Nonprofits?? What do they even do?
In the holy hallways of Irvington High School, where sleep ceases to exist, lies a special class of student clubs: student-led nonprofits. These nonprofits will claim (time and time again) that they aim to fix the world‘s biggest issues: climate change, poverty, inequality, etc. They boast about their actions and what they want to do to help the community, but somehow, their proudest accomplishment is an Instagram selfie with a caption, “Together, We Make a Difference.”
As college admissions become increasingly competitive with each passing year, students think that they’ve cracked the code to make their way into admission officers’ hearts. Why be a member of a club when you can be a founder? And why be a founder of a club when you can be a founder of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit? The words “nonprofit founder“ sound so much more impressive on applications than “Key Club member #63.” But there‘s one problem: some of these nonprofits don‘t really do anything…
A Guide on how to be a “Nonprofit” organization!!
- A Very Inspiring but Highly Ambiguous Mission Statement:
(LEGIT example I found): “We seek to empower communities and create lasting change through leadership and impact.” This statement literally tells us nothing. What does it even mean?? What does this nonprofit do?? Nobody knows.
- A Website that’s Legit-Looking (But mostly just aesthetic)
Most nonprofits have websites with stock photos of happy and diverse people, long blocks of text nobody ever reads, and a “donate“ button that goes nowhere…
- Events that Never Actually Happen
The club calendar reads “fundraiser coming soon.” It‘s been reading that since the Summer.
- A Board of Officers Bigger than the Number of Active Members
There are twelve executive positions, but the positions are mostly useless. From “Executive Director of Strategic Foreign Initiatives” to “Sectratarial officer of informations ”, not even knowing the purpose of their roles…
- A Partnership with another Equally Inactive Nonprofit
“We’re excited to announce our partnership with [insert another vague nonprofit name here]!” No one really knows what this means, but it looks impressive in an Instagram caption.
- The Great Disappearance
Every December, meetings mysteriously stop. No one hears from the nonprofit again. Why? Because college applications were due in November.
To be fair, not all student nonprofits are like this. Some students do work hard, host events, and actually care about the cause they are representing. But with so many nonprofits out there, you can’t help but wonder: are we actually trying to make a difference in the world, or are we just trying to get ourselves into Stanford?
At the end of the day, if your nonprofit hasn’t even had one meeting in months, it may be time to reflect on the impact of your organization. Maybe, just maybe, you don’t need to be a “CEO & Founder“ at 17. You can stick to volunteering to make a genuine difference in people’s lives.
