The folks at Free Geek Chicago have offered perhaps the most ethical, honest and authentic statement on funding in the non profit world.
Here’s an excerpt from their Community Funding Statement outlining their experience of funding relationships:
- External funding means someone else decides your organization’s priorities: A funder’s priorities may or may not match the desires and needs of a community or help to fulfill an organization’s mission.
- Fund-raising is work: Funding and fund-raising requires skill and creates organizational overhead to seek and manage money.
- Funding obscures failure: Bad ideas can live on as long as they attract funding or make for good public relations.
- Funding is an exchange, like any other: Funding has strings attached, whether organizations choose to discuss them or not.
- Funders are often “trendy”: Especially in information technology, grants follow intellectual fads and forgo long-term perspective.
The entire document is certainly worth a read, and they are worthy of community support. If I had a chunk of cash on hand, I’d send it over no strings attached.