Why Consulting?
“Why consulting? Why not just be a conventional advocate and build a team at a 501(c)3 non-profit organization?”
This is one of the most common questions I receive from other anti-hunger advocates, especially when they are new to the field. Here’s what I tell them.
After 10 years of working in small, medium, and large non-profit organizations — first as a SNAP Outreach Coordinator and later as a Policy Director — I needed a change. In addition to having two tiny kids at home (which makes any job with a 40+ hour per work week challenging), I had grown weary of two troublesome trends in the non-profit industry:
Burnout culture
Organizational self-preservation (aka the “non-profit industrial complex”)
To be clear, I strongly believe that 501(c)3 organizations are important actors in our nation’s public policy debates and provide essential health and human services. In the policy arena, there are truly extraordinary organizations who accomplish public policy miracles every year that no one ever knows about (and I plan to write more about these heroes soon!) but non-profits also require a lot of administrative processes to preserve their tax-exempt status and keep their doors open, which can force mission-driven organizations into unhealthy competition with each other. These forces can lead to perverse incentives, such as developing goals and strategies that please wealthy donors, board members or foundation funders, rather than being accountable to the communities they serve. Given that resources available for policy advocacy are already very limited, it never made sense to me to compete with other critical anti-hunger organizations in order to do this work. Collaboration is THE way.
I have also come to believe that whether an organization is ethical or mission-driven is not determined by their tax-paying status. Plenty of problematic organizations are tax-exempt, while many other tax-paying companies have clear moral centers and are not designed to maximize profits at all costs. In other words, being tax-exempt is not a virtuous stamp of approval. High-impact, mission-driven work can happen in any organization, regardless of if and how that organization pays taxes. Finally — and this may also seem obvious to others in the field but is worth stating for everyone else — I’m happy our consulting firm pays taxes! Taxes are good. We need taxes! And because we are not a 501(c)3, we can engage in political activism where appropriate and necessary to help end hunger.
So that’s my response to “Why consulting?” And here’s my plea — if you are a foundation funder or individual donor who supports anti-hunger non-profit organizations, please give as much as you can as unrestricted funds. Our society desperately needs a strong, well-funded anti-hunger sector that has the funding flexibility to make long-term investments in the mission, rather than chasing loosely-related grants. Let’s make it happen.