Flashbacks

In the last 48 hours I have been in multiple meetings, conversations, text threads, Facebook groups that all are starting to realize one thing: we are all about to lose a lot of money. Galas and conferences are begin cancelled. Programming is getting pulled. Clients are stopping work indefinitely. Fundraising campaigns are being put on hold. Endowments are crashing with the stock market. One client I spoke to said they learned their insurance policy doesn’t cover losses from bacterial or viral infections. No one - not one person - knows what to do and how to make up for these losses, no matter how short-term they may end up being.

Marisa FalconMarch 12, 2020coronavirus, COVID-19, philanthropy, fundraising

Why I Give Local

A few years ago, as the holidays approached and me and my fellow nonprofit-based family members all got on our Giving Tuesday bandwagons, a conversation started to emerge about how we each share our money. A generational divide began to show - a bit of the old guard versus the young radicals (note: the “youngest” here is 30). The older generation gave to known, trusted institutions - the World Wildlife Fund, the ACLU, WNYC. My generation gave to grassroots organizations. And on this Giving Tuesday 2019, I encourage you to get on my level.

Marisa FalconDecember 3, 2019Giving Tuesday, philanthropy, nonprofits, end of the year giving

Why Now Is Not The Time For Strategic Planning

As some of you may know, I am trying to launch a new organization - a sort of nonprofit/consultancy hybrid to help independent abortion clinics. In trying to get off the ground I keep on running into a common refrain from both funders and fiscal sponsors: “We’re in strategic planning right now so we are not taking any new applicants.”

I understand the impulse, truly I do. I love a vision & a plan. There are a lot of competing priorities right now and everyone wants to be stewarding funds and programs as best as they possibly can. We want alignment and maximization of impact and all of it. Funders want to know where their money is going and why.

But here’s the thing: there’s no time. What there is: money in reserve.

Marisa FalconOctober 1, 2019philanthropy, strategic planning, nonprofits, foundations

Misogyny & How It Affects Nonprofit Salaries

I’ve been reading Winners Take All, the thought-provoking, occasionally maddening book by Anand Giridharadas about how the solutions to income inequality/racism/sexism/all the other -isms, have become dictated by wealthy people who earned their inordinate amount of money by building businesses that are deeply entrenched in all the systems that subvert the people that the wealthy people have now decided to help. I have a lot of thoughts about this book but for now I’m going to focus on one throwaway line about how, instead of fighting to change systems that reduce systemic oppression of people, people argue that people in the nonprofit world should be paid better to retain/attract well educated and/or experienced leaders.

Marisa FalconMay 28, 2019nonprofits, nonprofit management, philanthropy, fundraising, wealth gap, sexism, racism

Values vs Capitalism

I was at an event yesterday where a group of female entrepreneurs discussed, among other things, how to maintain radical, feminist values and goals (transparency, equality, liberation) in your business within a capitalist society. Because the truth of the matter is, the two things are inherently antithetical. Capitalism is built on patriarchal, white supremacist theory: there are winners and losers, haves and have nots. Some people are more equal than others.

Marisa FalconMay 14, 2019feminism, capitalism, black-owned banks, wealth, philanthropy, white supremacy, patriarchy

Trust, Philanthropy, and That One "Office" I Had

There’s an ongoing discussion in the nonprofit world about our relationship to for-profit businesses - specifically if nonprofits should be run more like them. Throughout different parts of my career I have fallen on different sides of this argument, but today I think we’re asking the wrong people the wrong question.

Here are things that I wish nonprofits would allow themselves to do in the way that for-profits do: put real value in branding and marketing; invest in market research; experiment; pay generously; have comfortable offices.

But of course the problem isn’t as simple as “allow themselves to do.”

Marisa FalconApril 30, 2019overhead myth, philanthropy, trust, bias

How Financial Transparency Could Revolutionize Giving

I went to a workshop about the new accounting laws for nonprofits (I’m very fun at parties). The instructor informed us that according to the new standards, organizations are now going to have to list not only their total assets but the restrictions on those funds so that at the bottom there’s a total of what is actually left for general operating.

In his discussion of this, the instructor kept saying - this is a huge deal. You’re not going to want to do it; your Board isn’t going to want to do it. It’s going to make your finances look bad. Funders are going to panic. This is huge (and this is bad).

Which is all true. But maybe it’s about time people realized just how bad it is.

Marisa FalconApril 19, 2019philanthropy, nonprofit management, financial management, foundations, fundraising, budget

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