logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Why a Donor Dumped Her Charity

Rick Cohen
December 20, 2010
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

December 18, 2010; Source: Wall Street Journal | Plenty of NPQ columnists have warned charities not to take their donors for granted. This article in the Wall Street Journal comes from a donor who “divorced,” so to speak, her favorite national charity. Like feelings toward a former spouse in many cases, the donor still feels affection, but conditions have changed, the married partners have grown apart, and it’s time to file for irreconcilable differences.

The donor/author, Karen Blumenthal, gave some thought to the issue and listed three reasons for heading to divorce court with the longtime recipient of your charitable largesse: (1) the group is no longer showing the donor appreciation and keeping the donor informed; (2) the mission of the charity has crept away from what originally attracted the donor; and (3) the nonprofit appears unreceptive to donors’ and volunteers’ concerns. The latter is what pushed Blumenthal over the edge.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Blumenthal is associated as a “worker bee volunteer” with a local chapter of the national organization so she gets to see first hand the interaction between the national and the local. The national organization decided, in her view, to “turn . . . its focus away from its local chapters, which it calls advisory boards.” In 2009, the all-volunteer chapters were hit with a requirement that they had to raise $2,000 or risk being deemed inactive. The agency said it was thinking about upping the requirement to $10,000. As a consequence, the number of local chapters dropped by 40 percent to about 170. Blumenthal complained that, for many reasons, working with the group became more difficult, volunteers drifted, and donations and book distributions dropped.

Divorce is always difficult, and it’s usually expensive. For nonprofits, a donor’s divorce means a loss of charitable giving and personal energy and in this case a loss of face as this donor goes public with her concerns.—Rick Cohen

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Rick Cohen

Rick joined NPQ in 2006, after almost eight years as the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Before that he played various roles as a community worker and advisor to others doing community work. He also worked in government. Cohen pursued investigative and analytical articles, advocated for increased philanthropic giving and access for disenfranchised constituencies, and promoted increased philanthropic and nonprofit accountability.

More about: Nonprofit News

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
5 Land Defense Protests Around the World
Iris Crawford
Turning Toward EV Frontline Communities
Katherine Leah Pace
Muslim Women Are Reclaiming The Narrative
Anmol Irfan
How Policy Is Building a Social Economy in South Korea
Minsun Ji
Nonprofits and Movements: How Do the Two Relate?
Steve Dubb
Human-Centered Design for Behavioral Health
Sonia Sarkar

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
AOC’s “Tax the Rich” Dress Dazzles Met Gala, while...
Anastasia Reesa Tomkin
Foundation Giving Numbers for 2020 Show 15 Percent Increase
Steve Dubb
Strike MoMA Imagines Art Museums without Billionaires
Tessa Crisman

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.