Several years ago in a meeting with some city and nonprofit leaders, I shared the need and vision for a long-term recovery center. The idea became a central piece to a ten-year plan to address homelessness. City-government leaders involved in the discussion voted to allocate $500,000 dollars as seed money to realize the new brick-and-mortar project. Some were shocked when we turned it down. Why would anyone turn away half a million dollars of free government money? Because it’s not free.

Every nonprofit leader should know that most opportunities afforded by the government come with significant opportunity cost – whatever is lost by foregoing the alternative solution. For example, in his recent article, Travis Hurley, Advancement Director for Watered Gardens Ministries, points out that donors are more inclined to give to nonprofits who don’t take government money, and more than 1/10 will decrease giving when government steps in to help. Taking a sizable government grant and retaining nearly 90% of your private donors may seem like a win, but that simple math doesn’t capture the whole of the cost. There’s more. It crowds out community, hurts your hustle, and cramps your style.

It Crowds Out Community

Growing a nonprofit for 21 years on private donations alone has demanded a tremendous amount of grassroots fundraising energy: engaging radio ads, television PSAs, mass mailings, gala events, sponsorship requests, calls, visits and more calls. We even developed a way for individuals to sponsor one night of shelter each month for $15. Thousands of donors are involved and every month, each receives a signed letter and testimony of a life impacted by their partnership. That’s a lot of work! Certainly, if we just landed a few government grants, it would lighten that load. However, like other nonprofits, money alone isn’t the answer. More so, people are.

The community we engage to financially support the work is also the community that steps up to fill more than 700 volunteers shifts every month at our mission. The results from this 2014 Fidelity Charitable survey revealed that 87% of donors are involved in volunteering, too. More interesting, financial support usually comes first. Fifty-eight percent of donors reported giving financially before signing up to give of their time. Taking government money crowds out more than private donor dollars. By relaxing the demand to vigorously engage those donors, It crowds out the very community necessary to serve and build relationships with the clients who need so much more than what cash alone can provide.

It Hurts Your Hustle

Government dependency doesn’t just happen to people trapped in the welfare system; It can happen to organizations that become reliant on the renewal of last year’s government grant. Government dependency at any level fails to be a source of encouragement, inspiration, or even decent accountability. Government simply can’t do that. But local donors can.

With local donors, I have challenging conversations, tough questions demanding honest answers, inspiring moments as we tour through our facilities. This active attention is the result of constant engagement by a community enthusiastically involved in the cause they support and care about. In a good way, it keeps me and my staff on the hustle. I consider it a type of Hawthorne Effect – the idea that performance is improved when workers know someone really cares about what they’re doing. That someone cannot be the institution of government. Rather, government dependency for the nonprofit stifles this type of healthy interaction and accountability. It’s sure to hurt your hustle if not kill it, entirely.

It Cramps Your Style

You have your own style that flows from the vision you have for your organization. That vision and the important cause it addresses are what you share with passion to a community that supports you. If you’re the leader, it’s your vision and you drive it. You work hard to develop the strategic plans to fulfill it. You teach the core values that drive an organizational culture to support it. You believe in your mission and more than anyone else, you steer it. The trajectory or course is determined by your unwavering commitment and focus on your vision – the destination of your hope. And, how your mission gets there is up to you and your team. This methodology, a blend of your passion and conviction to address the unique needs in your specific community is your style.

I once shared some of this with the leader of a government-funded community action agency. She looked perplexed. “That’s just not how we operate. The federal government drives our programs depending on what they decide to fund.” I was as shocked as she was. At that point in my life, I was unfamiliar with any organization whose mission drifts so easily to achieve someone else’s desire.

You might think that a small government grant won’t do much to cramp your style, but one Salvation Army leader in another city once told me, “Don’t ever take government money! I took a grant to build a larger cafeteria. Afterward, the ACLU sued us for praying in it!” Even what seems to be “no strings attached” may end up cramping your style.

Remember, the cost of government funding that crowds out, hurts, and cramps is worth counting carefully. I encourage you instead, call your community into partnership, keep your hustle, and never drift off course from the vision God has planted in your heart.

Imagine that you spend months crafting a relational, empowering program at your ministry. You carefully craft a series of questions for clients designed to find their talents and abilities. The person responsible for asking the questions changes out several times and one day you decide to sit in on the process. What was designed as an exercise in personal connection has become quite the opposite – an adversarial bureaucratic process that demeans your client. Changes of this magnitude in our processes happen over time and more often than we know. Beyond designing and implementing your programs well, you must maintain their effectiveness over time.

