Executive Summary

This report was written to shine a spotlight on the under-reported plight of America's nonprofit organizations and to make recommendations for how the nation can respond. In the wake of the economic downturn, hospitals, nursing homes, nursery schools, senior centers, soup kitchens, and other nonprofit organizations have been hit by a triple whammy. The evaporation of wealth has decimated charitable donations; the state and local budget crunch is costing nonprofits their foremost paying clients; and the human need for nonprofit help is skyrocketing as nonprofit resources shrink.

Our research uncovered disturbing evidence of the nonprofit sector's growing troubles:

• Churches, many of which deliver social services to the poor and needy, were expected to raise $3 billion to $5 billion less than anticipated in the last quarter of 2008;



• United Way saw a 68 percent increase during the past year in the number of calls for basic needs such as securing food, shelter, and warm clothing, and is receiving 10,000 to 15,000 more calls every month compared to 2007;



• Chicago's Meals on Wheels is trimming its budget by 35 percent;



• The State of Arizona reports an increase of more than 100 percent in the number of people who sought social services from 2007 to 2008, and Goodwill of Central Arizona reported nearly twice the number of visits to its centers on December 23, 2008, compared to the same day in 2007; and



• Over the last year, more than 70 percent of Michigan nonprofits have seen increasing demand for their services, while 50 percent say their financial support has dropped.

Reversing the nonprofit plunge is a matter of jobs, not just charity. With 9.4 million employees and 4.7 million full-time volunteers nationwide, nonprofits constitute 11 percent of the American workforce -- greater than the auto and financial industries combined. If the nonprofit sector were a country, it would have the seventh largest economy in the world. We cannot afford for it to go the way of Iceland, whose financial system collapsed.

So far, the economic debate has almost completely overlooked nonprofits. That is a mistake, because no sector offers more bang for the buck. For example, national service volunteers -- individuals who spent one or more years of their lives in full-time or part-time civilian service to the country -- cost less per hour than private-sector employees making the minimum wage. A report showed that such national service among disadvantaged youth led to successful post-service employment and higher earnings than their peers with no national service experience. Such citizen service, one of America's finest and longstanding traditions, offers policymakers a hat trick: a way to create hundreds of thousands of jobs at low cost to government, with great national purpose -- meeting the country's most challenging needs in education, poverty, health care, energy, and the environment -- and with no new bureaucracy, since individuals work through existing nonprofit organizations.

This report makes several concrete recommendations on how our nation can spark a strong nonprofit recovery and permit more Americans to do good works in hard times:

1. Put 250,000 Americans a year to work in national and community service by passing the bipartisan Serve America Act. This legislation -- endorsed by both President Barack Obama and his 2008 opponent John McCain, and co-sponsored by Senators Edward Kennedy, Orrin Hatch, and 20 other senators from both parties -- expands opportunities for individuals of all ages to serve, from young people to working adults to retirees. The bill establishes a tax incentive for employers who allow employees to take paid leave for full-time service; creates "Encore Fellowships" to help retirees who wish to transition to longer-term public service; establishes a "Volunteer Generation Fund" to help nonprofit organizations recruit, train, and deploy more volunteers to meet increasing local community needs; and provides more visibility and a network of community solutions funds to support social entrepreneurs -- those whose service has a profound effect on transforming the very systems to solve our nation's toughest challenges. President Obama has just challenged Congress to pass the bipartisan Serve America Act.



2. Adopt targeted incentives to expand private giving and volunteering. A handful of modest changes in the tax code would help keep nonprofit contributions by individuals and foundations from plunging: extending the IRA rollover so Americans over 70 can make charitable contributions through tax-free withdrawals from their retirement accounts; making the mileage deduction for volunteer travel, currently at only 14 cents per mile, the same 58.5 cents per mile as for business travel; creating a broad-based nonprofit investment tax credit to help charities hold their own in a brutal credit environment; suspending the 2 percent excise tax on foundation earnings for grant makers that give more than the 5 percent of assets required by federal law; and allowing the 65 percent of all taxpayers who do not itemize their tax deductions to claim a deduction for charitable contributions.



3. Create a Social Innovation and Compassion Capital Fund. A "Social Innovation and Compassion Capital Fund" should be established to help nonprofit organizations -- including faith-based and community groups -- enhance their effectiveness and capacity to provide social services to those most in need; diversify their funding sources; strengthen their partnerships with nonprofit, private and the government sectors; and spawn the creation of new ideas and pilot programs that draw on the capacities of social entrepreneurs and innovators to improve existing systems and design new approaches to meet the needs of the poor and vulnerable.



4. Give nonprofit housing and financial institutions a prominent role in solving the nation's massive mortgage and foreclosure problems. Community development financial institutions and nonprofit housing organizations oversee billions of dollars in mortgages and loans to low-income communities and individuals, without the greed, excessive risk, and mismanagement that plagued so many subprime lenders and helped lead to the current financial crisis. At many of these institutions, the entire payroll is smaller than the executive bonuses at the major financial firms on Wall Street. As the Treasury Department and Congress design recovery plans for the housing sector, the federal government should make full use of these lean, dependable, results-driven nonprofits, and not simply pour more taxpayer dollars into the same institutions that brought on the economic crisis in the first place.

Below, we have compiled stories and statistics from across the nonprofit sector that illustrate the dire straits facing many of our most crucial institutions. As Americans have always shown in times of crisis, what we ask of ourselves matters most. If we want to create the most jobs for the lowest cost with the least bureaucracy and foster the spirit of sacrifice that President Obama envisions, we must find a place for more Americans to give back to their communities and country.

Read the full report.

Bruce Reed is president of the Democratic Leadership Council. John Bridgeland is president and CEO of Civic Enterprises.