A short essay on why we as a society should abandon the current model for the not for profit sector. I work for a NPO in an impoverished city in North Jersey, and have been tasked with the creation of a business plan for an Adult Education center. My first quarter goals are to find out if need exists for a center and then to see if the center is a feasible undertaking given its cost.
This is where the problem begins. First, not for profits work in a generally unquantifiable industry, this makes monetizing services extremely difficult. Secondly, the sector is filled with people whose greatest asset is good intentions. Good intentions are great for forward thinking vision when it comes to social causes, but they do not lend themselves handily when historical data is needed to create projected future financial data. So to paint a picture, we have an industry that needs intensive commitment to quantifying data and which is populated by people who have no intent on quantifying data. If we couple these prevailing attitudes with the fact that any social program can be justified by saying helping people is a priceless endeavour then we create a hotbed of inefficiency and redundancy.
I suggest that before we give money to these programs we demand oversight and accountability. Helping people is great, but if the agency in charge of helping does it poorly are we really doing justice to the greater social good? Maybe I am not turning into a republican because I am asking for more regulation, perhaps I'm endorsing liberalism with responsibility.