The perils of not raising money from private sources!

I took a call today from a non-profit operating in Southern New England. They provide substance abuse as well as HIV/Aids counselling and support. They have been in business for 30 years, have 25 people in their residential facility and several hundred others in various outpatient programs. They have a budget just north of $1.5million. They are teetering on the edge of disaster, quite possibly faced with laying off half their staff overnight and cutting half of their programs.

Why?

They are 100% dependent on state, federal and city funding. The state has cut their allocation by 30%, the federal grant which accounts for 40% of their budget and usually comes by September has been silent, not a word from the department that makes the annual allocation. They have a mailing list with zero names, received exactly zero private or individual donations, have 15 board members-none of whom give, and conducted one event (a 30 year anniversary celebration) which actually cost them money.

THIRTY YEARS! in business and not a single name on the mailing list! THIRTY YEARS of blood, sweat and tears tending to some of the most desperate in our inner cities yet not a single private gift or foundation supporting them.

My caller today was rather desperate, when he received my letter he thought it was exactly what he needed, a life raft, a source of hope. It was difficult informing him that building a program of private support would take time, it would take money, it would not likely yield immediate results and certainly couldn't plug a major funding shortfall that is mere weeks away.

I don't know how we prevent this. Perhaps there is more that the local community foundations can do to educate area non-profits about the importance of building internal capacity. Perhaps there is more that the United Way could do to member organizations about teaching their recipient organizations to build mailing lists, to develop case materials, encourage/require board support, conduct special events, seek major gifts.

Seeing an organization that does so much good possibly fail because of a slight shift in local, state or federal funding priorities is a real and to some degree preventable tragedy.

I offered to do a foundation search for this organization free fo charge. I will assemble a list of private foundations that might be interested in supporting their organization based on past gifts and funding parameters. I fear it will be far to little and far to late.