Traditionally, a nonprofit organization’s effectiveness has been judged largely on its ability to minimize overhead (administrative and fundraising expenses) and maximize program investment. Most foundation and corporate donors explicitly prohibit the use of their contributions for non-program related expenses. Consequently, many organizations strive to provide services to their constituents – achieve their mission and purpose for being – with little to no investment in professional administrative services such as human resource management, accounting, information technology services, program evaluation, legal services, facilities management and marketing. Instead, program staffs attempt to perform essential management functions, in-kind and pro-bono services are utilized from any number of sources and professional services are purchased ad hoc with the lowest bids driving the selection of providers.

Likewise, capacity building has often meant helping social workers, teachers and other front line service providers learn how to be better bookkeepers, HR managers, purchasers, etc. It is our position that this ultimately only serves to distract nonprofit professionals from their core competencies and that about which they are most capable and passionate: their mission.

The current paradigm of nonprofit management results in a less efficient and effective use of philanthropic resources – both money and personnel. In turn, this diminishes the capacity to serve clients and jeopardizes the stewardship of donated revenue. Mission Center Nonprofit Services exists to fundamentally change this paradigm so that organizations can focus on what they do best – their missions – by outsourcing core administrative functions to an entity accountable to its own mission and committed to providing the sector with the highest quality, market-tested services at the lowest possible cost.