Bronx Nonprofits Pushed To The Edge

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Published on September 23, 2009, 10:27 am
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A heartbreaking report released today by Human Service Council (HSC) and Baruch College: School of Public Affairs shows that the majority of human services organizations in New York City are seeing major decreases to public and private funding due to the economic recession.

Bronx Nonprofits Pushed To The Edge

The Helpers Need Help: New York City’s Nonprofit Human Service Organizations Persevering In Uncertain Times offers a comprehensive look at the strategies and actions that are taking place within many organizations to maintain social services while dealing with reduced revenues and growing hardships.

According to the report, more than 60% of organizations surveyed have seen decreases in public funding with more than 50% experiencing major cuts to existing contracts with government at all levels – city, state and federal. At the same time, 80% of respondents also said they are experiencing major reductions in private funding with more than half seeing reductions of more than 20%. Furthermore, 73% of the organizations have no financial reserves – no endowment or lines of credit – with which to weather the uncertain economic climate.
 
“On a broad level, this is the worst scenario for human services organizations,” said Michael Stoller, executive director of the Human Services Council. “There’s less government money because there are less taxes and there’s less foundation and personal giving because of the uncertainty in the market. Yet, the number of human service clients keeps increasing as poverty levels go up and these organizations are trying their best to help those who have nowhere else to turn.”

HSC partnered with Baruch College School of Public Affairs through the Center for Nonprofit Strategy and Management and Baruch College Survey Research to conduct the survey of 244 executive directors of human services organizations in the New York City metropolitan area, a strikingly-high 30% response rate of those who received the survey.

“This survey report aims to inform the public about current conditions and issues important to assisting the most vulnerable people within our communities,” said Jack Krauskopf, director of the Center for Nonprofit Strategy and Management. “We hope this information will help make an impact on public policymaking, philanthropic strategies and personal charity towards improving the process for providing critical resources where they are needed.”

To further the reach of the Helpers Need Help report, HSC and Baruch’s School of Public Affairs will hold a public forum September 9th starting at 1:00 p.m. EDT to unveil the full report. The forum will take place at Baruch College, The William and Anita Newman Campus, 14th Floor, Room 14-220, One Bernard Baruch Way (55 Lexington Avenue between East 24th and 25th Streets).

After the forum, the report will be available on HSC’s Web site here and Baruch College School of Public Affairs Web site here. For more information on the Forum, or to obtain a copy of the report please contact CoCo Chang at jcoco@pro-mediacommunications.com.

 

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Jonas Bronck is the pseudonym under which we publish and manage the content and operations of The Bronx Daily.™ | Bronx.com - the largest daily news publication in the borough of "the" Bronx with over 1.5 million annual readers. Publishing under the alias Jonas Bronck is our humble way of paying tribute to the person, whose name lives on in the name of our beloved borough.