Greater Efficiency in the Charity Sector
22/07/2010 14:07:21
More than any sector in the economy the charity sector - OUR charity sector, and it is OUR sector because it is our money we are donating - has a strong obligation to strive to be better, to achieve excellence.
Why?
Well think about it, if the charity sector was able to increase its output by 10%, become 10% more effective we would be talking about 10% more children going to school in the world, 10% more children getting a meal each day, r10% more eye operations, 10% more homeless people off the streets getting their lives back together, 10% more people receiving HIV treatment and 10% more students reaching university; 10% more productive farmers with the tools and seeds they need and even perhaps 10% less deaths in the world.
MyGoodPoints.org aims to throw a cat amongst the pigeons, to let donors decide which are the better charity projects, to compare the costs of service delivery and compare the impact those charities are making and then to donate accordingly, to let their money support those charities who excel. To help get the funds to those charity projects that have the biggest positive impact in the world and not just those with the biggest marketing budgets. It will give the smaller charities the opportunity to compete with the big charities on an equal footing, to challenge the view that bigger means better.
Yes competition of sorts amongst charities! but also peer group pressure, for as the really excellent projects receive the support and attention they deserve other charities will start to take on board their market leading strategies, approaches and their more productive ways of doing business. Its not that we want some charities in the sector to do better than others, its that we want the whole sector to strive towards excellence. Its probably best summed uo by the words of Martin Luther King Jr. who once said:
'All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. '