I'm not an auntie, but I am an uncle to my sister's three teenagers and have a kid of my own now, so I'm really enjoying your newsletter and wish that I had seen more advice like this when those teenagers were toddlers.
You had asked for feedback on Charity Navigator from people who know things about charity rating systems. The short answer is that Charity Navigator, and other similar systems, are flawed because they only look at very narrow measurements of very few things and they don't consider the context or the needs of the specific community that any given charity works in. There's a good explanation of the issues here: https://www.philanthropy.com/article/charity-navigators-ratings-are-inherently-flawed-heres-a-simple-solution
The other thing that I need to point out is that the emphasis on low overhead in charities is at odds with what you write about "trading, sharing, collaborating, paying attention to each other, and enjoying one another’s company, which are among the most important life skills we’re going to need for the messed-up future we’re facing".
Charity overheads are mostly three things: 1) stuff that charities need to spend money on to prove that they are complying with laws or expectations (like audits, program evaluations, impact reports, and providing information to Charity Navigator and funders), 2) stuff that is absolutely necessary to help people like computers, electricity, and working toilets, and 3) people. The people who work in nonprofits and who provide programs, and who do the work of raising money to pay for those programs, and who make sure that 1 and 2 above happen are all overhead. Charities that report no or low overhead are either entirely volunteer-run (cool! but these are tiny charities that aren't usually showing up on lists like Charity Navigator) or are using accounting rules to hide overhead costs (like allocating a janitor's wages to a program or like having a separate donor pay for all overhead costs). People who depend on charities deserve services that are safe, clean, and well-run, and people who work in charities deserve to be paid reasonably for their labour.
The best way to pick a charity to donate to is to pick a cause that is important to you and give to a charity working on that cause that is local and known to you or those you trust.
Or, if you want to give directly to someone who needs help without any of the money being used for audits, or plumbing, or paying wages, then mutual aid organizations are the way to go.
Christopher, thank you so much for this wise and informative crash course! It was so generous of you to take the time.
I love your point about charity overheads. For what it's worth, the point I was clumsily trying to make is that the US Armed Forces and the Church aren't funded in the same way -- not that nonprofits should operate with low overhead costs. I'm 100% with you that charities need to be well-funded and that nonprofit employees should be compensated well for their labor... which is, as I'm sure you know, absolutely not the case in most organizations. Based on your comments, I'm now starting to realize that probably orgs like Charity Navigator are responsible for driving down salaries at nonprofits by emphasizing low overhead. Ugh. I'm so glad I asked.
I've taken down the Charity Navigator ratings and I removed the paragraph about low operational costs. Folks who see this post in their email won't get the changed version, but anyone who clicks into it from the app will. Now I'm wondering about publishing a little follow-up about this conversation next week. How would you feel if I shared your comment with Auntie Bulletin readers?
Also, I love having Uncles at the Auntie Bulletin! I didn't mention this in "Coming Attractions" because I just decided it, but I'm going to do some reshuffling of my post calendar and write next week about the intended audience for this newsletter... which absolutely includes you!
Overheads are complicated and, you’re right, rating systems like Charity Navigator—along with BBB Wise Giving Alliance and GuideStar in the US and others in other countries—have contributed to pushing charities to cut overhead spending or use accounting rules to hide overhead in other areas. Big institutional funders also contribute to this by refusing to fund (or fully fund) overhead costs, leading to something that researchers call the “Nonprofit Starvation Cycle” where charities cut overhead to the point where they can’t deal with problems or big changes so they lose revenue and have to cut programs which means cutting overhead to maintain their ratios.
On the upside, the US raters did release a letter in 2013 (here: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/wp-content/uploads/OverheadMyth_ONLINE.pdf ) agreeing that emphasizing overheads hurts charities. That letter came after they each spent 20-30 years emphasizing overhead spending in their ratings.
The two examples you used were fine! It’s just important to recognize that they can report no overhead because a different organization is paying for their overhead costs (which is a deal that a lot of charities dream about!) and not because they are more efficient or don’t need things like phones, electricity, or accountants.
Christopher, as someone else who chimed in about the pitfalls of using overhead and Charity Navigator, but much less eloquently -- thank you so much for the longer, clearer, and more articulate explanation!
