Customer Reviews

SMART GENEROSITY: Everything You Need to Know About Charity, Philanthropy and Giving Wisely

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was looking for a book that really told how to make an impact. This is not that book, at least not what I was looking for. This book is mostly directed at people prepared to give $100,000 - $1,000,000 and up to non-profits, and not so much for social impact as "making yourself feel good" or to "express meaningful choice over the direction in which our society will progress". In other words, it could be a fine fit for letting shallow, self-absorbed people get tax write-offs but not feel like it has all gone to waste. If you want a wing of a hospital or a library named after you then this is the book for you. If you like paperwork, board meetings, and finance sheets, then this is the book for you.

I've worked in charities and a lot of them got their funding from programs/donors like described in this book. Some did, as the author says, fudge their paperwork and spin their work to make it look more successful than it was. Some wasted huge amounts of money and never accomplished anything. Some were really amazing charities as well. To me the key to which donors made wise choices was that the donors of the good charities were actually involved in the issue - the best homeless shelters were funded by people who knew the people who ran them and had gone with them on outreach trips or had been to the shelter while it was operating. They were really involved. The worse ones were funded by people who rarely visited and when they did were happy to merely meet with the program director and did not talk to the actual clients about their experience.

Some of the "red flags" the author brings up shouldn't be - I've worked in programs that were highly effective but were hopeless at accounting. Programs that had perfect books often were very good at going after the money but delivered a very poor quality product.

She makes a few good points. Sometimes investing in infrastructure, like training some key people, will help a lot more then just throwing them money - but also sometimes some consultants come in and ruin what makes the program special by focusing too much on fiscal matters.