Stephen Rockwell's blog

"Most prefer the security of known misery to the misery of unfamiliar security."  Sheldon Kopp

There is no doubt that a great wave of fear has fallen over the nonprofit sector and indeed the nation.   The constant barrage of bad news, while tempered by the jubilation surrounding the historic inauguration in Washington, affects our psyches as we approach each day a bit more unsure than the previous.      Einstein said that problems can not be solved at the level of analysis that created them and yet we try.  We are attempting to solve problems in which the allusive answers seem to create their own host of other problems.  Downsizing may temporarily help our organization, but how then will we continue to provide essential services?  We attempt to expand our individual donor base, but if all nonprofits make the same attempt how effective will we be?   The conversation about the generational shift in leadership change has shifted to a fear that the sector will lose its young and entrepreneurial talent to layoffs.   In most cases there are no good answers, only better solutions. 

As we head for a changing of the guard in Washington DC, the Obama government will take over a country facing its toughest economic challenge since the Great Depression.  Nonprofit staff and boards are worried as an impending financing challenge awaits the nonprofit sector in the coming year as donations, foundation grants and state funding are cut. Despite this perilous situation and despite having a huge role in the economy, the nonprofit sector is largely missing from the public discourse on the economic crisis. Nonprofit professionals and board members need to ask why we are not part of the conversation and how we ensure that our interests are going to be heard in public policy decisions that affect the sector.

Why the Nonprofit Sector Must Speak Up

While the Great Depression provided much of the impetus for government run safety net programs, social services are now largely delivered by the nonprofit sector. Over the last 30 years, government has devolved much of its traditional responsibilities to the sector (whether this is a good thing or not is a subject for a different blog). As the economic crisis takes hold, the demand for nonprofit human services, food from food pantries, and services in other sectors such as workforce development will increase dramatically. While demand is increasing, the supply of services will decrease as donors and state governments cut back. If our missions are to survive, we need a much stronger voice in public policy affairs.

Change is in the Air: The Economic Crisis Affects Everything
The economic crisis is challenging long held assumptions in all the facets of our lives. After a lost decade in the financial markets, retirement portfolios are no higher than they were before the dot com boom and bust. The real estate market has likewise reduced wealth challenging the notion that homes are a means to middle class wealth. Higher Education is seeing significant reduction in their endowments and beginning to realize that the rate of increase of tuition over the last three decades is now putting education out of reach for many in the middle class. Similar unsustainable inflation rates in the health care industry will almost certainly require significant austerity measures in the next few years. Despite the growth of the health care industry, it fails to cover 47 million Americans with insurance (and perhaps many more as a result of the recession.) Universal health care insurance is almost assuredly on its way. The spike in oil prices and the change of consumer behavior provided what could be the final nail in the coffin for the American auto industry.

Within the last year, MCS eliminated all of its technology infrastructure by moving our applications to “the cloud”. For those of you not familiar with cloud computing, its essentially hosted software applications and associated data on the Internet in a models. Such models are also known as “software as a service” or as IBM coined “on demand computing” (for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing). MCS’s move is indicative of major changes underway in the technology world and could be a model for nonprofits.

Nonprofit leaders are becoming more familiar with the 2.0 tools and strategies that are creating a new paradigm for constituency engagement.  A simple look at a nonprofit employment website shows a proliferation in new positions with titles such as "online community manager" or "new media communications associate".  Even if an organization has yet to adopt the new technology, there is a growing awareness of a brave new world in which the organization must seek to engage.   

With all the new 2.0 technology, how do you decide what's right for your organization? A two hour strategic technology workshop will help you figure out how to engage you constituents online.

Register Now

Our Strategic Technology Practice Leader, Stephen Rockwell will present a hands-on workshop that will both teach about how nonprofits are using the latest 2.0 technologies and offer practical strategies for building online engagement for your organization.

Specifically we will cover: