Quote of the Day

Recession Far from Over for Bay Area Nonprofits

May 13, 2010 By Maria Stokes Leave a Comment

Despite reports that the economy may finally be recovering, Bay Area nonprofit organizations – and the clients they serve – are still reeling from the recession, according to United Way’s eighth annual Bay Area Nonprofit Pulse Survey.

The financial well-being of the Bay Area nonprofit sector continued to erode in 2009. Fifty-one percent of survey respondents indicated that revenues declined in 2009, with 39% stating their organizations’ revenue dropped by more than 10%.

When asked if they are observing signs of recovery among their clients, only 3% of respondents indicated their clients are faring better now than they were a year ago, while 45% stated that their clients are faring worse.

Demand for services continues to surge, with 62% of nonprofits reporting an increase in service demand last year. Of that group, 40% indicated they were unable to meet increased service demand.

“We know that the families and individuals who have been hit hardest by the recession will need months, even years to fully recover and get back on their feet,” said Anne Wilson, CEO of United Way of the Bay Area. “To ensure local nonprofits can weather this storm, and serve mounting needs, it is so important for everyone who can to step up now – to give, advocate and volunteer – in support of our community.”

Read the press release. Media coverage:

San Francisco Business Times – “Over half of nonprofits see revenue drop”
San Francisco Chronicle – “Bay Area jobs hit harder by recession than U.S.”
KQED Radio’s California Money – “Nonprofits Still Hurting”
Times-Herald – “Solano County, Bay Area nonprofits see few signs of a rebound”
CC Times - “Survey: Bay Area nonprofit agencies still scuffling”
Inside Bay Area – “Bay Area nonprofits report rising demand, declining revenue”

Filed Under: Road to Recovery Tagged With: 2-1-1, Bay Area, partners, Resources, Road to Recovery

United Way Report Featured in SF Chronicle Editorial

January 11, 2010 By Maria Stokes Leave a Comment

United Way’s “Struggling to Make Ends Meet in the Bay Area” report was featured in The San Francisco Chronicle editorial, “Poor are educated and employed.” Below is an excerpt from the piece:

Want to have enough money to meet your basic needs in California?

Then don’t be a woman, don’t be a parent, and don’t be a person of color. All of these groups are disproportionately less likely to have enough income to meet their basic needs, according to a new report from the United Way of the Bay Area.

Some of these categories are not surprising: It’s expensive to raise children, and gender and racial discrimination still lurk in our job markets. What is surprising about the United Way’s findings is that having a job and even an education isn’t a ticket to making ends meet in California. The poor, it turns out, are just like the rest of us. They just struggle more.

The analysis is based on the Self-Sufficiency Standard, a formula developed by social scientist Diana Pearce to reflect the actual cost of people’s real needs in a given area. (The Federal Poverty Level doesn’t accurately reflect the growing costs of health care, energy and housing, among other things.) According to the report, about 22 percent of Bay Area households were struggling even before the economic disaster began in 2008.

The Bay Area is doing better than the state overall, where nearly a third of households don’t have enough income to meet their basic needs for food, housing, transportation, child care and health care. But as this season of sharing comes to a close, it’s sobering to learn just how hard some of us are working to keep our households afloat.

Read the complete editorial.

Read more about United Way’s “Struggling to Make Ends Meet in the Bay Area” report.