Harman is president and editor of the Catalogue for Philanthropy: Greater Washington, a resource for donors looking for non-profits in the D.C. region. The current catalogue, published last month, gives some of the region’s less-publicized non-profits their own spot in the limelight. What’s the goal of the catalogue?
The catalogue’s mission is to build a stronger and more vibrant community by connecting caring individuals with terrific community based non-profit organizations in the greater Washington region. We started in 2003 with the idea that we’d focus on smaller non-profits with budgets below $3 million, the kinds of non-profit organizations that fly below the radar.
Why focus on the little guys?
There was a universe of wonderful, smaller non-profit organizations that didn’t have a voice, didn’t have a presence, and that we could do a real service to the community by identifying the best ones and making them visible.
How many non-profits do you feature?
There are 325 great community based non-profits in every area – the environment, arts, education, human services, and international – all headquartered here in the greater Washington region, and we’ve raised over $15 million for them in the past eight years.
How do you choose which non-profits make the cut?
We get about 250 applications a year, and we’ve put together a really powerful review team. What we ask them to do is think about whether the organization is, first of all, meeting a real need, and has clear accomplishments to which it can point. And this is a big one reviewers really care about: evidence of an impact. But also, we’re interested in a great idea, a new idea, or a smart, unique approach to tough problem.
?– Ben Giles
