Yesterday, we invited five CEO’s of large nonprofit agencies to a conversation. We asked them to answer two questions: What is the impact of the economy on your agency, and what can we do to help you?
What we heard is that the economy has both increased and decreased the demand for services. Examples included that requests for scholarships were up 50%, while enrollment in some after school programs was down because newly jobless parents were now at home. We heard almost unanimous budget reductions, including salary freezes, moving full-time employees to part-time, letting employees go, and moving to smaller, less expensive space. But we also heard some optimism that if the economy doesn’t worsen, their core missions were secure and no one was aware of any nonprofit in danger of closing their doors. Their biggest concern was for the uncertainties of the future as they moved into their next budget year.
In answer to our second question, they asked for support in building connections within the nonprofit community to more easily share best practices and build partnerships. Finally, they asked us to consider re-tooling grant programs that only reward new or expanded programs at a time when core missions might be at risk.
Our Board of Directors is concerned about the nonprofits that contribute so much to the quality of life in our community. From day care to the arts, from food pantries to job re-training, we all depend on their work everyday. Our Board’s leadership will meet this Friday to continue their search for ways we can help our nonprofit partners. As we do what we can to sustain them, I encourage you to give what you can to those whose mission you love. Their future depends on you.
Filed under: President’s Point of View | Leave a Comment
Tags: Board of Directors, cfgrb, community foundation of the great river bend, quad cities, quad city
Rotary’s Top Scholarship Winner
The Rotary Club of Davenport recognized their 2009 scholarship winners yesterday, and Rebecca Briesmore took the top scholarship of $16,000. I’d like to think CFGRB was some part of her success.
Rebecca is an excellent student with a clear view of her future. Among her many community service hours, some were spent with our Teens For Tomorrow program. T4T is a nine month philanthropy program for 25-30 local high school students. They learn about our community’s needs, develop leadership skills, invite grant applications and make site visits to prepare to make the difficult decisions on where to allocate their grants. We know that T4T students age out with a different view of their world because they have told us so, and their parents confirm it.
Rebecca’s mother told me yesterday that Rebecca had really blossomed in the last two years. Since Rebecca was a T4T Board member for the last two years, perhaps T4T was part of the reason.
All I know for sure is that I was proud of her yesterday, and proud of T4T, too.
Filed under: President’s Point of View | 2 Comments
Tags: cfgrb, community foundation of the great river bend, qc, quad cities, quad city, Rotary Club of Davenport, Teens for Tomorrow
What does it take to be successful in attracting major grants to our community?
It takes working together to gather our best ideas, testing our assumptions, and then moving ahead with solutions. When the right people come to the table to share the work, potential funders value that collaboration and push us toward the top of the grantee list.
This week we hosted a site visit by the evaluation team for Partners Investing in Nursing. This national program is funded by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation and supported by the Northwest Health Foundation. Now in its fourth year, the program makes grants for innovative and effective ideas to meet the shortage of nurses in all areas of our health care system.
Our team included nursing educators from six institutions in the area, both major hospital systems, both county health departments, school districts, health care providers, and the business community. The six hour site visit involved more than 30 people who shared with the evaluation team the needs to be addressed in our community, the innovation of the program and the potential impact to be gained with the help of a PIN grant.
Most importantly, the grant requires a local match, and proof of the match was presented. If we are successful, the project will invest almost $400,000 to grow our capacity to educate more nurses and retain them in our health care system.
Working together makes us more competitive. It builds community social capital, too.
Filed under: President’s Point of View | Leave a Comment
Tags: cfgrb, community foundation of the great river bend, Northwest Health Foundation, Partners Investing in Nursing, qc, quad cities, quad city, Robert Woods Johnson Foundation
