The Will of the People

Q&A with Leslie Jacobs: former mayoral candidate, education reformer, founder of 504ward and Educate Now. Leslie and her husband Scott are fundholders at the Greater New Orleans Foundation.
When you traveled throughout Orleans parish campaigning for [...]

Q&A with Nolan V. Rollins, president & CEO of the Urban League of Greater New Orleans.

In 2009, the Urban League of Greater New Orleans completed an internal review and adopted a Strategic Framework that calls for the Urban League to be an Architect of Change. For the Urban [...]

Climbing the Corporate Ladder

Phyllis Cassidy, executive director of Good Work Network, has only to hear Thomas Brown’s name and she breaks out in a broad smile.While Cassidy is proud of many of her 700 Good Work Network members, she has special praise for Brown [...]

Come On In, The Water’s Fine

Recent scandals have cast a pall over the charitable sector. But if you’re wondering about the wisdom of making a donation to some established charity in our city, don’t be fooled by the media hype. My guess is that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, your mailing that check will do our community substantial good.

Small is Beautiful

This past August 29th, as we commemorated the 4th anniversary of Katrina and its aftermath, I was reminded of the Red Cross’s response to the storms. I was mindful of the fact that there were certain things only large, well-networked organizations could do.

But how often do we remember that small can also be beautiful and effective?

Small, community-based nonprofit organizations have a kind of loveliness that their larger, better-established cousins don’t often share. When these small organizations are effective, and when they’re run by dedicated leaders, their loveliness borders on the sublime.

What these organizations lack in scale, they more than make up for in their knowledge of their communities and their responsiveness to client needs …

Too Many Charities?

Are there too many nonprofit organizations in Greater New Orleans?

The short answer is, “By what measure?” The longer answer requires some careful unpacking of assumptions.

This question is often asked by a donor concerned about the proliferation of nonprofit organizations in a given geographic region or field of interest (e.g., youth development). She raises the question because she worries that there are too few charitable dollars to support an ever-increasing number of organizations. Isn’t there too much overlap in their missions? she wonders. Shouldn’t more of them consolidate their operations and merge?

Here are a few things for donors (and nonprofits) to consider:

1. Most charities are charities on paper only. Don’t go by the number of organizations granted 501(c)(3) status by the IRS. They were incorporated by good-hearted people driven by the desire to make a difference in the world. In most cases, that desire has not yet extended beyond the filing of papers with the state attorney general.

2. Charities with real revenue streams are there for a reason. And you might be one of those reasons. A newly incorporated nonprofit organization will coast along on volunteer support for months, even years. Having established a track record, there may come a time when it will turn to the donor community for help with that next step in its evolution. If the charity makes it past this awkward transitional stage, it’s because it was able to convince a large enough segment of the donor community that there was a real need for its services.