October 22, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
Hildy Gottlieb is fed up with “armchair change agents.”
She writes in response to an opinion article that argues that most nonprofit groups do not demonstrate that they produce social benefits and that donors should be more rigorous in their evaluation of charities.
On her personal blog, Ms. Gottlieb, a charity consultant, says that the push for so-called social investing is a product of the “capacity-building movement,” the “run-like-a-business movement,” and other nonprofit discussions, none of which “has created any change in the circumstances they sought to address.”
After reflecting on the grass-roots activists and charity leaders she assists, she says, “The difference between the work we are doing, and the dictates of the pundits and the ‘movements,’ is that our work is, in fact, work. We are not laying blame and dictating ‘shoulds.’ We are creating change in communities.”
She concludes: “Let the pundits and watchdogs keep talking and pointing fingers and vying for the spotlight. We’ve got real work to do.”
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