Pers1stence, thank you so much for taking the time to help me and Auntie Bulletin readers understand better! Another reader, Christopher, commented with a similar concern and I responded to his comment at some length. I'll copy and paste the relevant part here:
"I love your point about charity overheads. For what it's worth, the point I was clumsily trying to make is that the US Armed Forces and the Church aren't funded in the same way -- not that nonprofits should operate with low overhead costs. I'm 100% with you that charities need to be well-funded and that nonprofit employees should be compensated well for their labor... which is, as I'm sure you know, absolutely not the case in most organizations. Based on your comments, I'm now starting to understand how orgs like Charity Navigator are responsible for driving down salaries at nonprofits by emphasizing low overhead. Ugh. I'm so glad I asked.
I've taken down the Charity Navigator ratings and I removed the paragraph about low operational costs. Folks who see this post in their email won't get the changed version, but anyone who clicks into it from the app will."
<3 Thank you for listening/thinking about this. I absolutely love that people are being thoughtful their philanthropy and trying to be good, responsible donors. it's not always an easy space to navigate as a donor (I'm also a donor!! I sympathize!!).
I love a white elephant! My family has been doing it for years. We recently added a fun variation that really ups the play and interaction - I’ll share it here in case anyone feels white elephant needs more competitive action (lol)
If your gift is being “stolen” you (the stealee”) have the option of challenging the stealer to retain your gift. In this case, the stealee can either propose a card draw between stealer and “stealee” (highest card wins) or come up with their own custom challenge usually with the rest of the family being the judge. Whoever wins gets the gift and the game goes on. This has resulted in some truly creative and hilarious dance offs; breath holding; and joke telling contests in my family!
I'm curious how many people are in your family WE exchange? My family has done this for decades with great success, but one of the limiting factors is that there are usually over 20 participants and it takes quite a long time to get through the whole exchange without adding in mini-challenges!?!
I enjoyed reading about your family's white elephant tradition, I may suggest this to my family the next time we do a gathering of more than immediate family, especially once the nieces and nephews are older than toddlers.
The best roundup of White Elephant I’ve ever seen. Everytime I’ve done it, there’s confusion about the rules, someone is left out, there’s not enough gifts, etc. This should be mandatory holiday reading!
Thanks so much for this article!! My family has been doing White Elephant amongst the adults for decades to much success. I think it started as a secret santa, but with a lot of people travelling over hill and dale in inclement weather it was difficult to know for sure who would actually be present on the day.
After so many years we have quite a few customs around the exchange which might be interesting for other readers....
1) Everyone brings one gift (again, impossible to know for sure how many people will be there, one gift is your price of admission). No extras.
2) We do NOT do joke gifts. Every gift is a real thing that *someone* would appreciate. The best gift is one that was clearly bought with only one person in mind and that person then having to bribe their spouse to be steal their perfect gift.
3) The price point is a little higher - $25. Sometimes people bring handmade items that are CLEARLY worth more and we look the other way on that :) If you can convince Aunt Linda you spent less than 25 American Dollars on supplies, you're golden. If you found a great gift that cost $5, that's cool too, though the normal custom is to add chocolate to your gift until you hit the price cap.
4) Adults only. There's a whole other gift strategy for kids, but jumping from the kids gift pool to the adult gift exchange is a rite of passage and each kid moves up in their own time (or when they turn 18). Usually a family friendly Christmas movie is playing elsewhere during the exchange, but some nosy kids always stick around and try to convince their parents to steal the gifts that include candy.
5) The host decides the order of opening. Sometimes we draw numbers out of a hat, sometimes we go in reverse order of birthdays, once we went in order of the latitude at which each person was born starting at the closest to the equator.
6) Everyone tries to steal the gift my godfather brings, because he always buys a gift for himself, and chooses or steals it. Actually this isn't a rule, just a thing my cousins do to mess with our beloved patriarch.
This is a beautiful WEALTH of ideas, abigayle! I love the idea of not doing joke gifts. It really legitimizes the white elephant as a meaningful alternative to a gift-buying free-for-all. In that case, the $25 cap seems super suitable. I love this.
I loved this series on gift giving! It inspired me to write a short story for a Christmas writing contest about swapping expensive presents for cakes (with a little help from elves or course)
As Julia writes, this is “a handful of ideas for things to make and/or procure inexpensively for your loved ones for Christmas or New Year’s or Valentine’s Day or Belated Hanukkah or Birthday or Just Because.” ❤️
(This turned out so long, but was fun to write!!) My family started a new white elephant tradition a couple years ago, and it's been great. At the time, there weren't any kids in the family, so things got real quite after lunch. My sister and I pitched starting a gift exchange based on another family tradition - my dad's cousins had a decades long white elephant with silly or prank gifts (craziest was a frozen dead squirrel, followed the next year by a cake decorated to look like a dead squirrel - made by my mom!)
