Another "Only Inside The Beltway" Idea

If you think "inside the beltway" mentality is confined to politicians and bureaucrats, consider this tale...

It happened like it always does. 

In the 1980s all the national CFC federations would get together in Washington once a quarter to meet informally with the CFC managers at the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to trade ideas, observations, and information.  It was a collegial group.

Then, in the 1990's one of the federation representatives to the group (one of my former clients, I'm embarrassed to say) sold his peers the bad idea of "visualizing our mission" and "securing the resources" to fund that vision.

All of which quickly led to:

*     Rules for "membership" in the "committee" (now grandly named the National Combined Federal Campaign Committee, although in fact it had and has no official CFC status)

*    Mission creep (in addition to meeting with OPM the members would conduct CFC "market research," publish a web site, and produce the annual CFC film, among other things)

*    Membership creep (the committee would be open to representatives outside of the national federations)

*    And, of course, a dues assessment system to fund all this important work. 

Within a year or two it became apparent that nobody on the committee knew a thing about market research, web sites, or making films.  In any case, these things were already being accomplished by OPM and CFCs in the field.  Not being able to justify the expense, federations began leaving the committee, and it dwindled in size to just a third of the national CFC federations.  Most of the federations remaining stopped sending their senior executives to the meetings, and OPM put less importance on working with the committee.

All of which, in a rational world, would have led to the committee's unmourned demise.  But wait.  Kalman Stein of EarthShare has proposed that the CFC levy a tax on contributions that would raise about $278,000 to fund the committee.  (The present committee budget is about $70,000). 

Let me get this straight, Kal.  You want the Federal Government to deduct fees from CFC contributions and send the money to a self-appointed, non-official group representing a tiny fraction of CFC participating charities so this group can continue to produce useless programs to justify its existence.  And you are serious about this.

Only inside the beltway.

 

Comments

[Christopher Scott]

Hi,

I wanted to let you know about the Nonprofit December Giving Carnival. Deadline to submit your post is Dec. 20th.

Here is the link,
http://christopherscottblog.typepad.com/blog/2007/11/december-giving.html

Let me know if you have any questions.

Christopher S.
www.ChristopherScottblog.com