As a provider of strategic planning, strategic technology, and other technical assistance services to nonprofit organizations throughout the Greater Boston area, those of us at Management Consulting Services (MCS) readily see the impact of the worsening economic crisis on the sector. We recently conducted a survey of nonprofits in Massachusetts to gauge the impact of the economic crisis on the nonprofit sector in order for us to talk about the effects using some data rather than anecdotes. This report presents the findings from this survey.Following were some of the major findings from this survey:a. While organizations of all budget sizes anticipate the economic downturn impacting their organization, organizations with smaller budgets indicate that the impact will be greater compared to organizations with larger budgets.b. More than half the respondents reported that their organizations will see a decrease in revenue during the current fiscal year. About one-third of the respondents feel that the revenues would decrease more than 10% during the current fiscal year at their organizations. About one-third of the respondents also feel their organizations will experience a decline in revenues during the next fiscal year.c. There were no significant trends related to decrease in revenue across organizations with different operating budgets or across program areas, suggesting that organizations across all program areas and operating budgets are seeing similar changes.d. While the respondents felt that the revenues were decreasing, many (40.5%) felt that the demand for the services of their organization had increased in the past 3 months. e. While there were no significant trends related to changes in demand over the past 3 months across organizations with different operating budgets, significantly greater percentage of respondents from organizations providing human services reported more than 10% increase in demand during the past 3 months.f. Individual donors and private foundations were the two sources of revenue for which most respondents felt would contribute to the decrease in revenue during the current and next fiscal years. g. While organizations may be looking at a variety of strategies to manage the effects of the recession, most will trim their budgets and cut expenses. h. Staff costs could likely be a significant target for how organizations will reduce expenses with many reporting that they would either hold off hiring new staff or reduce existing staff members or convert full-time to part time staff, reduce salary for staff or do a multiple of these options.i. Usage of volunteers and developing more partnerships with complementary or similar organizations could likely be strategies for how organizations would respond to the increase in demand for their services.j. Increasing their donor base and increasing pledges from individual donors could likely be significant strategies for how organizations would diversify their revenue sources.For a full report of this survey please follow the below link.
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| MCS Economic crisis white paper final.pdf | 4.77 MB |
