Page 31 - BusinessWest May 26, 2020
P. 31
Heidi Nortonsmith
Nonprofits
Coping with Today — and Tomorrow
Nonprofits Know There Is Simply No Turning Back the Clock
Even in the best of times, managing a nonprofit is a complicated endeavor — and the pandemic has made the task even more challenging, from sapping financial
and staffing resources to reducing opportunities to engage with the community, all critical elements to an agency’s mission. As the pandemic begins to fade
and the economy reopens, area nonprofit leaders see an opportunity to return to some semblance of normal, but also realize some aspects of their work may be changed for good — in some cases, for the better.
HBy George O’Brien
eidi Nortonsmith compares managing a nonprofit —
and especially hers, the Northampton Survival Center — to a complex juggling act,
with not only a lot of balls in the air all at once, but balls of different sizes and com- positions.
“Some are big, heavy balls that need to be tossed around for months,” she explained, “while others are smaller, but they’re on fire, and some come at you from outside your field of vision, and you have to incorporate them into the rotation when you don’t expect it.”
And that was before COVID-19. The pan- demic has merely served to make this jug- gling act far more complex and nerve-wrack- ing, she said.
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