It may have been Friday the 13th, but I found hope and good ideas in the Bronx while representing our library/learning center at “Navigating the Fiscal Crisis: A Forum for Non-Profits” held at Hostos Community College. The program was sponsored by the Bronx Borough President’s Office, Hostos Community College, and the Jewish Community Relations Council of NY. It attracted an auditorium-sized crowd, featured more than 15 speakers, and focused on nonprofit activity in the Bronx.
My role was to tell the audience of nonprofit managers and volunteers how best to use Foundation Center resources online and in person this year, directing them to our local Cooperating Collection and our economic crisis reporting page. I was followed by Jenny Walty, Assistant Director of Capacity Building and Oversight, Mayor’s Office of Contract Services, who cautioned nonprofits that integrity issues are crucial to survival, as is paying attention to the law so your agency won’t suffer loss of contracts and lawsuits.
The Honorable Earl D. Brown, Acting Bronx Borough President, presented the audience with Helping Those Who Help Others: A Report on the Impact of the Financial Crisis on Bronx Nonprofits and announced a new Web site, Bronx Nonprofit Corner, created to help nonprofits in the Bronx survive and emerge from this fiscal crisis as stronger organizations.
Nonprofits were given hope that there is still money out there, although it is diminished. Key survival tips from the foundation community panelists:
- speak with foundation donors and let them know how the crisis is affecting your work and budget
- tell your funders how your agency intends to sustain your programs and the rest of your operations
- diversify funding and think about whether you could share rent or office space with another nonprofit
- determine whether larger nonprofits can use their administrative staff (human resources, accounting) to support a smaller nonprofit
Gayle Jennings O’Byrne, vice president of JPMorgan Chase Foundation, advised the assembled nonprofits to think critically about mergers and consider them if they strengthen effectiveness. Jason McGill, Director of Member Services, New York Regional Association of Grantmakers, announced NYRAG is changing its name in three weeks (stay tuned!) and suggested the broader conversation should be nonprofits, government and foundations talking together.
Larger organizations that have made significant staffing and programs cuts, provided the following survival tips:
1) Use metrics to prove the case for support. Go on tour and tell your case to public officials. Keep your narrative consistent to politicians.
2) Ask funders who support you once every three years, to split their gift over three years because you need the money now.
3) Be opportunistic!
Lastly, we were reminded from several speakers that board leadership and governance is crucial to survival. Linda R. Cox, Executive Director of the Bronx River Alliance, summed up the challenge facing the big and small Bronx groups, “This crisis demands that we learn. The mechanisms that we used in the past to track our financials don’t work now.”
Susan Shiroma, Senior Librarian, Foundation Center-New York
You're in luck on St. Patrick's Day!
