In most jurisdictions, donors and charities can agree to legally restrict donations—e.g., this money can only be used for the philosophy department unless the donor consents to removing the restriction (or in very limited cases, this is done by court order). Indeed, if my recollection of Catholic diocese bankrupcties holds, this sort of structure can provide some protection for the projects from exogenous legal shocks (in that case, child sex abuse claims against other projects) if the formalities and accounting are done correctly.
However, it seems there would be a tradeoff between anti-fungibility (which is also important for protecting project independence and minimizing centralization) and some of the flexibilities your post identifies. Suppose we created a big organization out of 20 existing micro-organizations, which became BigOrg projects. Those projects continue to obtain funding -- 75% of which is tightly locked to that project, and 25% of which is less restricted (i.e., it can be used to pay the project’s fair share of BigOrg’s legal/ops/management/etc costs). Under that model, BigOrg doesn’t seem to have much if any fungible money—unless it persuaded a funder to make additional donations for its unrestricted use.
I suspect that a number of your suggestions about management flexibility would be difficult under tight internal accounting controls. Most staff would be locked to work for specific cost centers to comply with anti-fungability/independence norms and legal requirements. You could reallocate part or all of their time to another cost center in order to use them for another project . . . but the funding has to be in place for them to bill that cost center.
In most jurisdictions, donors and charities can agree to legally restrict donations—e.g., this money can only be used for the philosophy department unless the donor consents to removing the restriction (or in very limited cases, this is done by court order). Indeed, if my recollection of Catholic diocese bankrupcties holds, this sort of structure can provide some protection for the projects from exogenous legal shocks (in that case, child sex abuse claims against other projects) if the formalities and accounting are done correctly.
However, it seems there would be a tradeoff between anti-fungibility (which is also important for protecting project independence and minimizing centralization) and some of the flexibilities your post identifies. Suppose we created a big organization out of 20 existing micro-organizations, which became BigOrg projects. Those projects continue to obtain funding -- 75% of which is tightly locked to that project, and 25% of which is less restricted (i.e., it can be used to pay the project’s fair share of BigOrg’s legal/ops/management/etc costs). Under that model, BigOrg doesn’t seem to have much if any fungible money—unless it persuaded a funder to make additional donations for its unrestricted use.
I suspect that a number of your suggestions about management flexibility would be difficult under tight internal accounting controls. Most staff would be locked to work for specific cost centers to comply with anti-fungability/independence norms and legal requirements. You could reallocate part or all of their time to another cost center in order to use them for another project . . . but the funding has to be in place for them to bill that cost center.