Not for profit doesn’t mean no profit

Too many nonprofits are rewarded for how little they spend & not for how big their impact is.

We’ve been taught that charities should spend as little as possible on overhead like fundraising, marketing, and innovation because to put it simply, the less money you spend in these areas, the more is available for your cause.

But what’s the reality? The reality is that investing in areas like marketing & fundraising actually multiplies the number of people who can champion our cause and multiplies the funds available for the cause that we care about so deeply.

I mean, think of any large successful corporation? How do they scale? They spend money to make a whole lot more.

We’ve been taught that the bake sale with five percent overhead is morally superior to the professional fundraising enterprise with 40 percent overhead.

But who cares if the bake sale only has five percent overhead if it’s tiny? What if the bake sale only earned 71 dollars for charity because it made no investment in its scale and the professional fundraising enterprise earned 71 million dollars because it did?

When I heard Dan Poletta share on this topic in his Ted Talk it transformed the way I think about nonprofits investing in marketing, and it’s why I find such meaning in the work we do at Pedal.

When I get to work with nonprofits who get this, it makes me believe that we’ve actually got a shot at making a meaningful impact in this world.

*Check out the TED TALK “the way we think about charity is dead wrong.” & let me know what you think!