Capital Ideas: Moving From Short-Term Engagement to Long-Term Sustainability

2007, 73 pages. The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, 5 Bennett Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138, (617) 496-5675, www.ksghauser.harvard.edu

This symposium, hosted by the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations and the Nonprofit Finance Fund, supports a fundamental shift in the way funders support the nonprofit sector. Presentations and discussions focused on three framing questions: What is the problem, and how did we get here? What are we doing now to address it? What more can and should we do? The need for change was voiced in the following ways: to broaden the scope from narrowly focused program funding to funding that recognizes the financial and organizational needs of the non-profit organization as a whole, to identify the collective impact of funders financial practices on an organization, to move toward sector-wide results-based metrics that encompass both organizational and field-wide dimensions, and to lower transaction and stewardship costs by encouraging funders to adopt simplified or standardized reports, processes, and data.