The business of funding
For nonprofits, the post-Great Recession era amounts to a brave new world of finance that is testing business acumen.
A nonprofit business used to be viewed as not requiring the ingenuity of for-profit endeavors, since there was often a government payment program or foundation grant to provide revenue and keep it afloat. But in the recent turmoil, that support is greatly diminished if not entirely gone and the sector is being forced to develop new models on the fly.
“I think nonprofits have to be creative and think more like businesses these days,” said Nicole Fenichel-Hewitt, executive director of the Children’s Media Project in Poughkeepsie. “In general we are really using our assets and talents that we have to think about ways to create new revenue that will help our program. That’s the gist of it.”
“Everything is much more competitive right now,” said Michael Berg, executive director of the wide-ranging social services agency Family of Woodstock Inc, which operates throughout Ulster County. “Everyone is going for everything they can to keep their programs alive.”
In Rockland County alone the county lists alphabetically seven pages of nonprofits, from A – the Ark of Christ – to Z: the Zoroastrian Association of Greater New York Inc.
Family, which in 2010 has a roughly $7.8 million budget and 160 employees, has been operating for some 40 years, starting as a still-operational 24 hour hotline staffed by a real person and now including a shelter for homeless families, another for recovering substance abusers, a domestic violence shelter, and shelters for troubled teens as well as various programs to build on work done in the shelters and for the community at large.
“We have taken some major hits in the county and state budgets and lost a major federal grant,” said Berg. “But so far, we have pretty much been able to do fundraising to keep programs pretty much intact.”
He cited a grant received several years ago for $200,000 that allowed Family to open the Midway transitional program for adolescents, “the square around which we built the rest of a program.” That grant was repeated annually until last year. Without that grant, Berg said, Family has turned to additional fundraising over the last two years and, owing to broad goodwill among the public, was able to raise the money from private sources to keep the program alive. But he worries about donor fatigue as well as the financial losses many would-be donors suffered in recent years, making them less able to donate.
Add Comment
Popular
-
1. Glenmere Mansion prepares for a new debut
-
2. Web site by 20-somethings should inspire peers
-
3. Nevele Resort closes suddenly, no re-opening date announced.
-
4. IBM posts record profits, fewer jobs
-
5. Warwick’s winning formula
-
6. WKZE radio, local, independent and profitable
-
7. $700m Silo Ridge Resort advances to site plan review
News by Topic
- Advertising
- Architecture
- Arts
- Aviation
- Banking
- Colleges & Universities
- Construction
- Credit Unions
- Economic Development
- Education
- Golf
- Green
- Health Care
- Hospitality
- Hospitals
- Insurance
- Law
- Leisure
- Marketing
- Nonprofits
- Real Estate
- Restaurants & Food
- Retail
- Sales
- Schools
- Small Business
- Taxes
- Tourism
- Transportation
- Travel
0 Comments