May 14, 2021
An article by Philanthropy News Digest by Candid shares:
Two-thirds of nonprofits report that the challenges they face as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic have increased over the past year, a report from the Charities Aid Foundation of America (CAF America) finds.
Based on a survey conducted in April of nearly five hundred charities in a hundred and twenty-nine countries, the report, 12 Months Later: The State of the World’s Nonprofits (7 pages, PDF), found that only 22 percent of respondents reported that the challenges their organizations face have eased over time, while just 10 percent reported experiencing no adverse impacts from the pandemic. According to the report, agility has been one of the most significant factors in nonprofits’ ongoing resilience, with 71 percent of respondents saying they had adapted their organizational strategies to include new services or programs. The most commonly cited change was a shift to online programming (61 percent), followed by the adoption of new fundraising strategies and/or rollout of a new campaign (54 percent), the introduction of new services and/or programs (53 percent), and a new collaboration or partnership (41 percent).
The seventh in a series of surveys launched by CAF America last spring, the survey also found that more than 60 percent of respondents have seen their expenditures increase during the pandemic, with nearly 16 percent reporting an increase of more than 20 percent. The primary drivers of increased costs were program and service expansion (45 percent), COVID and/or other emergency relief programs (45 percent), and IT/technology upgrades (35 percent). The survey also found that respondents said they needed additional funding in the areas of programs and services (82 percent), salaries (61 percent), and marketing and fundraising (51 percent), while nine in ten reported that their funders were being flexible in their grantmaking, with 47 percent of respondents saying they had received a grant extension, 38 percent saying they had received need-based funding, 36 percent saying they had received permission to change the purpose of a grant, and 29 percent saying they had received flexible, no-strings funding.
A year into the pandemic, 64 percent of respondents said they felt confident in their ability to operate indefinitely under current conditions, while the percentage of those predicting they would not survive for another twelve months fell from approximately 33 percent in June to 22 percent in the latest survey. In addition, most respondents were moderately (37 percent) or very (57 percent) confident in their organization’s ability to “successfully face the next crisis.”
“We can’t lose momentum,” Citi Foundation COO Florencia Spangaro told CAF America. “What we’ve learned, what we’ve acquired in terms of new programming, new strategies, in the past year are [things] we need to continue on and accelerate, not try to go back to pre-crisis or pre-pandemic times.”
“12 Months Later: The State of the World’s Nonprofits.” Charities Aid Foundation of America report 05/12/2021.
“New survey reveals covid-19 will change nonprofits for years to come.” Charities Aid Foundation of America press release 05/12/2021.
Subjects: COVID19; Nonprofits; Philanthropy / Voluntarism; Public Affairs
People: Florencia Spangaro
Organization: Citi Foundation; Charities Aid Foundation America
Location: National; International
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