk of their revenue from investment income, which other nonprofits are not allowed to do.
Just Kickstart it, there are enough bleeding hearts out there willing to separate themselves from from a few hundred dollars on a 'scause for applause, just offer them an orange wristband as a reward.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I worked for The Seattle Foundation for a while (a while ago) and they serve as sort-of an intermediary between people wanting to donate and non-profits seeking funding. Donors vastly prefer to fund capital acquisitions over operating costs - it's just sexier and feels cooler to people who think in terms of growing things (money, power) by default. "Hey, I got them this new truck," sounds better than "I paid for gas and an oil change for this old truck they've had for a decade." You will find donors who believe in a cause and fund both, but they also want to have the freedom to say no and not be taken for granted.
I have to wonder if some of this is the changing values of our population and culture.
That's the same problem we have in government with keeping stuff working. Everyone wants a new bridge or aircraft carrier named after them, but no one wants to fund the million bucks a year to keep the bridge or aircraft carrier painted. Of course, it's the same in the life of an individual. We will brag to each other about buying a new car or a new house, but we won't brag to each other about buying a new transmission or a new water heater for an already-existing 'used' car or house.
Nothing has changed. same old same old
"...completely oblivious to the debt that you owe to your society and to the civilization that has given you your education..."
Forgive him Father for he has sinned...Oh! Oh righteous One! Please, please tell us all what we can do to avoid being such heinous sinners?? How can we poor ignorant wretches gain penance in your obviously heightened understanding of what all of our responsibilities are??
Fuck you, you ignorant, superstitious villager.
not wanting. offering. grants to tech non profits and individuals, with the goal of getting money out of politics.
What emes said.
The vast majority of non-profits in the United States rely on individual donations. Giving USA estimated that $298 billion was donated in 2011, and individuals were responsible for $217 billion, 73% of all philanthropic giving in the U.S.
Donors want their contributions to make a difference in addressing the cause they care about. That is why giving in the last decade has focused more and more on restricted, project-specific funding.
Non-profits must cultivate individual donors who believe in the organization's mission and want to address the same issue. And, while doing so, they must also communicate with their donors and stakeholders that general operating costs are essential to the sustainability of the organization.
Like someone above already mentioned, it is really hard to achieve your goals and accomplish your mission if your organization cannot afford to keep the lights on.
Non-profit orgs ( 501c3 in general) are also allowed to have subsidiaries corporation that are for-profit. So technically the non-profit can hold shares of the for-profit and receive dividends to sustain its operation. (That is assuming the for-profit subsidiary is actually making money and giving dividend to its share holders.)
New Economic Perspectives
our old board of directors found this idea....ummm, counter-productive to our image. However, in subsequent elections, we have more outward-thinking directors that see this as our best chance to remain solvent. You sir, are my hero. I too saw this as our most lucrative method of raising funds. Thank you for validating the idea.
That makes more sense.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Reglue, as it is organized today, cannot succeed or sustain itself much longer.
How is it organized? Who runs it?
When did it begin operations? How was it founded?
Who is on the board of directors? Who is on the board of advisors?
Your website sort of addresses some of these questions, but it is not clear when the organization was necessarily founded nor who currently runs Reglue.
If you are in the process of applying for 501(c)(3) status, where are you in that process and when do you anticipate receiving your determination letter? Which organization is currently serving as your fiscal agent in order to allow you to accept charitable gifts?
Also, Reglue must get a 501(c)(3) designation if you want it to survive and grow. If I was an institutional funder, I would be suspicious of the fact you have been operating since 2005 and still need an outside organization to be your fiscal agent. For one or two, possibly, three years, that is okay but eight years? That length of time creates questions about the management of the organization and its competence.
Good point on the gift economy. Part of this in the USA may befrom a feminist movement that pushed women into the exchange economy and out of the gift economy for a variety of reasons? Maybe tech non-profits can't survive drying up grants, but there are still other ways to do tech in the gift economy or planned economy or subsistence economy, Maybe we'll even see a "basic income" which would help more free software developers have the time to do great stuff.
From my website:
========
In brief, there have always been five interwoven "economies" based on five different types of economic transactions (illustrated in the picture above). The balance of them changes with technological changes and cultural changes. They are:
* A subsistence economy. This involves production directly for ones own group, like gardening or hunting and gathering. For example, "There's some lovely berries over here."
* A gift economy. This involves voluntary contributions to individuals or a community, like volunteering at a hospital. For example, "The meat from this deer I hunted is going to spoil; I'll share it with the tribe, and others will share their hunting results some other time as they have in the past."
* A planned economy. This involves a group deciding to do something together, with failure to participate as told by the group generally met with some penalty (whether shunning, exclusion, imprisonment, or violence). For example, "Let's put the longhouse here. I'll cut the trees, you level the ground, you over there will put up the walls, and you over there will cook us some food while we are busy with these other tasks; if you don't help, you can't live in it and no one will ever talk to you again or have anything to do with you socially."
* An exchange economy. This involves purchasing something for money or bartering something for something else. One complex but current example is "purchasing" a Smartphone at a website that can store all the music you could listen to in a lifetime in exchange for flipping a few bits in a banking computer that somehow relate to a specific amount of pieces of paper with fancy printing on them which for some reason we all agree means something. For a simpler example, "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. I'll trade you some of my extra berries for some of your extra deer meat."
* A theft (or conquest) economy. This involves someone breaking the social norms for the above other types of transactions and taking what they want against the wishes of someone else. This can also be thought of, to a lesser extent, as someone "stealing" from the future, by staking out a formal claim to something on the logic of "finders-keepers", when other people who come later might want to share same resource but will be denied access based on claims related to ancient history backed by some form of "defense". For example, "What's yours is now mine because I'm stronger, cleverer, sneakier, faster, older, or can afford better lawyers, so hand over your digital watch or there will be trouble."
It is rare that any transaction is purely of one sort, in the same way that one color of paint may be a mix of other colors. For example, an exchange transaction might have some gift component of good will about a merchant who gives back to the community voluntarily. Subsistence production is generally based on a claim to physical resources like who gets to a berry bush first, and knowledge of how to make things may be a gift from the past. A country with a planned economy may have taken the land from indigenous people who had a gift economy and may ration things using some form of currency. And so on. And it is common that a transaction has "externalities" where other individuals are helped or harmed who are not party to the transaction (one reason governments get involved in exchange transactions is to regulate such externalities such as pollution). So, these "cartoonish" ideas are to help people think better about economics as far as what is possible as far as alternatives, not as clearly-defined a
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I think this begs the question who the hell was supposed to be watching the watchers?
The Watchtower, of course. But who watches the Watchtower?
i made 100k off the derivatives market in the past week.
So should people be shorting the integrals market?
Non-profits are always discretionary in societies and now that the noose is tightening beyond critical into the society's bone and sinew (fat and muscle are long gone), it only makes sense that even this discretionary budget item disappears. Honestly, if you operating budget is more than what you are delivering in value you are a scam non-profit, not a legitimate activity. I say: fuck you and your silver spoon. GS&A should be a tiny part of your budget or you are doing it wrong, alpha to omega, and you should shut down.
what's that got to do with United Way?? You're posting about the interday price of yo-yo's on the chinese market.
EduCap is an on-profit student loan company made of t three organizations: EduCap, Loan to Learn and a charitable fund operating as the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation