Myths About Nonprofits April 26, 2006

Every time I talk to people outside of the nonprofit world, they repeat myths about nonprofits that just make me cringe...

Myth Number 1: Nonprofits can't make decisions
You, our customers, make your decisions to buy GiftWorks within 33 days on average. You make decisions every day. You like to make informed decisions; once you have the facts in front of you, you make decisions quickly and with input from advisors and your board. Myth busted!

Myth Number 2: Nonprofits don't spend money
Now that's a funny one: You spend over $57 bilion a year on technology, and represent about 8% of the GDP. That's quite a little more than petty cash, eh?

Myth Number 3: Nonprofit employees aren't high quality
This on makes me really mad--the 'second-class citizen' attitude. We need to start budgeting better salaries, better health benefits, and better conditions for nonprofits and our employees (I'm speaking for my own nonprofit, not Mission Research, which is mostly for-profit, it's huge Tech Soup donation aside, when I say "our"). Nonprofits sport some of the most dedicated, most committed, most talented, most intelligent people I know.

Do you have any myths to share? Click on Comments below!

Comments

Hi Charlie,

Some good myths! May I ask where the figure that nonprofits spend over $57 billion a year on technology comes from? I certainly believe it, but hadn't been able to find any hard numbers, and this seems like a useful one.

Thanks!

Laura

The $57 billion number is total spending, which includes universities and hospitals, so it's very skewed. We estimate there's about $1.6 billion spent by about 800,000 nonprofits in the small- to mid-sized range on a combination of services and software (hardware not included, nor batteries).

I think we got the number from a McKinsey report. Exponent Partners puts the number at $43 billion.