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Nonprofits Tracking Federal Sequestration Impact

Now that sequestration is here, two nonprofits are keeping tabs on exactly how charities will be affected by the billion-dollar cuts in federal spending.

The National Council of Nonprofits (NCN) has launched www.givevoice.org, a site that aims to track the effects of sequestration on charities and the communities they serve by encouraging nonprofits and their staffers to share their stories.

The Center for Effective Government (CEG), formerly OMB Watch, has launched a page on its website called Sequestration Central. The web page (http://www.foreffectivegov.org/sequestration-central) is devoted to “tracking both projected and actual impacts on affected federal programs,” including original reports and analysis by CEG, and links to media stories and other organizations.

NCN describes its site as a “storytelling and data collection hub for people and nonprofits affected by sequestration,” enabling organizations to report the negative effects of the sequester “on real people in local communities.”

GiveVoice.org explains how sequestration hurts the work of virtually all nonprofits — not just those with government contracts — and how it harms their ability to serve the needs of their communities. Charities are encouraged to share their stories about how sequestration is affected their communities.

Sequestration will cut domestic spending on education, national parks, air traffic control, and consumer safety procedures by about 5 percent, and most defense spending by almost 8 percent, according to CEG. Programs like Social Security and Medicaid are exempt from sequestration.

NCN President & CEO Tim Delaney has described how charities will be strained even more by sequestration cuts, after years of already doing more with less since the economic declined and needs and services are up while donations are down. “As the reality of sequestration cuts play out, the work of nonprofits is going to be come even more difficult from multiple, compounding factors as man yare hit by direct funding cuts to programs, hit again as state and local governments cut their funding further to make up for their own budgets being cut, and hit third time as people who are furloughed or laid off as part of sequestration turn to nonprofits for help in unprecedented numbers,” he said.

“The 13 million individuals employed by nonprofits, the 63 million who volunteer for nonprofits, and the millions more who are served daily by nonprofits all need to tell policymakers how the cuts will impact their lives,” said Delaney. “And they need to tell Congress and the president to get back to work, fix the sequester, return to regular order for the federal budget, and stop hurting the American people.”

GiveVoice.org explains how sequestration hurts the work of virtually all nonprofits, not just those with government contracts, and how it harms their ability to serve the needs of their communities. Charities are encouraged to share their stories about how sequestration is affected their communities.