For our exchange, my aunt had a spin on the rules that has been very fun. You need a pack of cards, well shuffld. There are 7-10 of us, so we get assigned a number based on seating in a circle. Then my aunt turns over the cards, and you can either select from the pile or steal.
The face cards make it different.
Jack - pass your gift to person on right
Queen - pass your gift to person on left
King - keep gifts
Ace - person #1 if we have all 10 people
If we have less than 10, we ignore extra numbers
Stealing is highly encouraged. Important point, we DON'T open the gifts until we reach the end of the deck. You choose based decorations or weight or vibes! Sometimes we try to trick each other by adding weights or jingle bells to throw off any guesses.
I enjoy planning my gift and making themed wrapping. I search Etsy for silly or weird items. Last year, my gift was a casket shaped candle that revealed a metal skeleton, so I decorated a box like a grave with headstone. It's very fun and silly, competing over boxes for small gifts means no one really minds losing a gift in the end.
WHOA. This is epic. Rule clarification question: when your aunt turns over the card, does everyone do that action or just person whose turn it is? So then do some people end up with more than one present?
Frozen dead squirrel (WHO DID THAT?). Cake decorated to look like a frozen dead squirrel. Casket candle. I love your family so much.
I'm not an auntie, but I am an uncle to my sister's three teenagers and have a kid of my own now, so I'm really enjoying your newsletter and wish that I had seen more advice like this when those teenagers were toddlers.
You had asked for feedback on Charity Navigator from people who know things about charity rating systems. The short answer is that Charity Navigator, and other similar systems, are flawed because they only look at very narrow measurements of very few things and they don't consider the context or the needs of the specific community that any given charity works in. There's a good explanation of the issues here: https://www.philanthropy.com/article/charity-navigators-ratings-are-inherently-flawed-heres-a-simple-solution
The other thing that I need to point out is that the emphasis on low overhead in charities is at odds with what you write about "trading, sharing, collaborating, paying attention to each other, and enjoying one another’s company, which are among the most important life skills we’re going to need for the messed-up future we’re facing".
Charity overheads are mostly three things: 1) stuff that charities need to spend money on to prove that they are complying with laws or expectations (like audits, program evaluations, impact reports, and providing information to Charity Navigator and funders), 2) stuff that is absolutely necessary to help people like computers, electricity, and working toilets, and 3) people. The people who work in nonprofits and who provide programs, and who do the work of raising money to pay for those programs, and who make sure that 1 and 2 above happen are all overhead. Charities that report no or low overhead are either entirely volunteer-run (cool! but these are tiny charities that aren't usually showing up on lists like Charity Navigator) or are using accounting rules to hide overhead costs (like allocating a janitor's wages to a program or like having a separate donor pay for all overhead costs). People who depend on charities deserve services that are safe, clean, and well-run, and people who work in charities deserve to be paid reasonably for their labour.
The best way to pick a charity to donate to is to pick a cause that is important to you and give to a charity working on that cause that is local and known to you or those you trust.
Or, if you want to give directly to someone who needs help without any of the money being used for audits, or plumbing, or paying wages, then mutual aid organizations are the way to go.
Christopher, thank you so much for this wise and informative crash course! It was so generous of you to take the time.
I love your point about charity overheads. For what it's worth, the point I was clumsily trying to make is that the US Armed Forces and the Church aren't funded in the same way -- not that nonprofits should operate with low overhead costs. I'm 100% with you that charities need to be well-funded and that nonprofit employees should be compensated well for their labor... which is, as I'm sure you know, absolutely not the case in most organizations. Based on your comments, I'm now starting to realize that probably orgs like Charity Navigator are responsible for driving down salaries at nonprofits by emphasizing low overhead. Ugh. I'm so glad I asked.
I've taken down the Charity Navigator ratings and I removed the paragraph about low operational costs. Folks who see this post in their email won't get the changed version, but anyone who clicks into it from the app will. Now I'm wondering about publishing a little follow-up about this conversation next week. How would you feel if I shared your comment with Auntie Bulletin readers?
