Funders and Conclusion

I was very surprised to read that funder foundations only account for 3 percent of nonprofit revenue. These foundations are set up to donate to specific causes and I feel as if they make up for a much higher percentage than that. Shouldn’t these type of organizations be the driving force behind the nonprofit sector? I thought so, but in reality they often have agendas separate from merely supporting a cause. In many cases funder foundations are set up by large corporations simply for marketing purposes. And it makes sense from a business standpoint. If you a large, multinational corporation why not set up a nice sounding foundation claiming to be supportive of a good cause. The problem is that these foundations are often tied to controversy because they are thought to be working only in their best interests. This is why, as the book states, Congress has investigated private foundations four times.

This is not to say that private foundations are all bad, or that they don’t benefit society. It seems as if the corporations that are started by private philanthropists, such as Bill Gates or John D. Rockefeller, are usually more effective because they are less likely to have those type of corporate agendas. I was not surprised to read that much of the wealth contributed from foundations is concentrated into a small group. Only one percent of foundations had more than $100 million in assets which amounted to 60 percent of the total wealth. This is similar to the wealth stratification for our country as a whole. A problems that results from this is that often times the smaller foundations with less money are more willing to give, but obviously can’t make much of an impact because of their limited funds. This is where the top dogs need to step in and become more effective. When you consider how much of an impact funder organizations have on the nonprofit sector it seems a little disproportionate that they only provide for 3 percent of the funds.

All in all I have enjoyed this class quite a bit. It was interesting to learn about all of the different kinds of nonprofits and how they impact society. As I have mentioned before, I really had no idea that certain types of organizations were even considered nonprofit. Up to this point I really only had knowledge and experience with the business and government sectors of our society, and I never really even thought about what the third sector did or impacts. I have learned that it is actually quite significant and will continue to be so as our society starts to face of the difficult yet inevitable challenges that lie ahead. We cannot rely on government for everything and many of these challenges are simply to big for them to tackle on their own. I think it will be really important going forward for us to spread awareness and education about the nonprofit sector so that people know what kind of impact it can have because I think that a lot of people, myself included before I took this class, don’t really realize it.