Budget Shortfalls Spell Trouble for Non-Profit Organizations

Many charitable organizations that provide crucial services to people in need receive funding on an annual basis from the US Federal government and state governments. In most cases, this money comes in the form of grants, which the government will appropriate for a given purpose whether it be for scientific research, community building, or health initiatives.

Unfortunately, in 2006, the Federal government actually decided to decrease the amount of money appropriated to these charitable organizations; and to make things worse, state funding for these projects has stagnated altogether, leaving charitable organizations scrambling to find new methods of fundraising.

Unfortunately for these non-profit organizations, fundraising isn't always as straight-forward as it might appear. In fact, it almost always involves some form of risk. If enough people don't show up, if enough people don't donate, or if enough people don't respond in the intended way, then the charity can actually end up losing money, rather than raising it to carry out their important functions in society.

Furthermore, many fundraising activities consume a massive amount of time and money and often return small amounts for those Herculean efforts. On the surface, this might not seem like a huge problem, but it is when you take into consideration the opportunity cost: all staff have to turn their attention to fundraising, rather than performing their normal duties.

While writing grants to private foundations might be an option for some non-profits, it is not always the best option, as it is a costly, time-consuming process and almost always a fruitless one. Unlike government grants, private grants are much harder to come by if you don't have specific connections to the board of directors.

This leaves non-profits in a bad position: they have to continue carrying out roles that form the cornerstone of society (all tasks that the government doesn't perform, but probably should), but they have a decreasing amount of funding to spread between all of them, making this task increasingly harder with each passing year.

If nothing is done to support non-profit organizations, including schools, churches, centers for scientific research and outreach, we could see a major collapse in charitable activities based out of the United States in the very near future. Organizations that normally provide services that are not available to the public could literally dissolve in front of our eyes, so get involved and attempt to make at least some type of change.