Reddit mentions of Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential (Civil Society: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives)

This is exactly right, and is documented really well in the book Uncharitable by Dan Pallotta. The problem is that percentages are not usually reported with absolute dollar amounts sent to the cause. In your example, that's an extra $10,000,000 that wouldn't otherwise be used to get guns off the streets.

And, in addition, it's super easy to game the numbers. I start a foundation to study lupus. I get $10,000,000 in donations. I donate all but $1,000,000 to some random university studying it that I found in 10 seconds of googling. I keep the $1,000,000 for myself. I have a rather sterling 90% given to the cause and only 10% for "administrative expenses".

In short, you need a much better metric than % to cause.

I'm sure some non-profit compensation packages are inappropriate, but you can't simply look at the salary and determine whether or not that's the case, as you did in your comment. And nothing is wrong with spending a large percentage of your budget fundraising as long as the end result is a bigger and better impact improving the world.

The simple truth is that there's a huge untapped pool of charitable donations that people would make if they were asked in the right way. Instead, people in the non-profit industry are cautious and shy about making an aggressive case for their own causes, for fear of looking selfish.

Of course, the real problem at the core of the non-profit industry is "how do you measure success?" In the for-profit world, cash is the bottom line, but non-profits too often gauge their success on misleading and unscientific surveys or on simple "dollars moved" stats. I heartily recommend givewell.org for the work they do encouraging donating based on good science, and the book Uncharitable if you want to read more about how the culture of non-profits is self-sabotaging.

I'm a socialist and this is right on. We have to distinguish between long term goals (a more equal society) and short term relief of suffering. I think we (the left) should be more willing to consider market solutions in the short term.

One example would be letting charities play by the same rules as companies. Yes, the people who make money in the charity business would make more money, but it would also give more help to those the charities exist to help. (http://www.amazon.com/Uncharitable-Restraints-Nonprofits-Contemporary-Perspectives/dp/1584659556/)

I think we need to drop our ideology with regard to the short term, in favor of what works. There are a couple of heterodox economists I really like, lefties to be sure, but with interesting nuanced appreciation of the good that markets can do:

• Dean Baker (http://www.cepr.net/index.php/beat-the-press/)
  
• Ha-Joon Chang (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/hajoonchang)
  They have both written really good books, too.
  
  If market policies succeed (as I believe they often can), and this leads less power for the left, so be it. But I don't think that will be the case.