Mr. Warner, who in 1998 founded the Twilight Theater Company, a low-overhead organization dedicated to the creation of new plays, and is its co-artistic director, uses the apartment for meetings and rehearsals.
One of the biggest criticism over the Red Cross's Haiti response was how much went to overhead; the organization claimed 9% while the investigation found it to be 25%.
In general, CharityHelp International-affiliated organizations use 8% of funds collected to cover overhead (administration and credit card processing costs).
By decreasing their overhead, these organizations can offer more affordable credit.
BEWARE OF LOW OVERHEAD -- All organizations must pay for administration, office equipment and other costs.
The focus on non-profit organizations' overhead expenses as a top benchmark for performance has hindered capacity-building efforts and limited the entrance and retention of talent in the sector.
For example, by creating business units that function more like biotech companies in terms of size, autonomy and accountability, but with the infrastructure and support of a large organization, FTE overhead associated with large groups may be substantially reduced.
It stems from the fact that donors often stipulate how much of their contribution can be applied toward an organization's overhead costs.
While it is important to look at an organization's overhead to see what they spend on programs verses administrative costs, don't make this your only indicator.
It's not money wasted on fraud and abuse, it's extremely efficient with the kind of overhead any charity or organization in the world would die to achieve, and it's just an amazing program.
But even with lower overhead many freelance music organizations are now playing fewer concerts and producing less income for the musicians.
