Biting the hand that feeds

I just got back from a lecture where the speaker, who works on proposals for a pretty big non-profit, said snide things about donors (specifically USAID) and for-profits in the development biz.

Now, caveat lector, I am not unbiased: inasmuch as one can be sentimental about institutions and industries, I have sentimental attachments to USAID and the for-profit world*.

But I'm going to go ahead and doubt on both the accuracy and the pragmatism of her attitude. I think USAID and for-profit staff are probably exactly like non-profit staff: a mix of clever and dumb, well-intentioned and indifferent, energetic and lazy, problem-solvers and whiners, etc. And even if everyone at USAID just wants to prevent non-profits from getting their hands on all the lovely money by using inconvenient contracting mechanisms, and everyone working at for-profits is incompetent and venal, and everyone at for-profits is brilliant and motivated only by the purity of their brotherly love - well, it doesn't seem useful to me to vilify the people giving you the money and/or the people who might be helping you do the work.

* This has not stopped me from whining about either when I want to.