Published: January 24, 2009
“TIMES are certainly tough on Wall Street, and the automakers are suffering as well. But consider the hardships that nonprofit organizations are enduring.
Public funding and charitable donations have plummeted even as demand for nonprofits’ services — especially for things like food and housing assistance — has risen sharply.
Not far from my town, the Community FoodBank of New Jersey reports that donations were down 20 percent last year until a last-minute celebrity fund-raising pitch, while demand for services grew 30 percent. “We pulled it out last year, but we don’t know what’s going to happen this year,†said Kathleen DeChiara, the president and C.E.O.
Nonprofits have a hidden challenge as well: in contrast to executives at most midsize and large businesses, many leaders of nonprofits run very lean organizations and have sometimes risen through the ranks because of their commitment to the group’s mission rather than their managerial expertise. In effect, they are navigating an economy in crisis without much of a rulebook.
Before the economic turmoil, nonprofits were becoming more inclined to help their executives get management training. But now, many groups are holding off on such training because of financial pressures.
At Indiana University, which runs a large program in nonprofit management, registration for its next quarter is off by more than a third, said Dwight F. Burlingame, associate executive director of the Center on Philanthropy there. “We all know it’s the one thing we shouldn’t cut at this time,†he said. “But the reality is, if you have to keep a staff member and cut training, that’s what you do. Then that just sort of snowballs and causes stress on the organization.â€
The good news is that the current economy is also creating potential opportunities for nonprofits.
More than two million people lost jobs in 2008, and many talented and experienced managers have time on their hands. If they started volunteering, they could help many nonprofits navigate the next couple of years.
Some experts say volunteer work can help unemployed professionals keep their spirits up, make new contacts or even to try a new field.
“Three-quarters of people find jobs through being out there, engaged and meeting people,†said John A. Challenger, C.E.O. of Challenger Gray & Christmas, the outplacement firm. “It’s also just extremely valuable to people who are out of work to find work that has meaning when you’re sitting out there waiting. Feeling you’re giving back can help keep your spirits up, which you need.â€
Unfortunately, volunteering has long been a little like daily exercise — an excellent idea that many people don’t act on. Rates of volunteering among Americans 16 or older rose from 20.4 percent in 1989 to 28.8 percent in 2003, but slipped to 26.2 percent by 2007, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service. And many volunteers drift away: more than a third of the 61.2 million who volunteered in 2006 didn’t donate any time the next year, according to an analysis of data by the corporation.
“You don’t go volunteer because you’re feeling the pressure to keep up in the environment you’re in,†Dr. Burlingame said. “So the professionals who volunteer — they have been very few and far between.â€
Because nonprofits tend to be so lean at the top, they can be hard-pressed to devote many resources to managing volunteers and making the best use of their skills.
John Gomperts, president of Civic Ventures, a nonprofit based in San Francisco advocating meaningful second careers, described the situation at Experience Corps, a subsidiary organization he ran until recently.
“We’re not the greatest at finance, but how many tens of thousands of finance people have just lost their jobs?†he asked. “Can we find someone to help us? We thought of that much, but we have not found the time and energy to execute on it yet.
“Many organizations are leaving a great resource on the table or not deploying that resource very well. But it’s not part of the ethos of the organization to spend a lot of time on human resource management. You’re supposed to be on mission all the time.â€
IT is possible for nonprofits and volunteers to get more out of each other. Clearinghouses like Volunteer Match.org help connect nonprofits and skilled volunteers, and individual nonprofits benefit when executives take time to find volunteers’ specific talents.
Consider Dress for Success, a nonprofit based in New York that provides professional clothing to low-income women looking for jobs. Nancy Lublin, the founder, said that one volunteer with technical expertise wound up designing a Web site for the organization. Another volunteer turned out to be a marathoner, and she organized a 5K run with several clients that Ms. Lublin said helped to bolster their self-esteem.
It pays for nonprofit leaders to be able to think like human resources managers, said Ms. Lublin, who is now the chief executive of Do Something, a volunteer clearinghouse for teenagers.
“When someone comes in with a job title from a bank, a lot of nonprofits just see that person as a wallet with legs. That’s really short-sighted,†she said. “Besides, right now those wallets are empty.'”
Yoav