Many, many nonprofits are remarkably inefficient at solving the problems they're aimed at. They're so universally inefficient that the only explanation is that there is some sort of structural flaw inherent to them as a type of organization.
A basic survival-of-the-fittest idea applies to any and all organizations. At their core, any organization has the purpose of perpetuating its own existence- those that don't will obviously cease to exist. As such, the primary focus of any nonprofit is to raise enough money to perpetuate itself, not to attack whatever problem they say they're going to. This is where the inefficiency arises. Any nonprofit has to siphon off funds aimed at its problem for itself.
Another interesting thing to note- think about it. If any nonprofit were to actually solve their problem, they as an organization would cease to exist. Without the existence of breast cancer, the giant Susan G Komen (among others) would have nothing to raise money off of. These organizations actually have a pretty large incentive to not actually solve the inherent problem.
Of course, some might ask "So what? At least some money is going towards the problem, and there's not a better way to do it." Well, there is. I realize the references to Elon Musk and Tesla Motors are getting old on this blog, but I';; bring them up any way. Modeling off of the story of Elon Musk, I like to think of something I call Social Capitalism as a far more efficient method of tackling social problems. I wanted to cal it Philanthro-Capitalism, but that was taken.
Tesla Motors was founded off of an ideological motivation (similar to a nonprofit) to create sustainable transportation off of renewable fuels. His other company, SpaceX, was founded on the ideological goal of eventually making human life multi-planetary by establishing a foothold on Mars. Solar City was founded to promote green energy consumption.
The key to all of these, is that the business product is the solution to the social problem. They don't waste time with "awareness campaigns" or fundraisers, they actually solve the problem by creating a product that does so. In this manner they properly align their incentives- perpetuating themselves means selling their product to the public, the use of which means solving the social problem.
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