Paul Light, a professor of Public Service at New York University, has warned that some 100,000 nonprofit organizations may be wiped out in the next few years. At a minimum. The financial crisis comes on the heels of a presidential campaign that drained the coffers of many big donors. The ACLU alone is facing a $19 million hole in its budget and has had to cancel various projects as well as dismiss 10 percent of its staff nationwide.
Eyal Press in The Nation Magazine writes that, “Now, with foundations watching their endowments shrivel, many individual donors maxed out and states across the country staring at massive budget deficits, nonprofits are scaling back their services at the very moment when the need for them is escalating.”
Press, Marjorie Fine of the Center for Community Change, Talia Schank of Community Voices Heard, and Katherine Acey of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice discuss the fate of nonprofits in a world of falling profits.
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