> The less powerful nonprofits have no choice but to take such money.
Why can't they just say no if it's a not useful to them? How do the donors force them to take the money? I can't donate money to you and tell you to spend it on something - you'd just tell me to get lost.
This comes up regularly when a big natural catastrophe (a tsunami or such) happens somewhere in the world, the TV stations ask for donations with a "codeword" like "Tsunami relief South-Asia" andf donations pour in.
And then the Red Cross or whoever cannot use all that money sensibly. Maybe the catastrophe turned out to be a bit smaller than expected. Maybe there is need for more tents and food and water, but for some reason there is limited transport capacity available. Maybe there is an armed conflict breaking out or going on and they don't dare to go fully in.
And then... there are lots of other worthy causes. Other natural catastrophes. General anti-hunger initiatives.
But they are forced to leave the money laying around because they are not allowed to use it for another crisis. Even if most of the donors would probably shrug and say "well, too bad, but sure, go ahead and help where you can".
For this reason: always refrain from designating a specific use. If you don't trust the organization to do good, give to someone else.
But it's tough when much of the available grants of size are restricted. Sure, you could just shut down the nonprofit due to lack of funds.
But sitting in the nonprofit's shoes, when that grant is what you need to stay alive, and is related to your mission, but doesn't reflect your priorities within that mission, you're still going to take it unless you want to lay everyone off and move on. And many nonprofits are in that position.
The idea that charities take donations that damage them. They must be a net benefit, as otherwise they are free to turn them down and they would do.
People are using language like ‘damaging’ and ‘no choice’. What they really mean is the donations are useful but they could be more useful if unrestricted.
Well yeah lots of things are more useful when you don’t have any responsibilities along with them.
I think this is meaningless pedantry. It's like saying if I hold a gun to your head and tell you to dance, you always have a choice. Technically true but diluting the term choice past the point of usefulness.
More subtly, it's assuming that costs and benefits are somehow quantifiable in a single "benefit function". This is a modelling assumption that is often not true. There can be a benefit ("at least we can get some money to some people") that you can't turn down ("ethically can we turn down some money for some people like this?") while also being deeply damaging ("we are 'selling our soul' by acting as a PR arm for companies that want to improve their reputation rather than lives. This is damaging the ethical undeprinning and structural integrity of our organisation").
Summarizing this complex situation as a net benefit is naive and a bad model that will lead you to incorrect conclusions (like: "well they must get a net benefit, so it can't be that bad" rather than "we need to eliminate the structural factors that lead to such situations.")
Why can't they just say no if it's a not useful to them? How do the donors force them to take the money? I can't donate money to you and tell you to spend it on something - you'd just tell me to get lost.