Beyond the pandemic, the resulting financial crisis has created lots of concern about all different kinds of businesses, with folks wondering what will become of the many institutions and small businesses that we hold dear.
The same is true of nonprofits. Many, if not most, (but not all) of the nonprofits I have spoken to recently are having existential crises, and it’s only been only about 5 weeks since the stock market began to crash. One of my Twitter followers, Elizabeth Warner (@EWarner04), said it well when she wrote, “..dare I say had philanthropy (individual & institutional) been paying more attention to long-term, low probability/high risk issues like pandemics, maybe we'd have been more prepared? We need to address BOTH the urgent & important at the same time.”
Yes.
The good news is that now we know that, and hopefully we’ll all be more prepared in the future. In the same way that families have emergency plans at home, boards need to allow (and insist that) nonprofits have emergency plans in place. It’s in the interest of everyone involved with the organization for that nonprofit to have a multi-month emergency plan that’s been reviewed and approved by the organization’s leaders.
So now we know. What to do right now, though?
I received the most wonderful email from an arts organization I’m involved with — one that certainly has its own concerns and issues related to the pandemic’s effect on their stability and future. However, instead of just emailing to say “we need your financial support now”, their brilliant ED emailed a piece asking for her constituents to support the restaurants in the area. How awesome is that? Of course, there was a solicitation for the arts organization included below that, but contextualized as caring for other businesses, the solicitation was much more appealing. As opposed to other “Give us money because we do good work” messages, this email was more of a “We feel your pain and want you to know that we’re all in this together” message.
Much better. We are in this together. And we can all learn from it.
Take care!
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- Lisa