Gulf Coast Foundation Hosts Author To Talk About Best Giving Practices

The Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice is bringing Dan Pallotta, social entrepreneur and nonprofit innovator, to Sarasota to speak as part of its Better Together series: Freeing Charity to Change Our Community.

The author of Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential, Pallotta will discuss the most valuable questions that donors can ask to ensure that their dollars are being used in a way that enables nonprofit organizations to reach their goals.

He'll also discuss ways that tools of capitalism can be leveraged for nonprofit organizations.

"Dan Pallotta has a very unconventional way of looking at the business of nonprofits,'' says Greg Luberecki, director of marketing and communications for the Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice. "He stresses the need to look at the impact that charities have in their work."

Here's an example Pallotta uses to demonstrate his point:
Imagine two soup kitchens. Soup kitchen A tells you it spends 90 cents of every donated dollar directly on its services. Soup kitchen B, you learn, spends 70 cents. You want to help feed the hungry, so you have a pretty easy decision about which soup kitchen deserves your donation, right? Not so fast, counters Pallotta.

We are trained to give to A, but when you visit, you see that soup kitchen A is serving rancid soup in a rundown facility and soup kitchen B is serving hearty nutritious soup in a state of the art facility. Now you will want to give to soup kitchen B, but you never would have known that if the only question you are asking is "What percentage of my donation is going to the cause?"

"I think we've all been trained to look at nonprofits in a certain way and donors want to be effective with their charitable giving," says Luberecki. "Pallotta is suggesting that we take a new view of how we can really help nonprofits reach their full potential."

The Better Together series luncheon will be held on Friday, February 26, from noon to 1:30 p.m. at The Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota. Tickets are $35 and reservations must be made in advance.

Writer: Nancy Vaughn
Source: Greg Luberecki, Gulf Coast Community Foundation