Quotes & Sayings About Nonprofits

You cannot be a modern association without a contemporary board. — Omer Soker

In many ways, the U.S. bureaucracy has moved away from the Weberian ideal of an energetic and efficient organization staffed by people chosen for their ability and technical knowledge. The system as a whole is less merit-based: rather than coming from top schools, 45 percent of recent new hires to the federal service are veterans, as mandated by Congress. And a number of surveys of the federal work force paint a depressing picture. According to the scholar Paul Light, "Federal employees appear to be more motivated by compensation than mission, ensnared in careers that cannot compete with business and nonprofits, troubled by the lack of resources to do their jobs, dissatisfied with the rewards for a job well done and the lack of consequences for a job done poorly, and unwilling to trust their own organizations. — Anonymous

You can't fight Mom's unstoppable move. It probably how Mom got to be boss of a nonprofit: Nonprofits are all about persuading people to do stuff by talking at them. It's like Will Carruthers talking you into giving him your Doritos 'one time,' except that the nonprofit is going to jump you in the locker room and whip your naked buttocks with a towel. — Jesse Andrews

The challenge here is to design a system where market incentives, including profits and recognition, drive those principles to do more for the poor. I like to call this idea creative capitalism, an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world's inequities. — Bill Gates

The spread of online information isn't just good for charities. It's also good for donors. You can go to a site like Charity Navigator, which evaluates nonprofits on their financial health as well as the amount of information they share about their work. — Bill Gates

We often have an exaggerated sense of what nonprofits and governments are doing to help the poor, but the really inspiring thing is how much the poor are doing to help themselves. — Katherine Boo

I've just always loved animals. So I've often thought that if I weren't a writer I'd work for some nonprofit organization that does something positive for animals. — Cate Marvin

There are so many local nonprofits making a positive impact every day, and yet, oftentimes we don't hear enough about them or their needs. — Sylvia Mathews Burwell

I am involved in a lot of nonprofits. And when I reached the ripe old age of 60, I wanted to provide leadership to some I had been involved in. — David Rubenstein

Perhaps the most striking feature of the [nonprofit] sector is its relative freedom from constraints and its resulting pluralism. — John W. Gardner

Evidence is mounting that faith-based service programs are often more successful than other programs in correcting social problems. [It is wrong] for government to demand that religious nonprofits gut precisely that part of their program [funded through tax dollars] that makes them so effective. — Ronald J. Sider

I wondered if I was just doing this as some kind of ego trip. Then I decided I didn't care. Not enough is made of the fact that being of service makes you feel good. I think nonprofits should guarantee that giving your time and money makes your skin better and your ass smaller. Why not? There are so many people in the world with so little. Who cares why you decide to help? — Amy Poehler

One sad consequence of this is that people don't feel permitted to try understand Internet infrastructure, so I'm really grateful to groups like Free Press and other nonprofits who are trying to make the issue urgent and comprehensible. And Andre Blum's book Tubes is great on this topic. — Astra Taylor

Only liberal organizations are clearly designated [in the press] as "nonpatisan, nonprofit." Non-liberal research organizations are always identified as "right-wing" or "conservative." — Irving Kristol

But the improvements will happen faster and last longer if we can channel market forces, including innovation that's tailored to the needs of the poorest, to complement what governments and nonprofits do. We need a system that draws in innovators and businesses in a far better way than we do today. — Bill Gates

Too often, nonprofits are viewed as rigid and bureaucratic - less nimble and capable of adapting in this fluid environment than our corporate counterparts. I don't agree. — Anna Maria Chavez

The problem most nonprofits have is that they are run by romantics who are great to hang out with, but they have no clue. — Mohnish Pabrai

Centralized sounds good ... but the reality is that the National Guard and Army don't have the kind of ties with local organizations that ultimately deliver lots of service, your nonprofits, churches, humanitarian organizations. Those types of linkages get built up over time, in local communities. — Peter May

One of my frustrations is that we in society generally have this bifurcation in how we see the world. That's probably a little less true with business audiences, but in general, there tends to be this view that for-profit companies are greedy, and nonprofits are noble. It's absolutely more complicated than that. — Nicholas Kristof

After graduating, I'd moved to the Washington D.C. area to see what I could do with the skills I'd picked up from a creative writing degree. The chief export of the nation's capital is, of course, paper work, so I reckoned I could land some kind of writing or editing position at one of the many nonprofits and associations in the area. — Jeff Deck

In today's social business marketplace Facebook is one of the best places for nonprofits to be discovered and connect with a larger audience on the basis of shared values. So to get started, a non-profit should launch a Facebook page and invite your existing real world community to connect your cause and their networks. — Simon Mainwaring

Nonprofit status is what created the Bible Belt. The tax code brought religion back to this country. — Gore Vidal

