Giving Compass' Take:

• Nell Edgington argues that COVID-19 is breaking down the system of funding for nonprofits and creating an opportunity to replace it with a better system. 

• What role can you play in improving the funding system for nonprofits? 

• Find out how you can help nonprofits during COVID-19. 

There is much discussion lately about the financial doom that this pandemic is unleashing on nonprofits. Cancelled galas, shrinking corporate donations, fearful foundation donors, disappearing government coffers. It seems that the entire way nonprofits are funded might be crumbling before our eyes.

It’s about time!

That’s because how money flows to the nonprofit sector is horribly broken. Essentially the nonprofit sector has been taught for decades to beg with a tin cup and be eternally grateful for the scraps left over from an extractive financial system.

Nonprofit leaders and organizations that are legitimately working to create a healthier, more connected, equitable world should not have to operate under such an antiquated, disempowering system.

So do we want to direct our future attention and energy to shoring up this dysfunctional system? Or should we instead focus on creating a new, more effective system aimed at actually creating sustainable social change?

This would be a social change funding ecosystem where nonprofit leaders confidently and courageously articulate the solutions they envision and exactly how much money it will take to create those solutions. Once articulated, these leaders would form fully equal partnerships with funders, receiving all the money they need to implement and scale the solutions they offer.

Read the full article about overhauling the system for funding nonprofits by Nell Edgington at Social Velocity.