Also, I love having Uncles at the Auntie Bulletin! I didn't mention this in "Coming Attractions" because I just decided it, but I'm going to do some reshuffling of my post calendar and write next week about the intended audience for this newsletter... which absolutely includes you!
Thanks again for your time and thoughtfulness. :)
Hi Lisa,
Yes, you can share if you think it’s helpful.
Overheads are complicated and, you’re right, rating systems like Charity Navigator—along with BBB Wise Giving Alliance and GuideStar in the US and others in other countries—have contributed to pushing charities to cut overhead spending or use accounting rules to hide overhead in other areas. Big institutional funders also contribute to this by refusing to fund (or fully fund) overhead costs, leading to something that researchers call the “Nonprofit Starvation Cycle” where charities cut overhead to the point where they can’t deal with problems or big changes so they lose revenue and have to cut programs which means cutting overhead to maintain their ratios.
On the upside, the US raters did release a letter in 2013 (here: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/wp-content/uploads/OverheadMyth_ONLINE.pdf ) agreeing that emphasizing overheads hurts charities. That letter came after they each spent 20-30 years emphasizing overhead spending in their ratings.
The two examples you used were fine! It’s just important to recognize that they can report no overhead because a different organization is paying for their overhead costs (which is a deal that a lot of charities dream about!) and not because they are more efficient or don’t need things like phones, electricity, or accountants.
Thanks!
Christopher, as someone else who chimed in about the pitfalls of using overhead and Charity Navigator, but much less eloquently -- thank you so much for the longer, clearer, and more articulate explanation!
A minor point, but as an auntie who also happens to be a professional fundraiser -- I'd just like to add a caution about putting too much weight on "overhead ratios" in evaluating a charity's efficacy (it's one of the factors that Charity Navigator privileges in assigning their ratings). https://givingcompass.org/article/why-donors-need-to-stop-using-overhead-ratios-to-evaluate-nonprofits
Pers1stence, thank you so much for taking the time to help me and Auntie Bulletin readers understand better! Another reader, Christopher, commented with a similar concern and I responded to his comment at some length. I'll copy and paste the relevant part here:
"I love your point about charity overheads. For what it's worth, the point I was clumsily trying to make is that the US Armed Forces and the Church aren't funded in the same way -- not that nonprofits should operate with low overhead costs. I'm 100% with you that charities need to be well-funded and that nonprofit employees should be compensated well for their labor... which is, as I'm sure you know, absolutely not the case in most organizations. Based on your comments, I'm now starting to understand how orgs like Charity Navigator are responsible for driving down salaries at nonprofits by emphasizing low overhead. Ugh. I'm so glad I asked.
I've taken down the Charity Navigator ratings and I removed the paragraph about low operational costs. Folks who see this post in their email won't get the changed version, but anyone who clicks into it from the app will."
<3 Thank you for listening/thinking about this. I absolutely love that people are being thoughtful their philanthropy and trying to be good, responsible donors. it's not always an easy space to navigate as a donor (I'm also a donor!! I sympathize!!).
I love a white elephant! My family has been doing it for years. We recently added a fun variation that really ups the play and interaction - I’ll share it here in case anyone feels white elephant needs more competitive action (lol)
If your gift is being “stolen” you (the stealee”) have the option of challenging the stealer to retain your gift. In this case, the stealee can either propose a card draw between stealer and “stealee” (highest card wins) or come up with their own custom challenge usually with the rest of the family being the judge. Whoever wins gets the gift and the game goes on. This has resulted in some truly creative and hilarious dance offs; breath holding; and joke telling contests in my family!
CUSTOM CHALLENGE!!! OMG I love this idea so so much. I think this might be getting implemented at my family's white elephant this year.
I'm curious how many people are in your family WE exchange? My family has done this for decades with great success, but one of the limiting factors is that there are usually over 20 participants and it takes quite a long time to get through the whole exchange without adding in mini-challenges!?!
Yes over 20 sounds like it would get to be a lot. We usually have like 8-12.
I enjoyed reading about your family's white elephant tradition, I may suggest this to my family the next time we do a gathering of more than immediate family, especially once the nieces and nephews are older than toddlers.
Yay!
The best roundup of White Elephant I’ve ever seen. Everytime I’ve done it, there’s confusion about the rules, someone is left out, there’s not enough gifts, etc. This should be mandatory holiday reading!
Yay! I'm so glad! Definitely try it again now!
