Why do non-profits seem to have a pecking order? Moreover, what determines it from year to year? I'm prompted to to speculate on that during the opening ceremonies of the American Cancer Society's "Relay for Life" that wound down this morning. What brings out the mayors of both La Crosse and Onalaska to give their spiels? More importantly, from a practical standpoint, what prompts local businesses (who probably field dozens, if not hundreds of such requests each year) to donate cash, goods or services to one cause and not another?
The non-profits (that I've encountered, anyway) seem to be driven by a small nucleus, with the difference in tactical success seeming to hinge on how well it can assimilate a sudden influx of support labor (and, perhaps, the mixed blessing of political attention). But on the larger, strategic level, I'm still as mystified by the dynamics of the "popularity contest" as I was back on the recess playground.
Please understand that I'm not knocking the ACS. To say that the faces of cancer are legion is not purple-inked hyperbole. In personal terms, I've lost grandparents, uncles and an aunt--on both sides of the family. It made my husband an orphan at the age 32. Effectively battling an enemy so prevalent and so hydra-headed can only be done from a national level. Ditto other multi-faceted problem-solvers such as the Red Cross.
Normally, though, the Who's Who list of top-grossing non-profits strikes me as inefficient at best. Why can't the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts and Girls Inc. and the Boys and Girls Clubs merge and capitalize on economies of scale? Why the purdah of separating the YMCA and the YWCA in this age of unisex rest-rooms? And why do social aid organizations have to come in different religious flavors? I'm not being facetious, either. Well, not too much, anyway.
Ultimately, however, all the world's misery is local, and requires local brains and creativity and face-to-face interaction to ameliorate. And I would hate to think that local efforts hinge so much on which charities host the best mixers in Georgetown, or which have the most ex-congresscritters (or their spouses) on payroll.
