[P2P-F] the logic of rating nonprofits

Mon Apr 25 05:37:01 CEST 2011

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 10:26 AM
Subject: Fwd: [GiftEconomy] 'Emerges'? How about 're-emerges'?
To: econowmix at googlegroups.com

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tereza
Date: Sun, Apr 24, 2011 at 5:54 PM
Subject: Re: [GiftEconomy] 'Emerges'? How about 're-emerges'?
To: dante.monson at gmail.com
Cc: Duane
gifteconomy at lists.gifteconomy.org

Hi, Dante

I'll answer these one at a time, since there's so much here. The critic at
allthatiswrong has his head in the sand (or someplace darker) when it comes
to nonprofits. The goal of every 501c3 is to get other people to pay for its
own operations. In order to be a legal nonprofit you have to show that
you're getting the majority of your money donated by other people for your
stated mission... period. Like Wikipedia, if running an advertising-free,
no-fee website is couch surfing's mission, they *should* be paying for
salaries and all the things they are.

On Charity Navigator's rating system, this is what I wrote in one of
my show<http://thirdparadigm.org/3p_055.php>
s:

Their first measures are the amounts spent on programs vs. administration
and fundraising, based on the charity's own tax reporting. If they call 10%
or less of their expenses administration, they get a 10, *even if 100% of
their overseas aid ends up in the pockets of US employees or corporations*.
Then, if their fundraising brings in 10 dollars for every dollar spent, they
get another 10. Commissioned telemarketers are good for this, or the trick
of putting a nickel, a packet of seeds, an angel medallion, or a stamped
return envelope in direct mail solicitations. They know how hard it is for
us to throw out something useful rather than sending it back with a
donation. Thirdly, there's what they call "capacity" – if an organization
keeps over $250 million or one year's operating expenses in the bank, they
get another automatic 10. They write:
 Givers should know that other independent evaluators of charities tend not
to measure a charity's capacity. Indeed, charities that maintain large
reserves of assets or working capital are occasionally penalized by other
evaluators. In our view, a charity's capacity is just as important as its
efficiency. By showing growth and stability, charities demonstrate greater
fiscal responsibility, not less, for those are the charities that will
continue pursuing change in the future and will generate both short- and
long-term results for every dollar they receive from givers.
source<http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=35>

Then, their final measure is growth. To quote:
For charities, growth means first, increasing their primary revenue, which
includes contributions from corporations, foundations, individuals, and
government grants; program service revenue, contracts and fees; and revenue
from membership dues and fees. Second, growth means growing their programs
and services. Organizations that demonstrate consistent annual growth in
both primary revenue and program expenses are able to outpace inflation and
thus sustain their programs year to year.
source<http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=35>

So charities have to continually bring in more money year to year in order
to get a good rating. No wonder the charities I support don't rank. They'd
be mortified to have a year's operating expenses sitting idle when it could
make the difference for people resisting a military coup. My advocacy groups
live hand to mouth. But Charity Navigator doesn't rate salaries, perks, and
bonuses. They don't look at how much overseas aid actually stays in the US.
Transportation costs aren't factored in, or amounts that come from and end
up in the hands of corporations. After looking at how they determine their
rating system, I think I might take the inverse of it as a good sign.
It also seems that the critic is wrong about the $90K the founder is making.
In the 2009 report he separates executive pay from the rest and it's about
$30,000 - not much for running an over $1M nonprofit.

But you may be hinting at, Dante, the economic model that I'm trying to
pioneer, which I call ChariTrade. In this model, services and goods are
given freely and donations to global charities are given freely back.
Usually these are in the form of checks written directly to the charity but
given to the provider of the service to bundle and forward to the charity.

I run as a for-profit business so that I can deduct my expenses - so that
I'm not paying taxes in addition to donating my time and my money for
supplies and equipment. I pay income taxes on all the cash that comes in but
I deduct the checks I write to the charities from my personal income. Since
most of the donations come in as checks to the charities, I always operate
at a loss. That way the giver can deduct their donation directly and I can
deduct my expenses, diverting this money away from the corporate war fund
and towards the causes we wish our tax dollars went to.

As step 2 of this plan I'd like to issue a ChariTrade Ten for every $50
donated, which would circulate in the local economy at a variable value
depending on what it's used for. For locally-grown food, groceries, coffee
shops or bookstores, it would be worth $10, locally-made goods would be $20,
services would be $30, and education would be $40. So those who want to get
a UniverseCity education would be motivated to offer services, goods, and
food in order to get ChTr10's to pay for schooling.

So this would enable sharing at the local level while supporting the global
community that's working with people and nature against the impacts of money
and corporatization.

