Florida nonprofits have emerged from the pandemic to where many now are serving more people than before the pandemic but paying for it is a challenge. Overall funding and staffing are not keeping up with the growing demand for services.
The toll of two powerful hurricanes last year has further exacerbated the strain. The pipeline for leadership is also at risk with as many as one-third of the state’s nonprofit CEOs planning to move on.
“Florida nonprofits have mostly recovered from the pandemic but are now tackling a new set of challenges. A third of existing CEO leaderships will turn over by 2025,” said Sabeen Perwaiz, president and CEO of the Florida Nonprofit Alliance (FNA). She said that 66% of organizations had no increase in unrestricted revenue in 2022. “More organizations need to invest in internal infrastructure but don’t have the funding to do so,” said Perwaiz.
These were among the findings from a survey the FNA commissioned of 2,300 organizations regarding their wins and challenges during the past year.
“Florida’s nonprofits are now six percent of the state’s workforce and employ over 600,000 people, but now the sector is dealing with burnout, a wave of resignations, and an inability to hire qualified staff because the sector is competing with a national job market and higher wages at for-profit employers,” the report’s authors wrote.
The decline in volunteerism since the pandemic is compounding the staffing issues, with respondents citing volunteer absences (36%) and volunteer burnout (30%) as their first and third most common human resource challenges. The impacts of Hurricanes Ian and Nicole in September and November 2022 were a further reminder of the role that natural disasters play in this state.
The demand for nonprofit services reached its peak in 2020 and has declined slightly since then but remains higher than at virtually any time before the pandemic. “And we know Florida is the fastest growing state in the country, so from our point of view, the concern is making sure the long-term sustainability is there,” Leah McDermott, FNA program manager, told The NonProfit Times.
At the same time, the sector continues to face the twin effects of inflation and a labor shortage impacting the rest of the country, she said.
Among the other findings:
* Hurricane Ian affected 25% the state’s nonprofits in ways ranging from property damage to inability to provide services due to resource loss or staff being unavailable.
* 60% of the state’s nonprofits are now serving the same or more clients now than they did in 2019, the year before the pandemic.
* 68% of organizations had budgets last year that were the same or larger than in 2019. However, inflation and rising costs have prevented a commensurate increase in programming and services.
* 30% of organizations have used some or all of reserves during the past three years, and 35% don’t have any reserves at all. Even nonprofits that haven’t tapped into their reserves have seen financial losses due to stock market volatility.
* 27% of organizations are having trouble filling open staff positions and 25% area experiencing voluntary staff turnover, and many don’t have the resources to raise salaries or benefits sufficiently to hire new staff. This has also increased the mental health effects on the remaining staff who are being forced to do more with less.
* 41% say finding new volunteers while avoiding burnout of current volunteers are also ongoing challenges.
* 34% of nonprofits say funding is their biggest challenge, with many heavily reliant on existing individual donors due to inability to find or leverage new sources of funding.
* Individual donors are the state’s largest source of nonprofit fundraising. While this presents challenges, it also confirms a positive finding – namely, that Floridians are generous.
The full report can be found at https://bit.ly/3KMzsAb
