This content was published prior to the merger of equals between BKD and DHG on June 1, 2022. See all FORsights for the most up-to-date articles, webinars, and videos.
Raise Your Voice: 2018 Nonprofit Sector Survey
Add your voice to thousands of other not-for-profit (NFP) leaders in the effort to provide a solid, evidence-based snapshot of the sector’s financial health. The Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) State of the Nonprofit Sector Survey is the biggest national sampling of the sector. In it, NFF asks NFPs across the country about their health and challenges, compiling a crucial, data-based illustration of their ability to help the communities we all serve. The survey is a powerful platform for NFPs large and small, urban and rural, across sub-sectors and geographies, identifying and communicating the sector’s most critical needs. In a sector where data is sparse—and real-time data even more rare—its findings are widely used and cited by NFP leaders and boards, funders, advocates, policy advisors, media, researchers and many others.
NFF’s 2015 survey found that, despite the U.S. economic recovery, vulnerable communities continued to struggle because NFPs couldn’t meet increasing demand. NFP leaders reported persistent worries about financial sustainability—fewer than half ended the previous year with a surplus and more than half said they had three months or less of cash on hand. In the words of one NFP leader, “Our greatest challenge is the uncertainty and constancy of operating on such a knife edge.”
How thin does that knife edge look to your organization amid today’s policy and funding uncertainties? How comfortable is your rainy-day fund? Does anything hinder your organization from doing all the good it sets out to do? What should the country know about what NFPs need to do the work they’re entrusted to do?
BKD is a proud sponsor of the survey and is excited to help NFF reach as many NFP leaders as possible and help share the survey’s findings as a resource for all. We look forward to many energized discussions regarding the results, including a BKD webinar featuring a speaker from NFF to discuss the findings later this spring.
Take the survey and raise your organization’s voice. It will only take about 25 minutes and will be a valuable contribution to this important effort. The survey will be open January 17–February 21.
