Headline in the University of Chicago Chronicle: “An economic downturn impacts social services’ ability to aid poor.” Alert the media. Oh, wait, we are the media.
Interesting nugget buried under inane headline:
- ”[F]or every dollar paid in welfare cash assistance, the United States spends about $15 on social service programs delivered typically by nonprofit agencies, but often funded by the government. . . . [N]early 75 percent of nonprofit services receive some type of government funding, and . . . half of all nonprofit organizations receiving government grants are dependent on those funds for at least half their budgets.”
Query whether all those beating the drum to reduce the number of social service agencies because there are “too many nonprofits” would be willing to simply have those funds transferred directly to poor people, thereby reducing their poverty. No, we didn’t think so. So in the words of the great Toby Ziegler, “Then shut up.”
New Year’s revelry left the Nonprofiteer loaded for bear.
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Kelly Kleiman, who blogs as The Nonprofiteer, is a lawyer and freelance journalist whose reportage and essays about the arts, philanthropy and women’s issues have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and other dailies; in magazines including In These Times and Chicago Philanthropy; and on websites including Aislesay.com and Artscope.net.
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Read more stories by Kelly Kleinman.