Abstract:
When long-time Houston real estate developer and philanthropist Dick Rathgeber agrees to provide technical assistance to a local nonprofit community health clinic, he finds himself moved to offer broader advice than that for which he'd been asked. A move by the clinic board to lease and renovate a building as its new office strikes Rathgeber--who'd been asked only for narrow advice about accessibility design for the handicapped--as ill-advised. Despite recent financial reverses, Rathgeber retains a strong impulse toward involvement with nonprofit social service groups--but, at the same time, fears that, in the People's Community Clinic, he would, were he to become more involved, have to deal with what he considers a lackluster board and an overbearing and suspicious director.
Learning Objective:
The case frames the question of how one giving either time or money should decide whether a nonprofit organization will be a "good fit" for the giver--so that the effort will be both pleasant and, more important, effective