In Psalm 139:14, the psalmist proclaims, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made!” Certainly, we are. Most of the really amazing stuff happens at the cellular or even molecular level. Just consider that there are specialized proteins with a specific function to check out strands of DNA throughout the cells of your body looking for a mistake. If they find an error, they correct it. That’s good news! If they weren’t there to check the accuracy of cell production and function, then over time your production and function would go awry as one genetically faulty cell after another would replicate itself. 

Although our nonprofits are not nearly as complex as the human body, they’re certainly at risk of going awry. To safeguard our organizations, we must implement ways to accomplish the same function as those specialized proteins, checking on the accuracy of what’s being produced. How do we ensure our operational processes aren’t drifting off-course from their original intent and design?

An “operational audit” is one way. This is a systematic review of effectiveness, efficiency and economy of operation in an organization. These are usually performed on an infrequent basis and require an external auditor who is a specialist. If you’re already doing this, don’t stop. If you’re not and it seems a bit overwhelming, let me recommend a simple way to get started on that important task of accuracy-checking your operational processes. Rather than an audit, we’ll call this simpler approach an operational review.

Identify IMPORTANT processes

At the nonprofit I direct, I’m not reviewing the process by which our trash gets emptied. I don’t plan on it, either. In part, that’s because it’s simply not a very important process in our mission. However, communication is—it’s vital so for us—so, a review of our phone calls is very important. The first step is to determine which processes are most important for your organization. As an exercise, you might write down the first few that come to mind. To help with this, ask, “What would be the last few programs of our operation that we would shut down if we had to?” Jot those down and then list a few of the processes required for each of those operations to occur. Lastly, rate each of the processes on a scale of importance, 0-10, with 10 being the most important. Again, importance is a measure of necessity.

Identify UNSTABLE processes

Some processes might be at less risk of error or “drift” than others. Instability is a measure of the likelihood processes will vary between episodes or between different people. For example, we have a breathalyzer process during check-in at our emergency shelter. It’s important. However, it’s very stable. In other words, it’s not a complicated process and, because it only has two simple steps, it’s at much less risk of variation or error than the process that comes after that – resident data entry. Because there’s a lot of data to capture and enter during that phase of the check-in process, it’s less stable than the breathalyzer process. Looking at your list, rate the same items on a scale of instability, 0-10, 10 being the most unstable or at most risk of error.

Graph your processes on a basic XY graph

In the example, you can see that those processes in the top right of your graph are those most likely to require a review. They are the most important but also the most error-prone.

Spreadsheet apps, like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets, can be used to create the charts and graphs.  Or, quickly and easily make your own graph from handwritten important and unstable processes by using this link. 

Choose a sample of instances for review

I’m glad we have checks happening on every DNA strand of every cell. I’m also glad that level of review or auditing is unnecessary in the nonprofit world. However, it is important that the review of a particular event be randomly selected. As an example, our weekly shelter review process requires drawing the folder of a resident whose bed number matches the date.  It’s also important that the reviewer be unbiased. A randomly selected, unbiased review of a process will yield the most useful and accurate information.

Build a rating system for your results

When you design your review for a specific process, ask questions in a form that “no” is a negative response and “yes” is positive. You might refer to the example. I recommend staying away from short answer responses. It will be better to do simple scoring where a “no”  represents a missed point. In other words, one “no” and nine “yeses” is a score of 9/10 or 90%.

Setting up a review process for your nonprofit can benefit you in a few ways. First, you’ll be more confident that your organization is actually doing what you think it’s doing. Second, you’ll identify areas that need attention. Ensuring the integrity of your ship requires you know the condition of the sails no less than the hull. Lastly, it improves performance and morale. If your team knows the work is important enough to be reviewed, it will encourage them and boost performance. Make sure you “catch people doing the right thing” and make a point to celebrate the quiet people who do critical work in the background. Happy reviewing!

Feeding the hungry is one of the oldest forms of charity and seems like it should be simple. However, as many know from years of practice, even when food is collected, stored, and distributed efficiently, it still may not reduce dependency or change lives.

The good news is that there are innovative approaches to solve the issues created by the standard hand-out model. Check out the eight food security models below and see which you’re familiar with and which surprise you.

Organization-Based Approaches

These approaches require active management and staffing by an organization, such as a church or non-profit. These approaches are required when a portion of the target population served is not rooted in a community, such as migrant workers or the homeless.

Controlled Giveaway Models: Whenever something is free, you can be sure that there will be a lot of demand for it. To solve this excess demand for food, the default model is restricting your clients by some attribute, most often income. Many food distribution centers also limit the amount of times their services can be used in each month or year or network digitally with other non-profits using a tool like Charity Tracker to ensure that clients are not using services excessively. The downside of the controlled giveaway model is that it tends to emphasize your client’s problems rather than their assets and abilities.    It also requires walking a fine line between the extremes of making food available with no questions and fostering long-term dependence or “laying down the law” to prevent abuse and creating an adversarial relationship with those you are trying to help.

