Thursday Thoughts - April 7, 2022: Did The Pandemic Really Change Anything?
The last two years could have had fundamental changes to the nonprofit world. Did it?
The Announcement
I had read in the local newspaper a local unit of government was offering non-profits a new batch of funding from the American Rescue Plan. Since we had not received funding from this local unit before and we were in the jurisdiction, it made sense to at least make the call.
Was our organization hurting for a cash infusion? Absolutely not. Honestly, the cash position of our organization has been the strongest it has been in the last six months than it has been in the previous nineteen years our shop has been serving our community. But, opportunities like this don’t come around very often and I’d be derelict to my organization if I didn’t at least try to find something out.
The Call
I called the local unit of government and actually and was pleased to find out the program was headed up by someone I knew and had developed a positive working relationship. It was clear this individual wanted to help and we talked about this new program.
The program was set up much like the Payroll Protection Program that many non-profits took advantage of in the early days of the pandemic; our shop included. I remember the surreal feeling I had signing bank paperwork for the largest “loan” our agency would every request through the bank’s drive through window. Those were the days.
This new program offered by this local government was set up using federal American Rescue Plan guidelines and was offered like a reimbursement program; any expenses incurred between two specific dates would eligible for the reimbursement grant. We were certainly eligible; but I am not sure if this was a pot of money we wanted to go after.
Questioning the Wisdom of the Government
I asked my colleague, “I know what you are doing, but the program isn’t interested in what we are doing, but rather what we have done. What are we really trying to accomplish here?” I am happy my friend took the question in the tone and tenor in the way it was asked; I certainly wasn’t trying to be accusatory or hostile. I understood the reasoning, I didn’t understand the logic.
“Well, we know that nonprofits got hurt by the pandemic,” he said.
And there it was.
To me, that was the biggest misconception that the pandemic brought forward in the nonprofit world.
Now, I will freely admit the first few weeks (which turned into months) of the pandemic were beyond precarious. We never shut our doors, but immediately spent money on equipment and supplies to keep our places safe. Our governor recommended we take everyone’s temperature when they arrived to work, only to find no thermometers existed. Masks were much the same way.
And none of the even goes to the financial aspects of those early days. Would people still work? Would the stock market crash? Would donations come in? It was one day at a time.
And slowly, as we were finding our footing new programs opened up and we took advantage of them. Federal, state and local dollars flowed like honey. It almost seemed that if you knocked on some institution’s door and said, “Hey, I am a nonprofit and need cash,” that request would have been fulfilled.
The pandemic became a time of plenty; our own shop saw more dollars come in from new donors. So much so, we were able to pull the trigger and start our long-discussed endowment fund.
The Wheat and The Chaff
In the early days of the pandemic a friend of mine quipped, “This pandemic is going to separate the wheat from the chaff in the nonprofit world. Those that are doing will be just fine, those that aren’t will wither.”
Well, the withering never happened. Instead, even marginal nonprofits received lifelines to keep them afloat. In my mind I thought, “well, here is another one.”
This may be controversial, but nonprofits that came through pandemic and thrived were the ones that could consistently demonstrate their value to their constituents, their donors and their communities time and time again.
Those that needed (and still need) those lifelines, I would guess probably have issues that no amount of money can fix, such as board or management leadership issues, duplicative and/or expensive service provision or a whole host of other challenges.
While we live in a world of copious resources, we can’t put ourselves in a position to prop-up poorly run nonprofits by infusions of cash that could help better meet community needs if they were spent elsewhere.
I have had my say, what do you think? Feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email at pinnaclestrategiesltd@gmail.com
Stay Well,
Bill