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$3T flows through U.S. nonprofits every year

charitysense.com

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Re: $3T flows through U.S. nonprofits every year

#51

Post by cthalupa »

efitz wrote: post #4

I believe that many (most?) non-profits are a combination of grift and money laundering. I would love to see requirements that 75%+ of all non-profit revenue has to pass through to the community, that non-profits may not transfer funds to other non-profits, and that directors and officers cannot be compensated and have very modest limits on expenses.

For a huge chunk of non-profits, the non-profit work is the labor of their members. Their goal is not and has never been to pass revenue through to the community - what would that even look like for a hospital? There's a million different examples here.

Directors of non-profits that have enough money for this to matter are doing this as a full time job - are we going to eliminate every competent director from working here if they can't afford to stop getting compensated for their work?

Your suggestion would cripple non-profits doing all sorts of important and beneficial work.

Re: $3T flows through U.S. nonprofits every year

#52

Post by Aurornis »

post-it wrote: post #23
Aurornis wrote: post #17

> Much of it is operational necessity. But from a donor’s perspective, only 8 cents of every dollar shows up as direct aid and grants. The rest is invisible One of my groups of friend groups has a lot of people who work at non-profits that are really dedicated to good causes. They are people who care and wanted to find jobs with purpose. The companies they work for aren’t, as far as I can tell, trying to grift or swi…

Perfectly understandable, I think. Gotta look out for number one, no sense burning out if you're not being paid enough to cover recovery.

> no sense burning out

Maybe I wasn’t clear, but even if they did put in 8 hour days they wouldn’t be close to the level of stress that we associate with burnout. This isn’t a self-protection measure so much as a lifestyle choice.

Re: $3T flows through U.S. nonprofits every year

#53

Post by cm2012 »

patmorgan23 wrote: post #47
cm2012 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what respect did you work with them? What is your main complaint? As far as I know, top GiveWell charities give malaria nets and stuff and it saves lives at fairly efficient rates.

Malaria nets are band-aids, what really needs to happen is building up institutions and infrastructure that make the nets unnecessary.

Its easier to build institutions without malaria making you sick all the time.

Re: $3T flows through U.S. nonprofits every year

#54

Post by master_crab »

yuliyp wrote: post #28

"only 8 cents of every dollar shows up as direct aid and grants" That's an extremely misleading statement. For instance, a food bank giving away food to a pantry does not count as "direct aid and grants" (at least, if they're defining that as "Grants and other assistance to domestic individuals." from the I-990" ). The salary for the warehouse worker operating the food bank is also not counted in that 92%. Other cher…

In a similar vein if anyone thinks this is an incorrect viewpoint (it’s not):

For every combat soldier in the Pacific Theater in WWII there were roughly 4.3 support soldiers. I don’t think anyone questions the fact you needed all those people for support and not direct action.

Re: $3T flows through U.S. nonprofits every year

#56

Post by drecked »

yuliyp wrote: post #28

"only 8 cents of every dollar shows up as direct aid and grants" That's an extremely misleading statement. For instance, a food bank giving away food to a pantry does not count as "direct aid and grants" (at least, if they're defining that as "Grants and other assistance to domestic individuals." from the I-990" ). The salary for the warehouse worker operating the food bank is also not counted in that 92%. Other cher…

That’s not a misleading statement for what they’re trying to say.

They wouldn’t disagree with what you say. The point they’re making is we don’t know. Maybe 92% of the remaining money is being spent usefully towards programs and 0% as overhead. Or maybe 0% usefully and 92% as overhead.

The IRS disclosure requirements are not sufficient to know. And yet we will give those donating to both organizations the same tax breaks.

The argument is to increase disclosure requirements for organizations through which so much money is passing so that we have a better idea as to how nether those tax breaks we’re giving are actually giving us any value in return.

Re: $3T flows through U.S. nonprofits every year

#57

Post by morkalork »

Recursing wrote: post #44
morkalork wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But which is more trustworthy? We need a charity watcher-watcher to tell us.

The organization I work for does something similar and positively evaluated GiveWell in November 2025 (see https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U9H34ui_hvnPOwvsvcZF3VCC... ) Personally, the more I look into GiveWell the more I think it's an amazing way to donate

>Recursing

apt username

Re: $3T flows through U.S. nonprofits every year

#58

Post by dashundchen »

topspin wrote: post #8

"It’s just that almost nobody looks." Looking will blow up too many cushy deals for too much of the Powers That Be. A great deal of it is non-show "chairmanship" jobs for the family and friends of politicians. Legal bribes. Feeding Our Future was another fine example of the shenanigans that go on in the US. Power Forward Communities was setup with $100 and captured $2 billion in EPA grants; caught while still doing o…

Can you explain what you're referring to about Power Forward Communities? As far as I can tell it's a network of established non profits like Habitat for Humanity and Rewiring America, it seems they did more than token work in things like electrification before their grant was rescinded.

The actual org itself acts as an umbrella to coordinate work among the participating non-profits.

Re: $3T flows through U.S. nonprofits every year

#59

Post by bombcar »

bilbo0s wrote: post #42
Retric wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is there is no guarantee the warehouse worker at a food bank is doing anything of value. So we can’t assume such things are productive without direct evidence.

I think the material point of HN User Yuliyp's comment is that the organization claiming to be providing us with "Charity Sense", for some reason is not providing us all of the data we need to make sense of charities. Even worse, it seems to be deliberately disingenuous in presenting the data it does give us. At least provide explanations of why certain things are included or excluded from the numbers they're present…

> Why are hospitals and universities lumped in with the food bank in the first place for instance?

Because if you don't have shareholders and like to raise money that's not from VCs, it is convenient to have the donors get a tax deduction.

Otherwise you can run a business with little to no tax without being a non-profit.

Re: $3T flows through U.S. nonprofits every year

#60

Post by bombcar »

bane wrote: post #49

There's a mistake I see in the comments here that "non-profit" = "charity". There are a large collection of non/not for-profits that are not even remotely in the charity business. Some of these companies have long legacies that stretch back to academic labs spun out of major U.S. educational institutions. I've worked for two such companies in my career (and partnered with a few others) and both of them were really ju…

Here's a list of the various types: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/exempt-organizatio...

(which can include golf courses, heh)

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