Nonprofits Need to Be Resilient
Editorial
In many respects, the timing could not be worse.
Indeed, the sharp cutbacks — and threatened cutbacks — for programs provided by area nonprofits comes at a time when needs are rising.
There’s increased need for food provided by area pantries and soup kitchens because of inflation, workforce reductions at several area companies, and the soaring costs of other necessities, like housing and healthcare.
There’s rising need for behavioral health services as people young and old continue to grapple with the lingering effects of COVID, the isolation it created, and other side effects.
Need is also rising for programs to assist the victims of domestic violence, child abuse, stalking, and related issues because of a worsening economy and the pressures it puts on families.
These are just some of the many programs and initiatives that are being threatened by cuts or the threat of cuts in federal funding to everything from early childhood education to SNAP benefits; clean air programs to the arts.
As the story on page 4 reveals, these are extremely challenging times for the area’s nonprofits, who are seeing cuts large and small involving programs that, in one way or another, impact quality of life in Western Mass.
These nonprofits are responding, as they always do, with determination and a strong desire to find ways to carry out their missions and continue to provide some of the services mentioned above. They’re looking at alternative sources of funding — from appeals to the public and area foundations to, in the case of the YWCA of Western Massachusetts, a capital campaign, not to build a building, but to keep programs operating.
At the same time, nonprofits are exploring ways to collaborate with other agencies so that vital needs can be met.
In some cases, as with a terminated $1 million grant for programs to address asthma in area cities, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to find other sources of funding and continue initiatives that have yielded progress on this important front.
Overall, many nonprofits are fighting, not necessarily for survival, but for the ability to retain their talented workforces and carry on their critical missions. And it’s an important fight, for the reasons mentioned at the top, but also because our nonprofits are a large — much larger than many people realize — and very important cog in this region’s economy. And not just because of the tens of thousands of jobs they provide, but because of the services they offer that help strengthen families and enable people to work and thrive in this economy.
If there is one adjective that could best describe this region’s nonprofit ecosystem — and it is exactly that, an ecosystem — it’s resilience.
Indeed, nonprofits have weathered recessions, workforce challenges, and, most recently, a pandemic that forced many of them to find new and different ways to carry out their missions.
They will need similar resilience, and much of it, in these ultra-challenging times, and we are quite confident they will find it — because there’s simply too much at stake.
