Nonprofit Diseases: Malignant Accountants
The most typical symptom of this common malady is not letting donors designate their giving. They simply aren't given the choice. Donors are only allowed to give unrestricted or undesignated funds.
If this is happening in your organization, it's possible you have Malignant Accountants who are not working for your donors. And if they don't work for your donors, they're not working for you. You may need to have them removed.
The new generation of donors demands choice and power. They get plenty of both from the commercial world. They increasingly demand the same from the nonprofits they support. If you can empower your donors, they will reward you. But if your accountants' need to make their jobs simpler keeps you from empowering donors, you will generally end up with one or both of these problems:
- Weak fundraising, where your lack of specificity fails to motivate donors.
- Misleading fundraising, where specificity of any kind can give a false impression of where their money is going.
In either case, your failure to empower your donors will send them in search of other places to give. And sooner or later, they'll find nonprofits that have had their Malignant Accountants removed and are able to give donors choice.
The accountants are quick to point out the danger of giving donors power: Donors may oversubscribe certain programs and leave others short of funds. That's a real possibility -- one your organization needs to face. But who should help you solve it? Yes, your accountants. Accountants are generally smart people who can help you solve sticky problems like this. Sadly, far too many of them have chosen an easy solution that locks out donors.
You need accountants who will bite the bullet and put the money where the donors want it. More and more donors are demanding this power.
This originally appeared in slightly different form in the Journal of the DMA Nonprofit Federation, a print-only newsletter.
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