The number of great museums and nonprofits versus the number of corporate headquarters is incredibly out of whack. — Richard Stengel

Look inward for solutions to your greatest challenges. — Omer Soker

This is an emotional request to the for-profit startups I help to build, strategize, and monetize. I do it for free because I care for you and your vision. I don't take an equity or a salary despite knowing that you and your investors will make money, and loads of it, eventually. I help because I care. Please remember, to pay back. Not to me, but to the world. Preferably, donate to a non-profit which will never receive the investments that you can and you are; donate to children and youth who want to do good things, to families that need you, to social startups that sweat day in and day out to bring smiles, and to anyone who cares for PEOPLE more than PROFITS. My salary will be drawn. I will be paid back in full. Thank you! — Sharad Vivek Sagar

When nonprofits, companies and consumers work together, we believe we can make long term, positive change for the millions of people in America who struggle with hunger. — Sylvia Mathews Burwell

Energy use, transportation options, food choices, water use, purchasing choices, participating in elections, volunteering for nonprofits ... and within each of these categories, each of us can learn to live a more conscious life. — Jayni Chase

I think the power of a grandchild is it taps an instinct that people later in life also have towards ... the world of nonprofits or charities. They want to leave a better place. — David Eisenhower

I'm very interested in working with nonprofits, people in education, medicine, people who are doing things to improve the world and who don't have the money to come to Siegel+Gale for help. — Alan Siegel

Philanthropy Advantage provides the best nonprofit business consulting in Kansas city, USA. As a leading Microsoft Dynamic CRM consultant in the Kansas city, we are specialized in providing high end MS CRM solutions for Nonprofit and foundations. — Matthew Walker

Remember, no one can make you feel inferior without being related to you and repeatedly questioning why you're in nonprofit. — Eleanor Roosevelt

Don't let people tell you to do it this way. You are on the verge of figuring out hybrid models
with companies and nonprofits, markets, government, crowd-sourced philanthropy. The capitalist system as we know it is not working. — Jacqueline Novogratz

Managing university finances is very tricky business. We're nonprofits. We're not supposed to accumulate large surpluses. — Richard Levin

Nonprofits are the intermediaries between generosity and social change. — Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen

When I started it [non for profit], I thought, I'm not smart enough to do this. I had no experience in management, no experience in administration, no experience in nonprofit; but then this phrase came into my head: I only have to be smart enough to find people who are smarter than me; I only have to be smart enough to recognize who knows more than me. — Michael J. Fox

I honor businesses for what they do, I honor nonprofits for what they do, I honor government for what it does, and then I invite everyone to the table so that together we can come up with innovative and broad-based solutions that can serve as many people as possible. The fewer or less diverse voices you invite to the table, the smaller and narrower your solution will be and the fewer people it will serve. — Bernie Glassman

Too often we're happy to receive thanks from the nonprofits we fund, accepting gratitude instead of feedback or performance measurements. — Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen

The most abundant resources that we possess amongst the 1.5 million nonprofits in the United States are passion and knowledge, yet our most scarce resource is collaboration. — Adam Braun

I'm going to do some consulting for nonprofits and arts agencies. These are areas I'm interested in that didn't come directly out of Harvard, but certainly I started looking at things in a different manner. — Damian Woetzel

Do you know how many houses all of the nonprofits have built? No more than 5,000 in five years. Do you know how many we lost? Two hundred thousand. — Mary Landrieu

Associations must evolve if they are to survive into the future. — Omer Soker

Everybody in life is pursuing money: left, right, charity, nonprofits, everybody's pursuing money. Everybody wants a raise. Everybody wants to improve their standard of living. Everybody wants to be rich, and especially those that go to Washington. — Rush Limbaugh

People assume Wall Street is a certain culture and tech is a certain culture. But if you look at the (gender) numbers at the top of (those) industries, they don't vary very much. I think in finance, women hold 19 percent of the top jobs, and women are 21 percent of the leaders in nonprofits. — Sheryl Sandberg

The future is dependent on the decisions you make today. — Omer Soker

I feel like what I'm best at is being a musician and a performer. I want to use that to help people who are good at starting nonprofits. — Kathleen Hanna

Create and communicate absolute clarity of purpose. — Omer Soker

Lack of resources (payroll), time and competing priorities are why so many nonprofits haven't done well. It's that simple. — Seth Godin

In geometry, as in nature, the circle is the archetypal shape of wholeness and inclusion. It is an effective shape for nonprofits or community-focused efforts. — Maggie Macnab

So for a long time, I did a lot of freelance writing in addition to writing fiction and such - I was a food critic for a magazine for a bit, I did writing for nonprofits and political things, I was the editorial consultant for another magazine for a couple years, all sorts of jobs. — Tod Goldberg