by Triangle Business Journal of Raleigh/Durham, N.C.
Some 40 percent of public charities and private foundations included in a new nationwide survey are reporting a drop in contributions between Jan. 1 and May 31, and 8 percent say they are “in imminent danger of closing.”
Those are some of the findings from the first-ever economic survey conducted by GuideStar, the online nonprofits tracker.
The organization asked 6,679 groups — including 166 in North Carolina — how they are faring during the slowdown. The sector, GuideStar concludes, “continued to take a beating” during the first half of the year.
GuideStar did not break out Colorado results separately or identify which local groups participated in the survey.
Among the survey’s findings:
• In order to balance budgets, 17 percent of respondents reduced program services, and 11 percent laid off employees.
• More than 60 percent of participants reporting decreased contributions attributed the drop to a decline in both the number of individual donors and the size of their donations.
• Among organizations that use volunteers, 17 percent used one or more in what had formerly been paid positions.
• On the contributions front, 28 percent of surveyed nonprofits said that contributions had stayed about the same, while 30 percent reported an increase.
Click here to download the full GuideStar report.
In Colorado, many nonprofits have been challenged financially along with their counterparts in other states.
As donors lost jobs and charitable giving waned in 2009, one of every six Colorado nonprofits laid off workers, and more than one in four cut back or eliminated programs to needy residents, according to a recent study by the Colorado Nonprofit Association (CNA) and the Community Resource Center.
Colorado is home to more than 17,000 nonprofit charitable associations that make up 6 percent of the state economy, according to CNA.
CNA's “Weathering the Storm” study said 65 percent of nonprofits reported that a major funder reduced or eliminated their support in 2009, 48 percent said their organizations fell short of revenue goals, 21 percent cut staff pay or hours, and 16 percent laid off workers.
Read more: Survey: 8% of U.S. nonprofits ‘in imminent danger of closing’ - Denver Business Journal
