No one disagrees with the statement that "it takes money to run programs." The challenge is that donors don’t always understand that it takes money to raise money. When donors look to give money to a nonprofit, they want their money to go directly for support of the non profit’s mission. A ratio, called the efficiency ratio, has been calculated to demonstrate to potential donors just how much of their money goes to support the nonprofit mission and how much goes to support administration and fundraising.

Most striking, the federal government’s Combined Federal Campaign, which raises a significant amount for nonprofits, requires that participating organizations certify that their combined fundraising and administrative costs constitute no more than 25 percent of the organizations’ total revenues.

Couple these issues with energetic and enthusiastic board members and volunteers who come up with creative ways to raise money, hard dollars that can support critical programs, but have to be turned down by Executive Directors due to the project’s impact on the nonprofit's efficiency ratios and staff and volunteer resources and you have a difficult situation for nonprofit Boards and Executive Directors.

The CORE Foundation was set up to address this very issue. Modeled after private sector incubator programs, the CORE Foundation helps volunteers run fundraising events for nonprofit organizations. We have private sector executives with broad organizational experience willing to evaluate the events plan and assist in a variety of areas. Lawyers, accountants and banks volunteer their services through the CORE Foundation to review event contracts, audit financials and provide free banking. The CORE Foundation has relationships with a variety of professionals, from graphic designers, to web masters and PR professionals that can also help ensure the event is a success and as a 501c3, all contributions to the event sponsored by the CORE Foundation are tax deductible. It costs the event planners two things: First, a commitment that all net proceeds from the event go to an IRS recognized 501c3 organization and second, the event planners time to organize and run the event. That’s it. Now there is someplace for Executive Directors to turn when they are presented with good ideas to raise money, without fear of impact on their efficiency ratios and without fear of increasing demands on staff and volunteer time. At the conclusion of the event, the event planner and the CORE Foundation present a check to the nonprofit which represents a contribution with no associated administrative or fundraising costs associated to the nonprofit. The nonprofit wins, the community wins, the event planner has made a difference, future donations are not negatively impacted and most of all, the people supported by the nonprofit get more resources to improve their quality of life.

For more information call us at (703) 636-9444 or e-mail us at dbushee@corecc.com.