CHARITY CASE: HOW THE NONPROFIT COMMUNITY CAN STAND UP FOR ITSELF AND REALLY CHANGE THE WORLD PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Dan Pallotta | 256 pages | 02 Oct 2012 | John Wiley & Sons Inc | 9781118117521 | English | New York, United States We want charities to be run, "like a business" but we don't allow them the tools to do that which we ask. We don't want them to spend money on overhead so we force charities to eliminate appropriate adv Our society has bent to the belief that charitable organizations can be fairly evaluated by the percentage of donations that end up in the hands of the intended recipients. We don't want them to spend money on overhead so we force charities to eliminate appropriate advertising and fundraising activities typical overhead expenses that will grow the organizations and allow them to serve a greater population. Overhead is equated with waste and nothing could be further from the truth. Charity Case suggests that typical overhead expenses are necessary to run an organization well. In charitable organizations spending needs to be accepted and done to educate the public about what they do and how they do it, hire qualified people to manage growth and broad efforts, raise additional funds through various means, those breast cancer walk-a- thons don't happen by themselves and expand so that a greater number of people can be served. It opened my eyes not only to the problem, but to solutions. May 17, Elizabeth marked it as to-read Shelves: npr , social-justice , economics. This book is in some ways part two of Uncharitable, which I read last month. Uncharitable is all about the problem: limitations on nonprofits imposed by themselves and society at large. Uncharitable is a largely negative work in the sense that it focuses on describing, exploring, and explaining a problem. Charity Case, on the other hand, is a positive work. Given the already established problem, Pallotta here explores what we can do about. He covers several different topics including legislative action, use of advertising, organization of resources, etc. Charity Case is a bit farther removed from my immediate experience as a CTEP because many of the changes he yearns for operate on a higher level than the plain experiencing of them, but still it's important to read both because together they make a stronger statement regarding the operation of nonprofits. One subject I've found myself particularly interested in is that of advertising. In Charity Case, Pallotta examines successful cases of advertising in the corporate world and questions how these ideas might be applied to our sector. He brings up, for example, the Got Milk campaign that completely turned milk sales around and gained larger success than anyone ever imagined. It was a special combination of creativity, resources, and more that led to this great success, but nonprofits often don't have access to such opportunity or otherwise don't prioritize it. Recently, I overheard a participant wrongly name Waite House as a different employment center over the phone. Waite House does a wonderful job of providing services, but we don't always do a good job of commanding attention for that work. I've come to adopt working to resolve this as goal of mine over the next year through some basic advertising work. I don't except to create a campaign making us wildly famous, but at the same time I don't want more participants to make the same slip up, and so I have already begun efforts to solidify just who we are to outsiders, designing documents, signs, and displays with our logo and colors displayed prominently. I definitely recommend reading this work just as much as Uncharitable. I know that many CTEPs intend to stay in the field for a long while, and its in the interest of all of us who want to do so to inform ourselves about what that means. That means not only understanding the limitations we may face for that choice, but also the approaches to working on those limitations. CTEPs work on both direct service and capacity building because you can't build capacity without someone to execute it, but neither can you work on the front lines without support. Support doesn't simply mean making new classes, new curricula, and new tools for direct service, however. It also means exploring new and better ways of doing things and approaching problems. It means building capacity for the capacity builders so to speak, and that's something that all of us who intend on sticking around should be thinking about. Oct 09, Amy rated it it was amazing Shelves: soc-psych-ethics-and-medicine. As someone who works in the social profit sector and constantly hears comparisons to the regular business sector a la 'Why don't you do it this way? Pallotta does a basic overview of the problems of the social profit sector, dissects these problems, supports his statements with facts and research, and proposes solutions to those problems based on strat As someone who works in the social profit sector and constantly hears comparisons to the regular business sector a la 'Why don't you do it this way? I have already recommended it to several coworkers and have forwarded them information about the Charity Defense Council, a social profit that Pallotta founded both in response to and as an example of the statements and suggestions in his book. Charity Case should be required reading for anyone working in the social profit sector, anyone who wants to work in the social profit sector, and anyone interested in donating to social profit organizations. I can only hope that the sector-wide behavioral interventions proposed do actually become widespread and well-supported, because we - every single charity and every single person who has ever depended on a charity for information or assistance - need them. Nov 23, Babs Bradhurst rated it liked it. I'm not familiar with Pallotta's other work, so I read this book as a stand-alone piece. I was really excited about it, and pretty let down in the end. The author makes some great points about the problems facing the humanitarian sector. But I don't agree with his solution. He suggests one national organization with several arms to combat multiple facets of problems. I disagree with this approach. Very large organizations attempting to represent a very large swath of people can never represent th I'm not familiar with Pallotta's other work, so I read this book as a stand-alone piece. Very large organizations attempting to represent a very large swath of people can never represent them entirely. There are large national organizations that should be representing my particular interests, but they don't and I don't contribute to them because they too often miss the mark. This reads like a "please donate to my cause" book rather than a solutions book. Even in his chapter on "what you can do" every solution offered centered around getting involved with his organization. I gave this book the third star because there were some good ideas in the book, but surprisingly most of them came from OTHER people, which he presents in Chapter 5. Jul 12, Dan rated it really liked it. Years ago, I read Dan Pallotta's book, Uncharitable. If you want to understand what's holding back the nonprofit sector, read that book. Charity Case is the follow-up. Pallotta makes an impassioned and logical argument for how to make strong improvements in the nonprofit sector that makes understanding the issues accessible to those outside the sector. To some, his arguments may seem controversial. But he quickly disarms many well intentioned but misguided notions. Especially related to politicians and policy. If you are an aspiring nonprofit professional social sector, etc , I encourage reading Pallotta's books. They will help you understand certain systemic challenges and how to move the sector forward. Sep 25, Sachpak marked it as to-read. Learn more about how subscribers apply this time-saving tool to their professional advancement or download a free sample. Enter your email or user name and your log-in information will be sent to the email on file. Subscriber Login. Subscribe Blog. Description Discover what Pallotta claims are the five discriminatory practices our society tolerates and what we face as a humanitarian sector. Learn what 17 actions you can take to support this proposed national movement. Reviews There are no reviews yet. Pallotta persuasively argues that cost-benefit analysis must be used when analyzing executive salaries within the nonprofit sector. A first-year business school student would be kicked out of class for such egregious non- analysis. Similarly, in the case of overhead, Pallotta argues that there is a tendency to define a charity's "cause" too narrowly. As he puts it: "[I]f hunger, then soup — but not the spoon, the bowl, the stove, the fundraiser that got the money for the stove, or the postage on the thank-you note sent to the donor who donated the money for the stove. Just the soup molecules themselves. As for the whopping 90 percent of your donated dollar claimed by many fundraising firms, Pallotta argues that for little-known causes with few resources, telemarketing may be the only realistic way of generating any revenue at all. Which begs the question: Should the general public be informed or shielded from this kind of information? Here Pallotta seems to be of two minds. On the one hand, he embraces the concept of transparency, arguing that if the public were better educated about the economics of charity work, it would be less offended by competitive salaries and high overhead.