Tina Cincotti just commented on an Agitator post, No More Nonprofits, from back in November.

Her points are well made on an important subject — should more energy and resources in the nonprofit/charity sector be devoted to fighting and fixing systemic failures in our political, economic, and social systems … as opposed to providing urgent needed relief at the ‘bottom of the cliff’?

It’s a discussion I think needs more air time … so I didn’t want Tina’s thoughts lost in the archives. Here are Tina’s comments in full.

“Clearly, I’m woefully behind in my reading but I’ve been banking all the Agitators post and am now finally catching up. I hope you’ll indulge another comment on this one…

The part of this discussion that I find most compelling is the call to ‘zero in on the systemic, structural failures that are creating many of our social problems in the first place.’

I couldn’t agree more. And many of the nonprofits I work with are trying to do just that — remedy systematic failures.

Here’s the rub…the focus on root causes is more complex, harder to “sell” and therefore harder to raise money for. And I’m not talking about the big players like Habitat for Humanity. The work they do is critical — absolutely critical. But I’m talking about real root cause work…the kind of transformative social change that starts locally.

True systematic failures are being tackled by local grassroots organizations working to change the status quo and build political power from the ground up. They are training new leaders and organizing communities who have been cut off from participating in the systems that control their lives. They are working to shift the whole power dynamic in which we live, work and play; in our neighborhoods, in our states, nationally, and globally.

These organizations desperately need outside help to frame their complex and often intangible long-view work in a way that makes it compelling to potential supporters outside of the small core of insiders they know who think exactly like they do.

In my experience, the cases for support developed internally by these groups are train wrecks. Their appeal letters don’t inspire even me to make a gift. And don’t get me started on their websites.

These all-too-easily-forgotten groups, that we say we need more of, deserve more support. But they are caught in this catch-22 of not being able to afford the outside help that could get them and their development program to a higher level. They don’t have the expertise in-house to do it. And foundations, where they get the overwhelming majority of their income, don’t fund that type of expense.

I’m not implying that these organizations should all be given a free pass. Some of them do deserve to be put out of business. And there’s room for new groups to come in and do what these folks seem unable to do.

But rather than debating whether we need more nonprofits, I want a discussion about why we (myself included) haven’t even heard about some of the organizations that are incubating effective models for creating the change we want to see in the world, and what we can do to remedy that.”

Well said, Tina.

Meantime, Jeff Brooks at Future Fundraising Now just blogged this related — and dismal — observation: “…the offers that work best are super-simple, emotional, and often a bit short-sighted. Providing a meal for a hungry child will always beat creating systems that keep the child from going hungry. You can spend your whole fundraising career trying to change this fundamental quirk of the human mind — and you’ll have a miserably unsuccessful career.”

Experienced direct response fundraisers will always make comments like this. “Don’t try to educate donors, just grab their money!” And they have response data to back them up. So it makes sense from the hired gun’s perspective … he/she is rewarded for producing hard cash.

But that shouldn’t deter nonprofits from facing up to tackling the systemic failures. And there’s plenty of evidence that donors can be educated. For example, I’ll submit that the folks who sign up for monthly giving programs are not knee-jerk givers; they’re deeply committed and understand the long haul dynamics of the causes they care about.

In fact, I’d suggest that if you want to evaluate a potential hired gun (individual consultant or fundraising firm), find out what they’ve accomplished with monthly giving programs. Anybody can produce a portfolio of ‘instant winners’!

Tom