Social Currency

Editor's Note: A version of this post originally appeared at the ASU Lodestar Center Blog as part of their Research Friday series.

In our professional and personal lives, we are all asked to take a dozen or more surveys every year.  At work, I receive email surveys on everything from how we use social media to how we like the services of our vendors.   At home, I get opinion questionnaires from organizations ranging from political parties to movie ticket vendors.

Being the recipient of so many surveys, I pick and choose which I respond to.  No doubt you do as well.  As NFF embarks on its fourth annual nonprofit State of the Sector Survey, I hope you will choose to spend a few minutes of your valuable and busy work time responding to ours.  Here’s why.

Nonprofits are our social safety net, particularly now, during the hard times our country continues to experience.  They help and enrich people and communities, some of whom face dire health, housing, or food access circumstances.  Yet many of the nonprofits that we rely on for a just and vibrant society are themselves in dire circumstances.  Revenue is down, particularly from government funders, while service demand is up (77%  saw a rise in service demand last year, on top of increases in service demand in previous years). 

As we’ve seen with the rise in democratic political movements across the globe