New “Nonprofit Economic Vitality Center” Launched

With the economy battering corporations, foundations, governments, and individuals, Tim Delaney, President & CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, says that the most frequent question he gets these days is: How is the economic downturn affecting America’s nonprofits?

The inescapable answer is that already limited resources are being stretched even thinner. The gap between the increasing demands for more nonprofit services and the plummeting financial support they receive is accelerating, prompting many nonprofits to scramble for options.

So the real question that needs to be asked, says Delaney, is a different one: How can nonprofits continue serving their communities’ expanding needs on dwindling budgets?

To give nonprofits tools to answer this question, the National Council of Nonprofits has assembled the Nonprofit Economic Vitality Center, a free, online clearinghouse of resources designed to help nonprofits cope with the multiple challenges created by the faltering economy.

The Nonprofit Economic Vitality Center consists of three “Focus Areas”: Basic Facts & Analysis, Impact on Nonprofits, and Proactive Positioning—Action Steps for Nonprofits. In combination, these sections aim at helping not only nonprofits but also grant makers, journalists, policy makers, and the general public understand the scope of the economic downturn, how it affects nonprofits in various subsectors and regions across the country, and what nonprofits can do to weather these turbulent times.

An evolving tool, the Nonprofit Economic Vitality Center is updated continuously with new resources, allowing nonprofits to adapt to changes in the economy as they happen. Each resource added to the Vitality Center is vetted by the National Council’s staff before being posted for public view, making the Vitality Center more relevant and effective than a search engine for finding these types of resources.

Visit the Nonprofit Economic Vitality Center.

The National Council of Nonprofits (formerly the National Council of Nonprofit Associations) is the network of state and regional nonprofit associations serving more than 20,000 member organizations. By linking local nonprofit organizations across the nation through state associations, the National Council of Nonprofits helps small and midsize nonprofits manage and lead more effectively, collaborate and exchange solutions, engage in critical policy issues affecting the sector, and achieve greater impact in their communities.