Managing Editor
Jacksonville nonprofit executive Rena Coughlin heard a donor call the potential closing of 100,000 nonprofits nationwide a “market correction.”
She doesn’t buy it.
“In a for-profit world, the more customers, the more profits. In a recession, nonprofits have a lot more customers, but not paying customers,” she told the Civic Roundtable of Jacksonville on Friday.
“The market correction theory is not one I subscribe to,” she said.
Coughlin, president of the Nonprofit Center of Northeast Florida, spoke to an understanding audience. Almost all of the 25 attending roundtable members support or lead at least one nonprofit and many volunteer with several.
Coughlin heard the donor’s comments at an Orlando conference, citing his sentiment as one of many reasons nonprofits must work together for funding, branding and visibility.
Nonprofits provide services in many areas, including homelessness, medical care, arts and culture, animal care, environmental causes and many more.
“When our community is healthier, our economy is healthier,” she said.
Nonprofits have faced decreased donations since the recession began in December 2007 and also face funding cuts from government sources.
Coughlin said that nationally, 69 percent of nonprofits say funding has been cut, 83 percent are fiscally stressed, 40 percent have cut staff or programs or both, and only 12 percent expected to break even last year.
The national Foundation Center, a New York-based resource for nonprofits, found that almost a quarter of the foundations surveyed expect to give less this year than last year.
In Jacksonville, the Jessie Ball duPont Fund surveyed 78 nonprofit leaders in July and found that 35 percent reduced staff, 46 percent reduced or froze wages and benefits, 76 percent made strategic organizational changes, 52 percent changed their board operations and 59 percent increased their advocacy with the government.
Not all nonprofits receive government funding, but those that do probably are receiving less money.
Coughlin reports that the total city Public Service Grant funding for basic nonprofits in 2004-2005 was about $12 million and funded more than 150 programs. That has dropped to $2.4 million this year to assist two-thirds fewer programs, she said.
She advised nonprofits to advocate their needs to lawmakers. “You’re either at the table or you’re on the table,” she said.
Coughlin presented several trends that will change the way nonprofits will operate to survive. Nonprofits must understand and respond to changing demographics, technology innovations, increased network and coalition-building, increasing interest in civic engagement and volunteerism, and a blurring of boundaries between for-profits and nonprofits.
Coughlin said the Nonprofit Center helps its 200 members with issues from advocacy to training to fundraising. She told the roundtable that Nonprofit Center members can list some fundraising programs on www.wegive.org and that the group will announce another fundraising opportunity on April 27.
The center partnered with the Jacksonville Jaguars to start a program in which nonprofits can raise up to $20 for every Jaguars ticket sold. For more information, visit www.nonprofitctr.org.
356-2466