Learn more about function-focused analysis versus dysfunction-focused analysis in the 7 Marks of Effective Charity: Categorization course on True Charity University.

Controlled Giveaway with Relationships: This modification of controlled giveaways improves the results, fostering engagement with clients by volunteers and staff on a personal level. This could look like a standard meeting with a caseworker or volunteer to discuss broader needs and track a client’s situation over time. If the meals are served on-site, volunteers and staff might eat with client and intentionally engage them in conversation. The personal connections have the potential to identify and resolve deeper needs

Exchange or “Earn-it” Models: These models ask the clients to contribute something in exchange for what they receive. It also naturally reduces the number of people interested to only those with true need, and it means you can eliminate bureaucratic check-in processes while still knowing that you are helping the right people in the right way. Your staff and volunteers do not need to have adversarial relationships with clients. If clients earn food, they receive it, and there is no reason to begrudge them the fruits of their labor.

Clients can be challenged to participate in the delivery process by sorting donations, cleaning up, or serving food. They can work in a social enterprise that generates revenue for charity, like a thrift shop or upcycling shop, or something that adds value to the community, such as a community clean-up. Alternatively, you can ask clients to participate in something that directly benefits them, like setting (and achieving) personal goals or attending classes, preferably those that require them to complete a growth task, such as a budget or a resume, rather than merely attend.

Organized Gleaning: Farmers routinely leave 10% or more of usable crops in the fields for technical and market reasons. Farmers will often allow volunteers to harvest those remaining crops for a charitable purpose, like donating to a food pantry. Because the decision is up to the farmer, there is no reason why you could not convince a farmer to allow people from a lower socioeconomic community to pick the remaining crops for their own use or resale, most likely in an organized event, incorporating volunteers as well. This is a great way to literally implement the biblical mandate which required ancient Hebrew farmers to leave some crops in the field for the poor but required the poor to harvest them themselves, rather than having the farmer harvest all of his crops and give the poor a portion (Leviticus 19:9).

Learn More: This document helps you organize a volunteer gleaning event.

Community-Based Approaches

These models are more labor-intensive to implement but, where possible, they most directly contribute to liberating people from dependency. Many of these models can evolve to the point that they are mostly or fully sustained by their clients.

Bulk Buying Club (Food Co-op): In a bulk buying cooperative, local clients pay regular dues (as low as $5 a week) and their money is compiled to buy food at a bulk discount or from a food bank. A committee of the members run regular meetings and purchase and divide up the food. This approach encourages relationship building, provides a natural avenue for classes on nutrition and cooking, and completely avoids the antagonism of controlled giveaway models. The clients pay the dues, set the rules, build the relationships, and reap the benefits of working together.

Learn More: See this description of food co-ops for more detail and the True Charity Network will train you to create a co-op.

Community Garden: This concept is well-established among hobbyists but also has the potential to be beneficial to people in a poor community. It generates fresh food and relationships, as well as encourages exercise and spending time in green spaces outdoors – all of which are beneficial to mental and physical health. In this model, you work with people in a community to develop their own garden plots in some common piece of land, perhaps owned or leased by a non-profit. You can require either a plot fee, work to be completed in common areas, or both to make the project more sustainable. This model only feeds people when crops are in season but, when coupled with a class on canning and preserving produce, it could provide year-round benefits.

<div “>Learn More: A guide to creating a community garden

Farmer’s Market: There is good evidence that people in low-income communities are willing to buy produce from a farmer’s market – if the food comes to them. You may be able to convince farmers from your local area market to spend a day each month in a low-income community. Alternatively, if you live in a rural area, you may be able to create a farmer’s market that incorporates volunteers or church members willing to sell produce from their own gardens. You could also couple a farmer’s market with a community garden or gleaning for extra impact.

Learn More: An evidence-based report on making a farmer’s market work in a low-income neighborhood

A New Grocery Store: New evidence suggests that “lack of access” is not a primary driver of food insecurity or unhealthy eating habits. Consequently, merely convincing a grocery store to open within a poor community is unlikely to have a large impact. However, physical store models that involve securing community buy-in, along with education, can have a positive impact on food security and health. There are resources to help you create Food Co-ops, which are different from bulk buying clubs, in that they are physical stores owned by the members of the community. There are a handful of organizations that have created non-profit grocery stores in poor communities, which include an education component, but very few survive.  A more successful concept is a mobile grocery/fresh produce truck that moves its location daily.

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Interested in learning more about this empowering alternative to the traditional handout model?  Our Food Co-op Model Action Plan (MAP) provides a detailed explanation of this model along with steps on how to establish a food co-op or transition an existing food pantry to this innovative model