Tereza

 Apr 24, 2011, at 1:33 AM, Dante-Gabryell Monson wrote:

Since couchsurfing is mentioned,
and also ( capitalist ) enclosure related to sharing,

it may be of interest to have a look at

http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/

"Couchsurfing could go commercial"
http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/2011/04/20/couchsurfing-com-could-go-commercial/

http://allthatiswrong.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/a-criticism-of-couchsurfing-and-review-of-alternatives/#fraud

<http://allthatiswrong.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/a-criticism-of-couchsurfing-and-review-of-alternatives/#fraud>see
the evolution of how "donation/verification" money is being spent within the
not for profit to support the causes it supports,

and the amount of money that may be set aside :

2009 ( over a million dollars )
http://www.couchsurfing.org/organization_finances_2009.html

2008 ( nearly eight hundred thousand dollars )
http://www.couchsurfing.org/organization_finances_2008.html

2007 ( three hundred thousand dollars )
http://www.couchsurfing.org/organization_finances_2007.html

2006 ( hundred thousand dollars )
http://www.couchsurfing.org/organization_finances_2006.html

...

On Sun, Apr 24, 2011 at 5:16 AM, Tereza wrote:

> Sorry, I didn't read the article before I passed it on - I just read the
> beginning about craigslist and couch surfing. Charity Focus, who publishes
> The Daily Good, walks their talk, and everything they do is volunteer-based.
> But sometimes the articles they publish are a bit too corporate for my
> taste.
>
> That said, I like the sites that enable people to rent their own houses.
> I'll never stay in a commercial property again for a vacation. I was happy
> to hear that someone was developing a way for cars to be shared without
> risk. I hope that P2P taxi services will be soon to follow, so I can pay
> someone in the neighborhood next time I need a ride to the airport. Lots of
> people are piecing together a living from a little bit of money here and
> there and I'd rather support that than incur a favor I don't have time to
> repay. Most people either have time or they have money, but it's rare to
> have both. So hooking the people with time up with the people with money is
> okay in my book. I'm not a purist.
>
> I like what you're doing, Robin, with the helping on the street. I'm sure
> that's making an impact.
>
> Tereza
>
>
>
> On Apr 23, 2011, at 9:10 AM, Duane wrote:
>
>  But the capitalist drive will not be extinguished. They will to "optimize"
>> the culture of sharing for their profit, whether by persuasion, threat, or
>> force, and they will find ways. Their hypocrisy, that they will not
>> <i>share</i> their optimizations, is the glint which betrays the
>> machinations to inject extraction in the network of cooperation.
>>
>> The "central authority" will be the architects of the means of sharing.
>> The means of sharing cannot be totally autonomous and will be organized, to
>> some extent. Whereas a rising tide would lift all boats, in an ebb tide,
>> someone will have to pay for the tugboat.
>>
>> The most revolutionary force in the world will not go down easy.
>>
>> Duane
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robin
>> To: <gifteconomy at lists.gifteconomy.org>
>> Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2011 2:29 AM
>> Subject: [GiftEconomy] 'Emerges'? How about 're-emerges'?
>>
>>
>>  Thanks for this, Tereza.
>>>
>>>> The Sharing Economy Emerges
>>>>> Peer to peer exchange of goods and services has skyrocketed way
>>>>> beyond craigslist.org and Couch Surfing. Now, access to goods and
>>>>> skills is becoming more important than ownership of them. And that
>>>>> has sparked a "Sharing Economy". Gartner Group researchers estimate
>>>>> that the peer-to-peer financial-lending market will reach $5 billion
>>>>> by 2013. Botsman says the consumer peer-to-peer rental market will
>>>>> become a $26 billion sector, and believes the sharing economy, in
>>>>> total, is a $110 billion-plus market. "Is this purely a
>>>>> warm-and-fuzzy kind of thing?" says Ann Miura-Ko, a venture
>>>>> capitalist at Floodgate Fund. "It's not. It's underutilized asset
>>>>> utilization." That is to say, sharing is becoming common place.
>>>>>
>>>> The rise of digitally mediated sharing is indeed promising, but only a
>>> capitalist could see this as a fundamentally new thing. I mean life is
>>> full of sharing. To say nothing of shared genes, shared understandings
>>> or shared streets, people in most parts of the world still share all
>>> sorts of stuff daily, just as they used to in the past in USA.
>>> Barnraising? Potlatch?
>>>
>>> So whilst in one sense it's a welcome step away from what Eisenstein
>>> calls "the discrete and separate self", sharing does not cease to count
>>> just because it goes unaccounted in ledgers. Arguably, unmetered sharing
>>> is more important. I haven't investigated the 'Floodgate Fund', so I may
>>> be doing her an injustice, but Ann Miura-Ko's designation as 'venture
>>> capitalist' suggests to me that she's expecting to get out more money
>>> than she puts in.
>>>
>>> Anyway, it's food for thought for my work on the Internet Gift Economy,
>>> which has been going slow lately - distracted by working on the
>>> roofgarden. The current model as regards metering is to leave it up to
>>> those involved whether they want to record things. Eitherway, a big
>>> difference is that there won't be any central authority in charge, so no
>>> point for revenue extraction. No business model.
>>>
>>> Robin
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> GiftEconomy mailing list
>>> GiftEconomy at lists.gifteconomy.org
>>> http://lists.gifteconomy.org/listinfo.cgi/gifteconomy-gifteconomy.org
>>>
>>

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