I’ll Gladly Pay You Tuesday for Help With My Heating Bill Today
The avalanche of bad economic news that has buried Americans in recent months has also been taking nonprofits along its dangerous rumble down the mountain. The same forces that are laying waste to your 401(k), making it tough for you to sell you house, and causing you to grimace at the gas pump and in the supermarket are pounding the third sector as well.
- State support of health and human services nonprofits in Connecticut is set to be well under the projected rise in the cost of living, reported the Hartford Business Journal.
- Increases in food prices are driving more families to nonprofits for help, and those organizations are having trouble keeping up with the demand, noted the Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Massachusetts.
- Gasoline and home energy costs are also sending more people to nonprofits for assistance in meeting basic needs, stated the North Kitsap Herald of Poulsbo, Washington; not only that, those nonprofits have to deal with the increases themselves and are finding it difficult to attract funding from donors, who are having economic troubles of their own.
There are a couple of important lessons to glean from these stories. First, it is incumbent upon nonprofits to make as strong a case as possible to their funders about the critical importance of their operating budgets. The electric bill isn’t the sexiest thing to ask a well-heeled donor for help paying, but if the lights go out, nobody wins, and if you have to shift money from your program budget just to keep the doors open, the people you serve, who need you now more than ever, will suffer. Second, strategic planning is a must, regardless of how small you are. Bad economic times happen. Just as families have money stashed in a rainy-day fund in the event of job loss or illness, nonprofits must make planning for troubled times a priority. It may be a little late in the game to get started for this tough cycle, but better now than in six months, when things could be even worse. | 501(c)
Tags: strategic planning, nonprofits and the economy
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POSTED IN: Business affairs, Fundraising, Strategy
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