Robert Egger - Begging for Change: The Dollars and Sense of Making Nonprofits Responsive, Efficient, and Rewarding for All

To Claudia and JuliaI fight for you
And to Joe Strummer and Joey Ramone

He who wants to tear down a house must be prepared to rebuild it.

African proverb

Smile, you son of a bitch.

Chief Brody, Jaws

D .C. Central is what most people call a soup kitchen, but I despise that term because its also a job-training program, a for-profit catering company, a cooking school, a drug-counseling program, a support group, a job bank, a food service institution, an empowerment zone, and a true model program. Its a take-no-prisoners, make-no-excuses, well-oiled hunger-fighting machine.

Never mind that the Kitchen cranks out 4,000 meals a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year by collecting and reusing the unserved food that society throws away. Forget the fact that weve designed a 12-week culinary course that trains people who are viewed as societys worst problemsthe homeless, the drug addicts, the ex-cons (in other words, people our society throws away)and turns them into part of the solution.

D.C. Central Kitchen has been a model for more than 50 community kitchens around the country. We were named one of President Bush Sr.s Thousand Points of Light. Weve been featured on Nightline, 48 Hours, and the Today show as well as in the New York Times, the London Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and many other news and print media outlets. Bill and Hillary came to the Kitchen and helped prepare meals. So have Jeff and Beau Bridges. Even Oprah likes what were doing. A few years ago she and Paul Newman, one of her partners in the effort to help good nonprofit models, gave us $100,000 to help branch out. Now were moving out into the hundreds of idle school cafeterias across Americain universities, high schools, community collegesto assist communities that are struggling to meet the increasing need to feed seniors, working families, and kids.

Im damn proud of everything the men and women at the Kitchen have accomplished over the years. But in the end, D.C. Central always is referred to as a soup kitchen, a depression-era term that evokes a million outdated stereotypes of charity. Words like soup kitchen limit the publics perception of what we in the nonprofit sector can accomplish with places like the Kitchen. It also unfairly influences their larger perception of whos hungry, homeless, and struggling to get by in America.

Why do people still use this term? Because its an image people know, the one theyre comfortable with. But it reinforces the notion that charities havent changed all that much over the last 100 years, except in size. And the most disturbing part of their attitude is that theyre right.

The nonprofit sector, a vast category that includes everything from hospitals, colleges, and museums to political groups, churches, and soup kitchens, has grown into an $800 billion industrymore than the GNP of Australia, Russia, or all Arab nations combined. It represents nearly 10 percent of our nations economy and employs 11 million people. Yet even with all the dollars invested, all the hours spent, and the studies and research by the best and brightest, we still havent been able to move beyond the dated terms and practices of 19th-century charity. Were still in a mode of soup kitchens and handouts, even though some of us in the sector work hard every day to shake that image.

In todays competitive fund-raising climate, too many nonprofits are chasing the money, not their mission. Theyre begging for money when they need to realize what they need to be doing is begging for change.

And in my fight to change the sector, Ive been told by direct mail experts, PR gurus, and hundreds of reporters and nonprofits colleagues whove covered the growth that we have two choices: We can either inform the public about the Kitchen or educate them about their stereotypes and attitude, but not both. Ive spent every day of the last 15 years at the Kitchen trying to prove them wrong.

Before I entered the nonprofit sector, I was running nightclubs in Washington, D.C., everything from punk halls to upscale jazz clubs. And you know what? I found that running a successful service nonprofit requires a lot of the same work: a modest dose of bullshit, a serious commitment to the bottom line, and a dedication to putting on a good show day in and day out. As an outsider to the sector, I ran into many lifers nonprofit veterans who were content doing what theyd always been doing instead of shaking up the system. They seemed more interested in maintaining the status quo with their jobs than searching for new ways to improve their community. I set out to show them another way, to demonstrate that you have to tear down walls, break routines, and look for more efficient ways of running service organizations.

Begging for Change will tell you my story, what Ive learned as the head of the D.C. Central Kitchen and as the recent interim head of the United Way of D.C, the second largest United Way chapter in the country. Ill mix in stories from my life running nightclubs and describe how these experiences shaped my views on the nonprofit sector. The book will look at the good, the bad, and the stupid of the nonprofit sector. It will take a critical look at how we should change the way we give and change the way we use what were given.

For too long weve been focusing on the wrong measurements, the wrong language, the wrong attitude for achieving social progress in our country. Its time to throw away terms like soup kitchen, the needy, and even nonprofit and to introduce new terms and new battle plans. Its time to ask serious questions of the organizations we donate time or money to. Whats the plan? Why should I give? How do you use our money and volunteer hours? Are you perpetuating a cycle of need and dependency, or finding ways to liberate the people you serve? What are your goals in five or 10 years? Are they realistic and on target? These are some of the questions every donor, volunteer, employee, board member, and executive director needs to be able to answer. All of us need to be inculcated with these principles so that we see that our actions are contributing to actual change in our society.

Begging for Change wont drown you in statistics to make you feel guilty, sad, or angry. It wont pander to your emotions or play the pity card. It wont be a feel-good celebration of do-gooders and victims. This is not about building cathedrals; this is about smashing stereotypes and challenging once hallowed institutions. This is about killing sacred cows. This is about people climbing down from the cross so we can use the wood.

A good nonprofit experience should be a freeing experience, like a trip to the mountaintop. Thats what this book is all about. Im going to talk to you about work, and the need to shut up, put our heads down, and get to it. Im going to talk to you about turf, the need to let it go, and the importance of realizing that what matters isnt what you own or what you have or whether you were there first, but what you do with what you have.

And Im going to tell all of this to you in a style that is brutally honest, at times infuriating or even annoying, but that always genuinely reflects my journey to find real change and real results in the nonprofit sector. Either Ive lost you already with my ranting, or I hope to have you nodding with me before Im done.

You should think of this book as two things: a guide to giving and a guide to doing. Its a weapon in your fight against stereotypes, complacency, and narrow thinking. Its a meditation on what we havent achieved in the 100 years of nonprofiteering and what we must achieveand ways to get thereboth now and in the future.