That was the resounding theme today at “The Economy: A Forum on the Realities and Opportunities for Bay Area Nonprofits” presented by CompassPoint and Citi at the San Francisco City Club. True to title, the program in a mere three hours ambitiously outlined the state of the California economy, the state of the Bay Area nonprofit sector, and practical steps that nonprofits can take to respond to current insecurities. And the message was that we cannot go back to old way of doing business, period!
Thought leader Jean Ross from the California Budget Project opened the day with some grim figures about the state of the Californian economy. In essence, it is not clear how California will crawl out this hole with a 40 billion budget gap. To put that in perspective, that is roughly equivalent to the total budgets of the university system, the prison system and health and human services combined. We simply do not have the revenue we need to meet the demand for services and our current measures do not come close to plugging the hole. As everyone knows, the great irony of times like these is that, inevitably, this is when safety net services are most needed. Ms. Ross concluded with a couple suggestions on where we could focus our energy to take advantage of this crisis by examining:
- tax policy that benefits the few at the expense of the many and specifically tax cuts to corporations
- inefficiencies in “ballot box budgeting”
- federal bailout as an option since she believes that “
California is too big to fail”
Following Ms. Ross was James Head from the San Francisco Foundation (SFF) who talked about some of the changes the foundation has made in response to the economy. First, SFF is increasing funding for “safety net” services including efforts to prevent housing loss and domestic counseling. Second, they have made a substantial one year contribution to the Northern California Grantmakers Association emergency loan funds. And lastly, SFF has initiated a new fund for strategic restructuring of organizations that are pursuing mergers and formal collaborations.
Next, Kim Klein beckoned us all to take advantage of this time to question economic assumptions about the status quo and to challenge some of our more ingrained taboos around money. Most notably, she challenged us to get involved in understanding and examining our tax policy. She encouraged us all talk about money and rekindle a philosophy of who should be paying for the services we provide instead of chasing the dollars that are out there. Only then, she argued, can we reshape our role in the field and become the agents of change we aim to be.
The last portion of the program was a panel discussion with technical leaders in the field: Paul Connolly, TCCgroup; David Greco, Nonprofit Finance Fund; Jeanne Bell, CompassPoint; Priscilla Hung, Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training and moderated by Jan Masaoka, Blue Avocado.
This lively discussion yielded several noteworthy suggestions for all to consider:
- We must focus on our leadership capacities and evaluation systems.
- Diversify: funding sources, leadership and constituency.
- When the storm does blow over, we must not go back to business as usual and keep fundraising and programs separate.
- We must understand what programs feed the bottom line of the organization’s mission.
- Simultaneously, we must consider dynamic funding models that account for programs that may not be a central but that fund the core.
- This is not the time for 5 year strategic plans rather for rolling projections and contingency planning.
- Focus on shared leadership opportunities.
- Be nimble as an organization.
As a final note, if you want to participate in this conversation, please join us on Wednesday, May 29, 2009 for a Meet the Grantmakers: The State of San Francisco's Nonprofit Sector.
Posted by C. Davis Fischer, Training Coordinator, Foundation Center- San Francisco.
