Thank you for helping those in need, I hope this question doesn't rub you the wrong way, it's a standard disclosure for non-profits. What percentage of your donations go towards administrative costs?
It doesn't rub me the wrong way at all. I am always happy to talk about what it costs to do what we do.
The answer isn't simple, for a lot of reasons. The biggest is we have been in operation for a relatively short period of time, since March 17, 2013. So we don't have solid income datat. And the second is that we have DRAMATICALLY increased the scope of what we do over that time so we have much larger costs now than we did in March.
But if you average it out we run at a deficit of about $600 per month over direct operational costs. We maintain no office, or administrative staff, and have not billed any fundraising activities against donations. The simple fact is that right now my wife and I pay out of pocket every month to make ends meet. And we are very happy to do that.
There are reasons for that. One is we have never yet engaged in any formal fundraising. Not that we are against it, we have just been very fortunate at the level of contributions we have received from the crypto currency community. To reach a stasis and be truly sustainable we will have to move past that at some point. But we are in the fortunate position of being able to take our time and build fundraising mechanisms/campaigns that make sense for us and are not knee jerk reactions.
I would also like to point something else out, your initial question...
What percentage of your donations go towards administrative costs?
Is a very standard question. And I think it's the wrong question. Currently by that criteria we are a home run, 100%+ direct operational costs. But that isn't as important to me as the end results of what we are able to accomplish. I think charities and non-profits should be judged like startups, only on their results.
For instance which would you prefer...
Non-Profit A
7% Adinistrative costs, 93% Operational that effects an 11% decline in the rate of homelessness in its operational area.
or
Non-Profit B
43% Administrative costs, 57% Operational that effects a 90% decline in the rate of homelessness in the operational area
I would hope you would want Non-Profit B. I would want Non-Profit B.
I firmly believe that the metric to optimize for is end results.
This is the talk that really changed my thinking...
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_about_charity_is_dead_wrong.htmlI hope you can take the time to watch it. It is an amazing talk. Dan Pallotta is one of my heros.
I hope I answered your question well enough. I would be happy to talk more about this. And you can always email me at
[email protected]Thanks for the interest.
Jason King
Sean's Outpost