GEOList Summary: General Operating Support, Part I

At the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, we believe as strongly in the critical importance of unrestricted general operating support as do most GEO members. We agree that it provides nonprofits with the flexibility to direct spending to urgent priorities facing their organizations. However, we think there are times when unrestricted general operating support may NOT be the most effective capacity-building strategy. Over the past seven years of the Haas, Jr. Fund’s leadership program, we’ve found that executive directors are often reluctant to allocate unrestricted funds to strengthening organizational leadership for a variety of reasons: - Executive directors almost always find it difficult to prioritize longer-term staff and leadership development work when confronted with short-term programmatic needs and tight budgets; - The “selfless” culture of nonprofit leadership discourages leaders from dedicating resources to their own development; - Some executive directors fear that choosing to invest general support funds in leadership development could be perceived as a sign of weakness---a sign that a leader and her/his board and staff aren’t up to the task of managing an organization and “need help.” We have seen this play out often in our work, and this is why we now believe that dedicated funding is more effective than unrestricted general operating grants when it comes to supporting leadership development. As we are considering doing some writing/presenting on this topic, we’re interested in hearing about your experiences and the perspectives. Agree? Disagree? Have you seen the same dynamic playing out in your capacity-building work? We are eager to hear what you think.