At the moment, the question on the lips of many folks in the philanthropy and nonprofit worlds seems to be: “What will the sector look like in 2010?” This has prompted more than a few Twitter round-ups, “Top 10″ lists, and blog posts – this one, I’m sure, won’t be the last. Check out our friend Lucy Bernholz’s blog for a (correctly critical) post on the new mini-trend and related links.
2010 looms, of course, with all the weight of the economic recession and the “is it over/isn’t it over” forecasting. But it’s pretty clear that even if 2010 does mark the moment we poke our heads out of the economic darkness, philanthropy and nonprofits probably won’t be out of the woods until a bit later. The reasons for that range from the loss of experienced staff to the time it’ll take for foundations to bounce back from tough asset losses in 2008. Whatever the case, most sources, like this Chronicle of Philanthropy article, tell us that 2010 will likely be a rough year for the sector.
What initially prompted this blog post was this insightful report (pdf) from the Foundation Center, titled “Foundation’s Year-End Outlook for Giving and the Sector” It’s not long – 5 pages – and well worth a look as it seems to compile most of what I’ve been hearing elsewhere on this topic in one place. Here are the highlights, interspersed with related quotes culled from the report:
*Giving is likely to continue to fall through 2010. 2009 is expected to register a fall in the range of 8% to 13%.
Among respondents to the September 2009 survey who established a grants budget at the start of the year, the vast majority (70 percent) expect to distribute roughly what they budgeted earlier this year. However, one in five funders (20 percent) expect to give less than the budgeted amount; only about 11 percent anticipate giving more.
*Recession may force nonprofits to get more streamlined, more efficient, and better at communicating impact. Funders are likely to emerge more strategic in their giving.
In seeking support, grantees “will need to show more concrete sustainability plans in order to compete for limited dollars” and “be transparent about how they do business and the costs of doing business.”
*The nonprofits that survive the recession are likely to emerge better in the above ways, but there’ll be fewer of them.
The long-term impact of the economic crisis on the nonprofit sector will be that only the strongest, smartest, and most strategic will survive.
The overwhelming message here seems to be that 2010 won’t be easy, and it’ll force the nonprofit world to improve its methods and its impact. Embracing certain technologies, like social media and mapping, is an obvious way forward, as is a more rigorous approach to managing and communicating impact. But greasing the wheels with good, accessible, well-filtered data is hugely important – the convergence of open source culture, mapping and nonprofits, then, is at least one glimmer of optimism in what looks to be a challenging 2010.
Oh, and two resources worth mentioning: Foundationcenter.org, the publisher of the report just discussed, has this set of maps about the foundation response to the recession. And here is their helpful grant RSS feed.
Image: www.thebiggive.org.uk
Recent Comments