Funding Direct Services
/In philanthropy, “direct services” refers to things like food assistance, mental health counseling, public health provision or youth mentoring, efforts that address specific needs among vulnerable populations — as opposed to giving for advocacy, research or movement-building that aim to change the conditions that create those needs. Sometimes, people in the nonprofit sector use the term “direct services” more broadly, to refer to any services offered by nonprofits, like classes provided by cultural organizations, tree planting in communities, animal shelter, or educational support services. But it more commonly refers to services for people facing acute needs, things like domestic violence shelters, training for the unemployed, legal aid and the like.
Historically, giving for direct services has been the primary interest focus of most donors. Over the last several decades, however, there has been a growing awareness that philanthropy can play a particularly catalytic role in addressing root causes rather than just filling gaps and treating symptoms. A tension has developed in the wider public conversation about whether it is better to fund direct services or advocacy/organizing for transformative change. That binary has always been an artificial one, and many highly effective funders understand that direct services and advocacy are both necessary. They are often intertwined and complementary. This brief offers an overview of direct service giving and spotlights key considerations for donors.
Why Donors Support Direct Services
Every donor approaches giving based on their own unique background, interests and perspectives on what works to create the world they want to live in. For many donors, funding direct services that respond to urgent needs is a moral imperative in a world where so many people are suffering. These are some of the more commonly voiced donor perspectives on why they give for direct services:
Services respond to the dire needs people have now, not in a distant future. Direct services have a clear, tangible impact. When you support a food bank, offer refugees aid or donate to a nonprofit that provides mental healthcare to unhoused people, you know your giving is making a difference in the lives of real human beings. While these needs reflect larger systemic problems that must also be addressed, there remains an urgent imperative to provide immediate assistance.
When governments don’t provide, philanthropy can fill gaps. In an ideal world, there would be greater consensus on the role of government and philanthropy wouldn’t be the way many social services are resourced. But in this world, charitable giving plays a major role in meeting needs large and small when government funding falls short, as it so often does. As a funder, you can contribute to providing important services in areas that matter to you.
To lift up a place or community. Funding for direct services is often aimed at specific groups of vulnerable people or under-resourced communities. If you want to see greater wellbeing in the community where you grew up or in the region where you now live, funding direct service organizations may be the way to go. Donors often support direct services for demographic groups that they care about, such as LGBTQ+ people, youth, elderly or immigrants.
It can be part of a multifaceted giving strategy. Maybe you fund advocacy or movement-building efforts toward systemic change and you want to meet needs in the meantime. A funder can do both. In fact, direct services and advocacy giving are often complementary. For example, providing direct services can be part of grassroots movement-building. Community members might come to their local LGBTQ+ Center for healthcare services, and through building relationships with the nonprofit and others they meet there, may become active in community organizing. Or perhaps you fund organizations working to end homelessness, and in the meantime, you also support a nonprofit that provides shelter or services to unhoused people in your community. And because direct service providers have relationships with the communities in which they work, they can be effective advocates for community-driven solutions. There are many ways to support both direct services and advocacy for systemic change.
Key Considerations
For donors thinking about giving for direct services, and how such funding fits into their larger philanthropy strategy, here are some issues they may want to consider:
Organizational excellence matters. Providing direct services can be extraordinarily complicated, whether it is food assistance, mental health counseling or job training. Lives are at stake, and good intentions aren’t enough. The good news is that there are many direct services nonprofits that have been around a long time and have a track record of effectiveness. Take the time to perform the due diligence necessary to ensure you’re donating to reputable organizations. Charity Navigator and Guidestar are two resources that are helpful in such research.
Think about balance in your giving portfolio. Donors have long struggled with how much to give for immediate needs and how much to direct toward things like policy, advocacy and organizing to create just outcomes on a larger scale. Avoid binary thinking on this topic and remember that it’s not an either/or choice. Even if you’re mainly drawn to direct services giving, you may also want to provide support to organizations working to achieve systemic change — and vice versa. The key is to be thoughtful about your giving and intentional in your choices.
Is the service what the community really wants/needs? One important consideration is whether the service provider has a genuine connection to the people or communities it serves. The connection may have been built through years of work in the community, or the organization’s leaders are community members themselves. There are many ways to build genuine connection, but the best service providers have personal connections to the communities they serve and have built relationships of trust and accountability over time. Be wary if an organization’s leaders are disconnected from the community they serve.
Taking Action
When it comes to giving for direct services, it’s best to keep things simple. In most instances, merely giving money without attaching strings is philanthropic best practice. Here’s how to be an effective funder of direct services:
Give general operating support. General operating support is unrestricted funding that a nonprofit can spend as it sees fit for any expenses. When you find an organization you want to support, giving them unrestricted general operating support means they have the flexibility to use the funds where they are most needed at any given time. Plus, giving general operating support signals that you trust the nonprofit to spend the money wisely. It also saves the nonprofit time and administrative work, which means more time and effort can be devoted to the programs at the heart of their mission.
Give recurring monthly gifts or make a multi-year commitment. When nonprofits know they have funding they can count on in the future, they are able to make long-term plans and to take a breather from the hamster wheel of constant fundraising. If you can, become a monthly sustainer or make a multi-year commitment.
Give locally, nationally, internationally — or all of the above. Depending on the issue or community where you want to make an impact, you might choose to give for direct services in your neighborhood or in a community you care about in another part of the world — or maybe you’ll want to do both. There are direct services nonprofits literally everywhere. Spend some time thinking about where you want to make a difference and start there.
Tap into intermediaries. If you don’t already have relationships with nonprofits whose work you trust and admire, it can be hard to figure out where to give. Luckily, there are intermediary organizations that do that job for you. Community foundations and pooled/collaborative funds exist for nearly every geographic community or issue area you can think of. They are staffed by experts who have built relationships with nonprofits and have created strategic giving plans to move donations where they are most needed and can be most effective.
Think about size, scale and community connections. Feel free to ask questions of large, “brand-name” institutions — they probably have the staff and data to provide answers. Smaller, community-based organizations with fewer resources may be less able to provide the same level of attention or specialized responses, but you should be able to ask basic questions about outcomes and feel confident about their results. Look for organizations with real connections in the communities they serve. You may want to support organizations trying something new and promising, or you may just want to fund what you already know works, like food, job training, housing supports and the like. Give flexible funding to these groups to support their growth and experimentation, and give to established organizations that have proven their effectiveness.
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