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With teamwork much can be accomplished in charitable world

 

By Marc Pollick

Published: April 07, 2008 : Page 13

 

We know in sports that teamwork and cooperation often produce superior results and contribute to winning championships. Superstars are that much more valuable when they can subjugate their own egos for the good of the team, helping to make others better by their very presence.
In the charitable world, teamwork and collaboration are rare, and for many of the same reasons as in any business: ego, competitiveness and the notion that one can do the same thing better than one’s peers. Unfortunately, the result is often duplication of efforts, inefficiencies and competition for the same dollars.

 

 

By the numbers

Here is a stunning statistic: Of the more than 1.4 million foundations and nonprofits in the U.S., about 75 percent of them have annual budgets of less than $25,000. For athlete foundations, many of which were established by charitable and well-meaning athletes, I would estimate that the percentage is about the same.

Small charities have the same basic infrastructure needs as the larger ones. Staffing, office space, furniture, phones, computers, insurance, Internet, etc., are fixed costs, and every nonprofit, regardless of its size, needs them. Those costs, however, proportionately consume a much larger percentage of the overall budget of a small nonprofit.
For athletes, and for teams, there are good reasons to start stand-alone charities. If the cause is unique and not being directly met by another entity, starting a new nonprofit may make good sense.

If an individual athlete is looking to leverage his or her celebrity, fan base and corporate relationships on behalf of a particular cause, a foundation can be a good strategic decision. But so too could leveraging one’s celebrity on behalf of an existing charity that addresses the same cause.

 

 

Teamwork in action

The NBA’s partnership with KaBoom to build playgrounds is an excellent example of galvanizing the power of a sport to help an existing charity do more, and do it better. It is teamwork in action.

Former NFL Man of the Year Warrick Dunn has a foundation that partners with Habitat for Humanity to build houses, effectively combining star power with nonprofit power to create greater efficiencies.

Individual foundations working together while pursuing a common cause is another way to achieve greater efficiencies. At The Giving Back Fund, former and current NBA players Jalen Rose and Shane Battier have charitable foundations wherein both wish to provide college scholarships to deserving students from Detroit.

Since the pool of applicants, and thus the need, is far greater than either Rose or Battier could possibly support individually, efficiencies can be achieved by using a combined pool for both. Consequently, the cooperative efforts save 50 percent of the work and allow more dollars to be directed to scholarships and fewer to administrative overhead.
Disease foundations particularly tend to not play together very well. Most health-oriented issues/diseases are represented by more than one national charity.

Despite the evidence that more could be accomplished faster if the charities worked together, it is extremely rare that coalitions or collaborations can be achieved among them. This is sometimes the case because of incompatible agendas: academic researchers motivated by getting tenure, big pharma and entrepreneurial biotech companies motivated by making money off treatments rather than discovering cures.
But for disease-related charities, isn’t the goal to go out of business as quickly as possible?

There are at least seven national Parkinson’s organizations, all competing for the same dollars from the giving public. There are even more national organizations dedicated to cancer research and treatment. This makes it confusing and arduous for donors to decipher where best to give their hard-earned dollars.

 

Common good

It seems that the egos that are sometimes in evidence in the sports world often carry over to the nonprofit world. Not nearly often enough do sports-related charities subsume their egos in favor of collaboration.

Perhaps the core values of teamwork and cooperation in pursuit of a common goal are lessons that could be successfully transferred from the playing fields to nonprofit boardrooms?

There has been many a team whose individual stars are not particularly close or friendly off the field or court who find means of accommodation and harmony on it for the overall success of the team. As all the great teams know, true teamwork or collaboration is not just between people who see eye to eye on everything.

Often, and most importantly, it is about working with teammates or colleagues whom you may not agree with but with whom you share common goals. In such circumstances, achieving the goal is more important than being “right” or being the “only.”
Sports philanthropy is no different from general philanthropy in that regard. Much more will be achieved, with far greater efficiency, if opportunities to join forces and pool resources are viewed as paramount.

The power of sports to do good is virtually unlimited if only the same principles of teamwork and collaboration can be applied successfully off the field as well as on it.
Marc Pollick (mpollick@givingback.org) is president and founder of The Giving Back Fund, a national public charity that assists professional athletes, teams, and others with philanthropy.