Charitable Assessment Includes Reviews of Donor Outreach, Organizational Flexibility, Resource Management and Client Services

After I first wrote about adding Charitable Advocacy to our news coverage recently, I was a bit uncharitable in my approach. Feedback from two organization has compelled me to my manner in researching their work. Well, that won’t do, so I’m backing up and starting over. The Charitable Advocacy page has been updated. Please be sure and see the first link as well, as it offers current background on the startling effects of poverty.

Preferential Concern for the Poor and Vulnerable Guides Our Work

From the moment we started the Appalachian Chronicle, we have had one purpose – to demonstrate a preferential concern for the poor and vulnerable through writing and community engagement. We are a Social Enterprise entity, simply meaning we put public service ahead of profit. We are not a nonprofit, though we do not bring in any revenue.

My experience is that the best way to see who the poor and vulnerable populations are in a community, and how they are being served, is to seek out the nonprofits helping them. I am outcome based. In the end I am seeking to discover if clients are being served efficiently according to the stated charitable purpose of the organization.

Donor Outreach, Leadership Flexibility, Resource Management and Client Services

In the end, what we want to be able to report is how a nonprofit does at donor outreach advocacy; executive leadership and flexibility; resource management; and, client services. I could have stopped there in the first article, but instead bombarded readers (and nonprofits) with more about two dozen questions and requests for public documents.

The problem is, those documents and answers still don’t tell the whole story.

How we care for each other reveals who we are as a community. A nonprofit has to take an approach that meets their clients where they are and that responds as uniquely as every person being helped. Often a Spirit of Reciprocity is cultivated, leading to ripples of kindness.

Being outcome based doesn’t mean only that an organization has filled out the proper paperwork; how is it impacting the lives of the people it seeks to serve? That is far more difficult to measure. It means demonstrating patience and observing. As reporter is to observe and report. If I observe or encounter clients that are changed, that demonstrate hope and love for those serving them, I have a “metric” of success that can’t be quantified, but neither can it be denied!

We will consider it all; most importantly, we and nonprofits agree. The poor, the marginalized, the ragamuffins, misfits, vagabonds, the disenfranchised and the wayfarers are deserving of preferential concern and outreach. Indeed, each of us falls into at least one of those categories at one point or another in our lives.

How we care for each other reveals who we are as a community. A nonprofit has to take an approach that meets their clients where they are and that responds as uniquely as every person being helped. Often a Spirit of Reciprocity is cultivated, leading to ripples of kindness.

Yes, donors must be confident their money is making the difference they expect it to make for nonprofits to operate. So, while work and the questions we ask are not new to me, something is. Needs today are so widespread that as I cover the nonprofits in our region, I can’t limit myself to proper forms and documentation. I need to sit down to see and hear, from those giving and receiving, what they are experiencing every day.

We live in a time when those in the grassroots are having to improvise. And they are succeeding, by any number of measures. Having reported form Haiti and communities in Appalachia, where resources may or may not be available for emergencies or abject poverty, I can report that people help one another.

So, yes, the questions I asked in the original article are important and will be asked of nonprofits. They help an organization be prepared, to be efficient. Sometimes though – perhaps more often than not – someone has to deviate from the plan. Time and circumstances may simple demand it.

In the end, there is much to consider as we look at those being served by nonprofits, those doing the work, and those underwriting it. We’ll do our best to listen to all voices so that the goal of learning the best practices from one another will be accomplished.

© Michael M. Barrick, 2026; ‘Give’ Photo by Matt Baker on Unsplash; ‘Street’ Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash