News & Views

  By Holly Delany Cole and Valyrie Laedlein, CRE Co-Directors: It’s grim – politically and economically – for nonprofits, including CRE, and more significantly, for the people nonprofits are working with and issues that are important to them and us. CRE sees five key issues facing the nonprofit sector in the Fall of 2011.

1. Changed climate – A changed political climate has led to disinvestment in the social sector. In addition, economic constraints have led to a reduction in all forms of private support – from corporations, foundations and individuals.

2. Need to demonstrate results – Nonprofits’ inability to show results jeopardizes their ability to make a case for resources.

3. Lack of scale – Since the time of Jane Addams, nonprofits that operated within communities were seen a good model as they are closest to the needs of their communities. Today, small to medium-sized nonprofits are often considered inefficient due to lack of scale.

4. Fragile infrastructures – Nonprofits have always operated with lean infrastructures. Further downsizing related to lack of funding has constrained organizational improvement efforts.

5. Board and staff constraints – Leaders struggle with a lack of investment, and are experiencing stress and feelings of isolation.

Here’s what CRE believes is needed for nonprofits right now and what we strive to address with our clients:

• A focus on results
• See our previous blog postings  which describe our Effective Program practice and strategies we use to support clients in shifting to results-based programming
• Visibility about results nonprofits achieve
• Development of networks to:
• Achieve scale and impact,
• Supplement infrastructure,
• Increase influence on policy,
• Mobilize resources, and
• Lessen isolation.
• Leadership and professional development to support current and future nonprofit leaders

In upcoming posts CRE staff will delve deeper into these topics.