Duplication of services

I figured I'd be in enough disbelief when I first began perusing the results of the first round funding from the Athens Area Community Foundation. Of course, once I read the editorial praising its potential to address the 31 percent poverty rate in Athens-Clarke County my silent disbelief morphed into an audible 'What. The. Hell.'

I've been waiting to see how this allocation process would look, and, well, I must break with the opinion of the Athens Banner-Herald and conclude that it's the mess I feared it would be.

There are numerous problems with this existing model, many I've discussed in great detail before. The first one, obviously, is the fact that this new foundation is directly competing for private money with existing agencies, organizations and communities of faith who are already struggling to adequately cover their budgetary needs in this economy. Compounding that problem is that OneAthens is taking the money they raise, dividing it into rather small portions of funding, and then redistributing it to a variety of organizations thus watering down the initial gift.

These are the two central flaws with this structure. Despite countless statements that OneAthens is not competing for fundraising dollars, there is countless evidence to suggest otherwise. OneAthens was the beneficiary of funding from a local bank, and such a receipt of funds came right after the bank opted to not do its annual fundraiser benefitting multiple non-profits. Likewise, OneAthens expressed an interest in joining Georgia Shares (the program where state employees can donate a portion of their salaries to various non-profits), but backed away after other non-profits expressed a concern.

In recent months, many clients and colleagues I've worked with have told me that some of their long-time donors avoided giving them money in lieu of contributing directly to OneAthens in an attempt to streamline the process or because they felt the original beneficiary would 'get it anyway.'

Now, not only is the money being diluted by being funneled through this foundation, broken up into small - and, quite frankly, inefficient pieces of funding - but it's also being doled out to some questionable recepients.

The Girl Scouts got $2,500.

Cedar Shoals's choir is getting $2,000 to perform in New York City.

When you look at the players in the fight against poverty in this town - IHN of Athens, Athens Area Homeless Shelter, The Sparrow's Nest, Athens Area Nurses Clinci, The Healing Place, AIDS Athens, The Stable Foundation and so on and so on - these are organizations that have boots on the ground in this struggle.

And OneAthens is giving money to the Girl Scouts.

Please don't misunderstand me as I'm not meaning to disparage the programs receiving money or the work they do. However, if OneAthens is supposed to be dedicated to combatting poverty, then I think it's a fair to ask if giving $2,000 to the Cedar Shoals musical deparment is a wise allocation of funds.

And make no mistake, some of the allocations are noble ones (the $3,000 to equip a commerical kitchen for Bread For Life to provide low-income citizens an educational opportunity being a primary one), but, again, it's a piecemeal approach. Why not give $10,000 to five programs? Why not give $50,000 to one program?

Because many of these small chunks of change are merely a fraction of the monthly operating costs of most area non-profits and merely duplicating the funding work done by area churches, donors and foundations who freely dole out $500 here and $2,000 there.