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Uncharitable: How Restraints On Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential (2008)

by Dan Pallotta(Favorite Author)

3.64 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1584657235 (ISBN13: 9781584657231)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Tufts University

review 1: This author seemed to think that making the same 3 points over and over under different chapter headings was the same as writing a book. I'm looking to get in to the non-profit space, so I'm a sympathetic reader, and I just couldn't get through this book. The author came off as whiny and tantrum-y rather than as the harbinger of an important message about the problems with the current philanthropic system (which are real).
review 2: This books main points is that charities need to be able to act like for-profit companies in some respects in order to maximize their effectiveness as a charity. The author has six main points. 1. Charities can not compensate their employees properly and therefore can not attract top talent. 2. Charities are not able to take calcul... moreated risks because if they fail it is perceived as an unacceptable use of money that could have gone to the needy. 3. There is little long-term planning because charities have to spend the money immediately. 4. Paid advertisement is discouraged because it is perceived as a waste of money. 5. Charities can not receive investments and pay out returns which limits their ability to raise capital to enact positive change. 6. We use efficiency as our measure of how good a charity is at delivering its services, when efficiency is a useless measure of how effective an organization is. I liked this books main points. All of these I think are true and the measuring by efficiency is especially something that caught my attention because I have definitely done that in the past. The main reason I did not like this book that much, though I'm glad I read it because I learned a lot is twofold. First, the author has a brief history lesson at the start of the book where he explains how the perceptions that charities operate under is all related to the puritans, beginning 400 years ago. It is a totally incomplete history and he would have been better to leave it out because it does not seem to be believable to blame the entire problem on a group that originated 400 years ago. Secondly, his only examples in this book are from his company, which ceased to exist in 2003, which was trying to raise money for charities in a for-profit manner. His company essentially folded because the pressure from society on efficiency did not allow him to continue. I would have liked to see other examples from other groups because he comes across as bitter and even though I think most of his ideas are dead on, I have a hard time listening to him for 200 pages. less

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