Great Nonprofits

We're thrilled to have the opportunity to connect and communicate through GreatNonprofits. Just days after completing our profile, we were contacted by a local business that had some resources to give away. They used our GreatNonprofits profile and reviews to determine which organization they would donate to. GreatNonprofits provides an invaluable service and has created a lively, interactive way to spread the good news being done all around us.

GreatNonprofits has established itself as an innovator in the field in a very short timeframe. The Human Services Center is fortunate to have this new vehicle to promote our work to potential volunteers, interns, and donors. The value-add of this service has already been beneficial to our work as volunteers and prospective interns have found their way to our unique agency thanks to GreatNonprofits. Perla and Vivien have been responsive to the needs of agencies in the development stage.

In theory I like the idea of Great Nonprofits. Good, more focus on quality and accountability! But in practice I question if charitable organizations need another entity to comply with. As a development director for a community health center with over 90 grants, I am struck by the amount of justifying we must do in order to get (or stay) funded for something as vital as health care for poor people. I am also struck by how much pressure our staff are under to provide high quality care to our patients. This has been the same for all of the service-oriented nonprofits that I have worked for in the past, or am doing pro-bono work for now, regardless of whether they were well-established with large operating budgets, or small startups. What is the mission of Great Nonprofits? the best I could glean from the website is that they want to set up a website like Yelp for nonprofits...'You already know that reviews by other people who have gone to a restaurant or tried out a doctor are the best way to find out about the quality of those services..' The first question I ask is how many people who are targeted by people who access, let's just say safety-net services, have the time or resources to bother to register to this website and then write a review for a nonprofit? Most are too busy trying to get health insurance or pay the rent. I looked at some of the reviews and the only one I found that was negative was from someone who appeared to be trying to get a job and was disgruntled that the nonprofit only seemed to hire from within. So the website implies that this is a community service...For who's community? The second question is actually for anyone who has dedicated their life to working in the nonprofit sector. Not as an academic or for a foundation -- who seem to be the people that are controlling the public discourse about what we should "do" with the nonprofit sector (Stanford Social Innovation Review is a good example). If you've never actually had a personal connection with a grant/donation funded nonprofit program budget--i.e. it feeds you or sustains the program you care about-- than I don't think your opinion counts for much. Getting back to the question...Do YOU think it's appropriate for another nonprofit, and the people who frequent its website (who may or may not be your patients/clients), to represent the programs that you work to sustain with little stars on their web page, when it is most likely that donors--not patients/clients-- will be judging your program by the little stars? Based on the cast of characters that make up the board and management of Great Nonprofits I am wondering if the organization's core concept was not just a half-baked idea cooked up in some well-funded, good-meaning "community forum" with token nonprofits in attendance. Nonprofits that were actually only there to meet foundation people so they could fund their nonprofit programs that are expected to cover their overhead at no more than 15%...And are very amenable to the bright ideas of the people who give them money. Looking at the Board and staff bios, *very impressive*, with the exception of Bill Jackson and Tom Reis, none of them make any mention of actually working for a nonprofit. They are all either donors or academics. So does internet-based rating of nonprofits hold any value? I guess we'll find out, looking at the kind of backing the organization attests to have on its website. I'm a little concerned that it could just end up creating more barriers for people like me to help nonprofits succeed by creating another bogus way for funders to screen who they give money to. If the method by which Great Nonprofits appears to be attempting to transform accountability and improve quality for nonprofits is suspect, and I would contest that nonprofits ARE NOT LIKE RESTAURANTS (which is a whole other rant), why do it? I don't get it. By the way, I appreciate that Great Nonprofits put itself out there to be rated.

Finally - a way to gain feedback from the people who interact with a nonprofit! GreatNonProfits.org solves provides solutions in so many ways -- (1) listening to those served by a nonprofit's services or products, (2) helping volunteers and staff find a great place to work, and (3) assisting donors with a truthful look at the good and the bad. Each of these is a breakthrough on its own. So glad that GNP is growing fast - this sector needs more information, more ratings and more two-way communications that are honest, direct and spur ideas for efficiency as well as effectiveness. Bravo!

I LOVE this organization. Both the idea of having independent, transparent reviews of nonprofits, and the tool itself. Great Nonprofits is well thought out and easy to use. I know from my own work in the nonprofit sector that it is really hard to get objective information on how a nonprofit or its projects are actually performing without investing in lots of research. This is one simple way of capturing that information, that leverages a trend of greater openness. It is an idea and organization whose time has come!!!