Ask Slashdot: With Grants Drying Up, How Is a Tech Non-Profit To Survive?

helios17 writes "Non-Profits like this have traditionally gotten started from the money grants provide. Most grants award vehicles, computers, and even pay for organization rental and utility costs. The problem fledgling and even established non-profits are encountering is the dwindling number of grants allowing for Operating or General Support costs. What good is a vehicle received via grant if you can't afford to put fuel in it? With the number of Operating or General Support grants shrinking and those available funds competed for heavily, should we be looking on line for help? Can efforts like this be a better way to approach it?"

More important: Why are they drying up?

[Jane Q. Public]

Why are the grants drying up? Despite the much-hyped "austerity", in reality the government has spent more money in each of the recent years than ever before.

So where is all the damned money going???

Try the private sector.

[Anonymous Coward]

Create a product, something that people want and fills a need. Sell it at a reasonable profit. Stop stealing money from society. The gravy train is ending, don't wait for it to jump the tracks. People are wising up to these criminals taking all our hard earned cash and pocketing it.

Re:Try the private sector.

[RogueWarrior65]

Assuming that this isn't sarcasm, there's a lesson to be learned here. If you are willing to operate on a shoestring budget, you can accomplish a lot. But you also have to be willing to look at your idea and honestly assess it's value and whether or not it's time to close up shop and move on to something else.

Re:Kickstarter.

[AK Marc]

You can't raise money for a cause, but you can raise money for a project for a cause. "Donate here to my cause" is not allowed, but "donate here for my cause's project" is, right?

Re:Kickstarter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then replace Kickstarter with Indiegogo. They allow pitching for this and for nonprofits [indiegogo.com] in particular.

I just understood "kickstarter" in title as "crowdfunding", like "google it" for "search the internet" or "xerox" for "photocopier".

Re:More important: Why are they drying up?

[countach74]

What's sad is that "conservative" these days means pro military-industrial complex. There is nothing actually conservative about big government spending on military; the Republicans just want us to think otherwise.

Re:More important: Why are they drying up?

[antifoidulus]

Actually, funding for a lot of these types of grants is drying up, this kind of spending has been in the Republican bullseye for a long time, and has suffered during recent budget "crises" due to Republicans picking these kinds of grants specifically to harp on(despite the fact that they make up less than 3% of the overall budget, and probably are one of the few effective government programs...) Basically they are trying to distract people from the fact that Republicans are unwilling to make real cuts and as an added bonus, are focusing on programs that primarily benefit their "enemies" (i.e. anyone who isn't either uber-rich or an uneducated white). Class act those Republicans.

Re:More important: Why are they drying up?

[stenvar]

So where is all the damned money going???

It's going to entitlements, mostly. Increased taxes and spending are justified by progressives with phrases like "taxes buy civilization", but they choose to spend most of the new money coming in on increasing individual benefits (it buys votes, I suppose). A lot of the rest is spent on bailouts and subsidies to failing industries. Infrastructure and non-profits are stagnating or get cut.

Re:there are nations worse than China

[khallow]

They also had a good culture that did not engage in much territorial expansion, like the Europeans did.

China's history is chock full of territorial expansion. That's how it was created in the first place and how most subsequent empires became established, for example. And it has modern military adventures such as the conquest of Tibet or the overthrow of French Indochina.

The big dispute was over Chinese trade with foreigners.

For a few brief decades. China has had many other disputes over the millennia.

The big question, is who won the Cultural Revolution?

The Culturan Revolution wasn't a "dispute", but rather the stamping of ants, 1984-style, to show who was in charge. The ants lost. The ones doing the stamping won.

Don't confuse "culture" with "capability". China in the past didn't have the capability to project its power very far. It was able to win wars in Sri Lanka [wikipedia.org] for example at extraordinary cost [wikipedia.org]. Today it like every other major country has global reach. I believe it will be different and the culture will turn out to be not all that different after all.