Three major charity information organizations have come together to lend their voice to end "the overhead myth." GuideStar, Charity Navigator, and Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance penned an open letter to the donors of America denouncing the "overhead ratio" as a valid indicator of nonprofit performance. "Overhead" is the percentage of charity's expenses that go to administrative and fundraising costs. The nonprofit sector, which all three organizations provide information to and about, has erroneously focused on overhead over the past few decades, which has starved nonprofits from investing in themselves as enterprises and created what the Stanford Social Innovation Review calls, "The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle."
