I make my reference library on nonprofit governance and fundraising available for free loan to nonprofit boards and executives -- click the image above to go to my library catalog, where you can browse the many titles (look for the tags that interest you to sort through the 300+ titles; you can start with fundraising and nonprofits).
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 I'm skeptical of any bright-line rule that says that a nonprofit is no good because it spends too great a percentage of its revenue on administrative overhead. In fact, what I tend to see is the exact opposite: nonprofits that starve their administrative side in an effort to please the raters, which only sets them up for terrible problems of the gravest sort, including embezzlement, failure to find or retain good people, employment and wage claims, etc. The bottom line is that nonprofits are small businesses, and running small businesses is not easy, especially newer and smaller ones. So bright-line cutoffs are usually to be taken with a big grain of salt. Ok, that said, here are some outfits that require a charitable interpretation of the word "charity" just to be considered as one. In other words, these aren't close -- these are the stinkers that cause good nonprofits such problems, because when the public gets a whiff of these stinkers, all nonprofits get a bad name. The best thing to do with this list is check it before you write your end-of-year gift checks -- and make sure you avoid these outfits. I'll just give the top three -- download the full list of 20 below. Organization Average Annual Percent Spent Expenditures Charitable Cause Law Enforcement Education Program $2,299,994 2.7% Troy, MI Shiloh International Ministries $846,340 3.2% La Verne, CA American Medical Research Organization $783,217 4.2% Sarasota, FL (I'm pleased to note that there are no Oregon nonprofits among this "Worst 20" list, although sad to see several in Everett, Washington.) 
Salem Harvest is a gleaning project where local folks go and help farmers and orchard growers make great use of their excess or crops that would be lost because of timing or harvesting problems -- you split what you harvest with Marion-Polk Food Share, so you not only have fun in and around Salem throughout our beautiful Willamette Valley summer and fall, you also get to bring home delicious, freshly harvested food at the peak of its flavor and quality, all while sharing the bounty with less fortunate folks who depend on Food Share food boxes. Salem Harvest is a great program, and I am delighted to be able to support such a worthy cause.
Thanks to all the clients who, since last October, have been coming for help with their legal issues at John Gear Law Office, LLC, I was just able to go to the link mentioned below and donate the funds needed to buy one of the tall orchard ladders. I hope you will consider joining me in supporting such a worthwhile project. Here is the text of their latest e-newsletter for members and friends. Note that the donation link works, and it's easy, and makes you feel good. =================================================================== Thanks to the generosity of a commercial cherry grower just outside of Salem and our ongoing partnership with Farmers Ending Hunger, Salem Harvest will be kicking off the 2011 season with Farm Harvest Parties for picking cherries in July. You will receive an email soon with more information about the harvest party dates and times. In the meantime, here is some important information that you need to know for the 2011 Season. Harvest Parties: The Fastest Way to Find Out The fastest way to find out about new harvest parties is to subscribe to the Salem Harvest blog, or follow us on Facebook or Twitter. We’ll use the “New Harvest” apple icon in our blog and on Facebook to announce that a harvest party has been posted on our harvest parties sign-up page. Why are subscribing to our blog or following us on Facebook or Twitter faster than our email notification system? It’s simple: we can announce a harvest party posting on our blog, Facebook and Twitter all at once, and the information is sent instantaneously to our followers. In contrast, our automatic email software, which we use to send all our registered pickers notices about harvest party postings, is limited to 200 emails an hour as an anti-spam precaution. Since we have over 1450 registered pickers (with more registering each day), some pickers don't receive the message until hours later (and sometimes after the party has already filled up). We rotate how we send out the notifications to ensure that the same people don’t always get notices first or last, but it is always going to be faster to learn about harvest party postings on our blog, Facebook or Twitter. Of course you can always check the harvest parties page whenever you like to see if new harvest parties have been added. You can find the harvest parties page at http://salemharvest.org/harvestlist.php You can find our blog at http://www.salemharvest.org/blog and our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/salemharvest. You can also follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/salemharvest. Ladder Campaign As you may already know, many of the crops that we harvest require the use of ladders. When ladders are needed, we encourage pickers to bring their own ladders from home. The standard four-legged step ladder that most of us use at home often does the trick. However, a tripod orchard ladder is much more stable on uneven ground. Salem Harvest has five wooden orchard ladders that we bring out to harvest parties. You may have seen them or had a chance to use one if you picked at cherry, plum, pear, or apple harvests last year. They are very handy, but as they are made of wood, they are showing their age. Moving them can be cumbersome because of their weight and the potential for splinters. We would like to replace them with lightweight aluminum orchard ladders and add more to our inventory, and we are asking for your help. The more ladders we have in the orchard, the more fruit we can all pick, and the more we can donate to those in need (and take home to our own families for free). This season we will be raising funds for new orchard ladders. We have negotiated a wholesale price, and we would like to raise enough to purchase 10 to 15 aluminum orchard ladders of varying heights (6'-14') at a cost of $80 to $170 each. The goal for our ladder campaign is $1800. A donation in any amount, be it $5 or $50, would be greatly appreciated. You can donate now on our web site. Thank you for your support! Streamlined Check-in & Donation Process We have two key changes to our Harvest Party process that we think you'll like: First, this season when you sign up for a harvest party, you'll be asked to check a box agreeing to the terms of our release from liability forms before your name can be added to a harvest party roster. This means no waiting in line at a harvest party to sign those orange and blue forms! Secondly, at Farm Harvest Parties, we will not be weighing containers or total pounds picked by harvesters. We will simply weigh the donated amount once we take the entire haul to Marion-Polk Food Share. This will speed things along. Pickers will still be asked to eyeball their donation half (or more if you're feeling extra generous). But we'll dispense with the time consuming weighing of empty and full containers. We still hope to have a small scale available at many Farm Harvests for folks to check out how much they picked for the fun of it (or in the spirit of friendly competition.) This change does NOT apply to Backyard Harvests-- these are the tiny harvests with just 1-10 people harvesting at a private residence. We'll still weigh produce there because we take those donations directly to a food pantry which does not weigh our contribution. (MPFS's warehouse does weigh our donations-- using a forklift on a giant scale usually!) Happy Harvesting! -- Amy Barr, Interim Project Manager/Volunteer Coordinator Salem Harvest, www.salemharvest.org www.facebook.com/salemharvest www.twitter.com/salemharvest Lots of interesting material at the Mid-Valley Nonprofit Network's (part of the Nonprofit Association of Oregon) panel discussion on "Board Fundraising: Lessons from the Field" today. Here are a few excerpts from notes I made from the discussion by the facilitator and panelists:
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