i go to seek a Great Perhaps

Please take a minute to vote for TWLOHA’s Fears vs. Dreams campaign to win a $1,000 grant from GOOD.

To vote, click here. After casting your vote you’ll receive an email to confirm. Click the link in the email and you’re done. You must confirm your vote for it to count!!

Please, please before you comment on a nonprofit whether in favor of, or against, know the definition of nonprofit.

Entrepreneur.com gives a great one in layman’s terms:

A business organization that serves some public purpose and therefore enjoys special treatment under the law. Nonprofit corporations, contrary to their name, can make a profit but can’t be designed primarily for profit-making. With a nonprofit, any money that’s left after the organization has paid its bills is put back into the organization. Some types of nonprofits can receive contributions that are tax deductible to the individual who contributes to the organization. Keep in mind that nonprofits are organized to provide some benefit to the public.

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Some Basics to Know:

No one owns a nonprofit. There are no investors/share holders that money raised is given to. Nonprofits have employees. Employees need to have a roof over their head and food to eat, so yes, employees of a nonprofit earn a salary/wage. This is not new, nor is this illegal. Take a look at some nonprofits with an annual revenue in the hundreds of millions and others with an annual revenue under $10 million for some perspective on employee salaries.

Like any for-profit business, nonprofits have expenses. Unfortunately, just because a company decides to be a nonprofit, that does not automatically mean they get office space, equipment, printing costs, material costs, utilities, etc. for free. They must pay for these out of money raised if a private donor or a grant does not cover these expenses.

Nonprofits must put the money they raise after paying bills back into the organization. This is done in accordance with the nonprofit’s mission statement. Typically, putting money back into the organization means: awareness and outreach, programs, advocacy, media, events, grant making, etc. Every nonprofit has a different mission statement. This is why expense breakdowns are different for every organization.

Every nonprofit with an annual revenue of $25,000+ must file a 990 form with the IRS. These are available for the public to view through the IRS, financial postings on the nonprofits website (For example, TWLOHA’s are here and Invisible Children’s are here), and some charity checking websites. Not all non-profits are able to have their finances listed on charity watchdog sites because of the sites requirements, review delays, or guidelines. For example, Charity Navigator currently monitors 5,000 charities and are not taking suggestions for new ones to review as addressed in their FAQ. Many reputable nonprofits will not be listed because of things like that.

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On A Personal Note:

You don’t have to like or support every nonprofit or cause that’s out there. It’s okay to be passionate about only one organization, or hundreds. But regardless of where you fall about an organization, don’t blindly accept everything you read as fact. I have answered more questions / read more negative comments than I can count because, “Someone saw a blog parading as an article that was posted three years ago saying such and such nonprofit was a scam so it must be true!”

99% of the time is not.

Don’t take something at face value. The internet is an incredible resource at your finger tips. Conduct some searches. Read over financials. Look up news articles from reputable publications with real journalists and fact checkers. Talk to people. Contact the nonprofit if (and especially when) you think something is questionable. Once you receive a reply, check the information they gave you against what you’ve researched. If you still have concerns, keep asking questions.

If you do these things, the majority of the time you’re going to discover what you’ve read or heard that made you question the organization was filled with inaccurate, outdated and blatantly false information from someone who is misinformed, uneducated about nonprofits, and lacking credible sources.

With due diligence, together we can eliminate the false information about nonprofits that distracts us from supporting something we care about. And finally, we can get back to everyone’s common goal which is changing the world for better.

-Chloe

TWLOHA has launched their first ever high school campaign, The Storytellers. Katie and I from the team would love to have you apply. 

The goal of The Storytellers is to talk about these issues, bring them out into the open, build community at your school and fundraise for TWLOHA. We provide you with exclusive bracelets to sell and several different ways to get the TWLOHA message out at your school. There is no cost to participate and the incentive for participating is the chance to host a TWLOHA Event at your school!!

This event will include:

• A speaker from TWLOHA 
• A musical performance by an artist who supports TWLOHA 
• A video presentation
• TWLOHA merch for sale

You can find out more and get the application link here.

Nonprofit:
A business organization that serves a public interest. Nonprofits, contrary to their name can make a profit, but they cannot be designed primarily for profit making. The key difference between a for-profit business and a nonprofit is that for-profit companies return their profits to the owners, investors, and share holders. With a nonprofit, any money that is left after the organization has paid its bills is put back into the organization (no one owns a nonprofit). All nonprofits are accountable to the IRS. 

Read more here.

Nonprofits don’t have to donate money, they can pay their staff and they do have administrative costs. This is a simple fact. Nonprofits after paying their bills have to spend the money in accordance with their mission statement. Whatever that nonprofit’s mission statement is, that’s how they have to spend their money. It can be donating a portion to treatment and recovery, building schools in Uganda, running their internal programs, setting up a speaking tour across the country, helping with disaster relief or installing wells in third world countries. Every nonprofit is different, which is why they don’t all do the same things, but they all have to spend their money in accordance with their mission statement.

THINK BEFORE YOU POST SOMETHING. A LOT OF WHAT YOU’LL FIND ON THE INTERNET THAT BASHES SOMETHING HAS ZERO RESEARCH AND IS BASED ON FALSE INFORMATION.

AND PLEASE, FOR MY SANITY, LEARN THE DEFINITION OF NONPROFIT!!!!