And then tell me how it went!
Thanks so much for this article!! My family has been doing White Elephant amongst the adults for decades to much success. I think it started as a secret santa, but with a lot of people travelling over hill and dale in inclement weather it was difficult to know for sure who would actually be present on the day.
After so many years we have quite a few customs around the exchange which might be interesting for other readers....
1) Everyone brings one gift (again, impossible to know for sure how many people will be there, one gift is your price of admission). No extras.
2) We do NOT do joke gifts. Every gift is a real thing that *someone* would appreciate. The best gift is one that was clearly bought with only one person in mind and that person then having to bribe their spouse to be steal their perfect gift.
3) The price point is a little higher - $25. Sometimes people bring handmade items that are CLEARLY worth more and we look the other way on that :) If you can convince Aunt Linda you spent less than 25 American Dollars on supplies, you're golden. If you found a great gift that cost $5, that's cool too, though the normal custom is to add chocolate to your gift until you hit the price cap.
4) Adults only. There's a whole other gift strategy for kids, but jumping from the kids gift pool to the adult gift exchange is a rite of passage and each kid moves up in their own time (or when they turn 18). Usually a family friendly Christmas movie is playing elsewhere during the exchange, but some nosy kids always stick around and try to convince their parents to steal the gifts that include candy.
5) The host decides the order of opening. Sometimes we draw numbers out of a hat, sometimes we go in reverse order of birthdays, once we went in order of the latitude at which each person was born starting at the closest to the equator.
6) Everyone tries to steal the gift my godfather brings, because he always buys a gift for himself, and chooses or steals it. Actually this isn't a rule, just a thing my cousins do to mess with our beloved patriarch.
This is a beautiful WEALTH of ideas, abigayle! I love the idea of not doing joke gifts. It really legitimizes the white elephant as a meaningful alternative to a gift-buying free-for-all. In that case, the $25 cap seems super suitable. I love this.
I loved this series on gift giving! It inspired me to write a short story for a Christmas writing contest about swapping expensive presents for cakes (with a little help from elves or course)
Oooooh, I love that! What a wonderful idea!
ahh this was so fun to read!! Thank you Lisa for such a jam packed newsletter! 😄
One of my favorite gift guides (published last Dec.) is from Julia over at Dyke Domesticity: “An Unshoppable No Links Lesbian Gift Guide”
https://open.substack.com/pub/dykedomesticity/p/an-unshoppable-no-links-lesbian-gift?r=4x1g&utm_medium=ios
As Julia writes, this is “a handful of ideas for things to make and/or procure inexpensively for your loved ones for Christmas or New Year’s or Valentine’s Day or Belated Hanukkah or Birthday or Just Because.” ❤️
You also just helped me find a new newsletter to subscribe to! Thanks, LK!
(This turned out so long, but was fun to write!!) My family started a new white elephant tradition a couple years ago, and it's been great. At the time, there weren't any kids in the family, so things got real quite after lunch. My sister and I pitched starting a gift exchange based on another family tradition - my dad's cousins had a decades long white elephant with silly or prank gifts (craziest was a frozen dead squirrel, followed the next year by a cake decorated to look like a dead squirrel - made by my mom!)
For our exchange, my aunt had a spin on the rules that has been very fun. You need a pack of cards, well shuffld. There are 7-10 of us, so we get assigned a number based on seating in a circle. Then my aunt turns over the cards, and you can either select from the pile or steal.
The face cards make it different.
Jack - pass your gift to person on right
Queen - pass your gift to person on left
King - keep gifts
Ace - person #1 if we have all 10 people
If we have less than 10, we ignore extra numbers
Stealing is highly encouraged. Important point, we DON'T open the gifts until we reach the end of the deck. You choose based decorations or weight or vibes! Sometimes we try to trick each other by adding weights or jingle bells to throw off any guesses.
I enjoy planning my gift and making themed wrapping. I search Etsy for silly or weird items. Last year, my gift was a casket shaped candle that revealed a metal skeleton, so I decorated a box like a grave with headstone. It's very fun and silly, competing over boxes for small gifts means no one really minds losing a gift in the end.
WHOA. This is epic. Rule clarification question: when your aunt turns over the card, does everyone do that action or just person whose turn it is? So then do some people end up with more than one present?
Frozen dead squirrel (WHO DID THAT?). Cake decorated to look like a frozen dead squirrel. Casket candle. I love your family so much.