"A meaningless distinction": William Schambra looks at the obsession with overhead v. program in nonprofit budgets as the metric to guide giving.
"That slapping noise you hear every holiday season is the sound of philanthropic experts briskly applying palms to foreheads as they watch the perky nightly-news broadcaster reminding viewers to be generous, but to give only to groups that spend far more on programs than on overhead. The program/overhead distinction, though denigrated for years by the most articulate and determined nonprofit professionals, simply refuses to die. Somehow, the general public doesn’t want to let go of it." -- William Schambra, Nonprofit Quarterly
