I propose that volunteerism and in-kind donations are inherently superior to cash donations with regard to assisting charitable groups
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This is why organizations absolutely need BOTH volunteer/in-kind and cash donations because for some things volunteerism is more efficient and for other things cash is more efficient.
For instance, unless you can find a volunteer landlord or a landlord who will take bartered services in lieu of rent, every organization has to pay rent with cash. There's plenty of other things (photocopying costs, postage, etc) that are vital parts of outreach in order to get the volunteer labor force in the first place. Heck in the farming scenarion, there's farm implements and seed to be purchased at least up front.
Roughly speaking you are, of course, right. Profit is a form of inefficiency that artificially raises prices on behalf of the capitalist and at the expense of the worker -- of all workers, really.
More specifically, you can be wrong. Money doesn't work, precisely, the same way as human labor. I mean, I want to dig a hole, for instance, for a swimming pool. Ten thousand people showing up aren't going to really help me But ten thousand people giving a little money which allows me to rent a backhoe will get that hole dug a lot faster and more efficiently than ten thousand people traveling from wherever (think of the fuel costs, alone!) and trying to help me dig a hole (think of the bureaucracy you'd have to apply to ten thousand workers!).
Sure, more efficient yet would be community support where you could just go use a backhoe, and backhoes were made available to the community for their hole digging needs -- removing the inefficiencies of profit from all phases of the process.
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For instance, unless you can find a volunteer landlord or a landlord who will take bartered services in lieu of rent, every organization has to pay rent with cash. There's plenty of other things (photocopying costs, postage, etc) that are vital parts of outreach in order to get the volunteer labor force in the first place. Heck in the farming scenarion, there's farm implements and seed to be purchased at least up front.
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More specifically, you can be wrong. Money doesn't work, precisely, the same way as human labor. I mean, I want to dig a hole, for instance, for a swimming pool. Ten thousand people showing up aren't going to really help me But ten thousand people giving a little money which allows me to rent a backhoe will get that hole dug a lot faster and more efficiently than ten thousand people traveling from wherever (think of the fuel costs, alone!) and trying to help me dig a hole (think of the bureaucracy you'd have to apply to ten thousand workers!).
Sure, more efficient yet would be community support where you could just go use a backhoe, and backhoes were made available to the community for their hole digging needs -- removing the inefficiencies of profit from all phases of the process.
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