Editor's Note: A version of this post originally appeared at the ASU Lodestar Center Blog as part of their Research Friday series.
At Nonprofit
Finance Fund (NFF), we use financial data every day in our work with nonprofits
and their funders. One source of data informing this work is our annual State
of the Sector Survey. Throughout the year, I’ve been blogging about key trends
from our 2011
survey, which was completed by nearly 2,000 nonprofit leaders nationwide.
They told us about their organizations’ financial outcomes from 2010 and
speculated on what 2011 would bring. As we look back on what was certainly a
challenging year, I thought it would be interesting to revisit some of their
expectations.
Nonprofit
leaders told us about planned changes to their service offerings in 2011:
Although
contributed revenue was generally down from public and private sources alike, a
majority of nonprofits indicated that they actually planned to add or expand
their offerings in 2011. Many anticipated expanding the geography they serve or
partnering with another organization in order to meet the increased
demand for their services. In fact, 88% of respondents indicated some sort
of shift in their service delivery. But it wasn’t just program change; management
steps and tough decisions were also required.
Nonprofits
told us about their planned financial management actions in 2011:
Nonprofit leaders
have learned to expect the unexpected. As a result, many predicted that they
would engage more closely with their board and develop a “worst case scenario”
contingency budget. If they were fortunate enough to have reserves, some groups
planned to tap them. Many organizations decreased expenses. But some
collaborated to manage their expenses and a third of organizations actually
increased their expenses. Twelve percent even expanded their space. A big picture
takeaway from both these charts:
