What's Your Risk Threshold ? $2 Billion or $200? | Nonprofit ...

We learned last week that a trader at JPMorgan Chase played a game of high-stakes poker and lost. Badly. To the tune of $2 billion ? or possibly $3 billion. And the good news is that even though that?s a staggering sum to you or me, it isn?t enough to put the firm in any jeopardy.

But I come praise bankers, not to bury them. I?m not suggesting that the nation is well served by letting every swaggering dipstick with a finance degree ?gamble with billions in other people?s money ? ?which may well be the status quo. But there?s much to be said for taking risks. Nothing says it better than a look at the opposite end of the spectrum ? the obsessively risk-averse ? as exemplified by most nonprofits.

In the past year, a nonprofit that desperately wants to increase its fundraising balked at the idea of hiring a part-time person to handle the load of a bulked-up fundraising effort. Why? Because there was no money in the budget. ?True. But it takes a very small leap of faith to imagine that a stepped-up fundraising drive could increase revenues at least enough to cover a part-time salary.

Perhaps there isn?t $400 in the budget to hire a mailhouse for mailing the quarterly newsletter. But is it so hard to imagine that the staff would do more for the organization if they weren?t sidetracked into the all-hands-on-deck emergency mailing drill?

Perhaps the budget does not include $1,000 for a professional graphic designer to handle the publication. On the other hand, is it hard to believe donors might be more generous if their first impression of the organization was not of an amateurish, seat-of-the-pants operation?

I?m not among those who believes that business has all the answers for nonprofits. On the other hand, business has some lessons that nonprofits would do well to learn, and one of them is this: taking a few careful, calculated risks is not only not a bad thing; it?s practically a requirement for success.

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