2010 Pennsylvania Charitable Organizations Survey

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• ZSeeking partners or collaborators
• Restructuring staff responsibilities
• No change for 2011, but then our supplemental funding runs out and we will have major changes
• cutting salaries
• Major renovations
• others are merging with us
• decreasing operations
• Build New Facility
• Benefit reduction possible possible
• update bldg w/ windows & new roof
• Depending on funding, we may have to lay off more staff and decrease services.
• more than one; survey will not let us choose that response
• Completing construction of expanded facilities
• would consider collaboration, partnership, etc if opportunity presented itself.
• restructuring largest program area
• Major Renovation Project 18-24 months
• adjust services
• Cut expenses furtherm, hold additional fundraisers
• HD Conversion
• integration and downsizing
• F/EA Certification
• Other groups merging into us
• Strategic Collaborations - if possible (shared services)
• partnership(s)

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• NA
• ED and Board have no clue
• shortage of qualified people in health care
• N/A
• Hire turnover
• Need for qualified bi-lingual staff
• 2 reasons: salary offers lower; benefits not as good as competition
• folks want the extended unemployment benefits instead of working
• Rural location + for profits offer better salary & benefit packages
• No paid salaries, all volunteers
• Job has become more difficult; some misconduct ( theft)
• Salaries are very low because of government levels of payment for positions for direct support professionals
• can't provide benefits to parttimers
• NO ISSUE
• Salaries and education minimums for line staff (TSS, res advisors) are low and tend to have very high turnover. Mgmt positions are much more stable.
• no paid staff
• Difficulty allocating funds for staff
• Other employers - including nonprofits - offer better salaries and benefits than our agency can afford.
• No difficulty at this time.
• na
• NA
• we have no employees/all volunteer
• Demanding Work Environment
• Inherited very fragmented staff of very part time (less than 20 hr/wk) staffing - do not have resources to fund full time appropriate positions & benefits
• low salary for direct care staff, this is the only tunover problem
• Since our employees are part-time or volunteer, we find it is more difficult to attract people because they seem to have less free time available and are working harder to earn a living at their mail source of employment.
• n/a
• All of the above
• can't afford full time for staff - now 80%
• Bad question
• Specialized skills needed

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• No challenges.
• Board Elected by Members Limits Ability to Recruit
• n/a
• hasn't been an issue for us
• difficulty with mobility due to disabilities
• Difficulty fundraising
• We have not had difficulties
• not aware of any difficulties
• Language/Education
• three reasons - lack of time, already committeed and unwilling to fundraise
• All the above
• Challenge has been one more of a paridigm shift and generating greater committment and active participation in the organization and its mission/events/projects -- this is an educational process which the current leadership is earnestly striving to achieve.
• arts orgs are more appealing
• Limited connection to organization
• Old board members
• hard to identify qualified Board Members
• no problem recruiting
• Some are not willing to fundraise or do much work at all for the agency.
• faulty survey -will not accept more than one response
• No problem recruiting board members at this time.
• na
• we have more applicants than openings.
• no issues
• we need to take the time to choose and recruit the right people
• NONE
• lack of time, willingness to fundraise and committment
• Existing Board members have limited connections to recruit new people
• No issues
• none
• Since the survey will not allow me to combine, lack of time, people committed to other organizations, and an unwillingness to fundraise - often because our people are feeling too pressured to give as requests mount and income stagnants or dwindles mean we are struggling to find and keep individuals. This year, we have lost 60% of our board members and have had to amend our bylaws in order to fill some of the vacant positions.
• Lack of strategy
• No issues
• NA
• lack of time and difficulty fundraising
• not applicable
• 51% have to be people with disabilities
• Specialty areas of expertise
• recruiting minorities
• Specialized focus

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• None that I can think of.
• training
• Greater Advocacy efforts
• Receive thorough critical information from PANO
• None at the present time
• help with EITC funding
• bulk purchase discounts
• Not sure
• HOw to really work as a team to serve the public
• More support in helping to find funding.
• Technical assistance
• Health insurance and administrative support
• Can't think of any at this time.
• na
• needed services are being provided
• none, we get what we need from them
• n/a
• N/A
• n/a
• Pleased with the services at this point
• Discounted Health Insurance Rates
• none
• Better health insurance rates.
• opportunities for the small non profit to benefit from joint purchasing. Always seems to benefit the orgs. with larger staffs - that doesn't make sense!
• bad
• true advocacy - taking a stand against government through legislative actions and possible litigation
• roundtable discussions with CEO's
• Not much focus on 501c3 orgs from ASAE
• NA

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• Finding funding for administrative costs.
• Receiving adequate funding.
• Having enough food to provide to the increasing number of needy families
• Income
• fundraising
• funding
• Government funding
• Funding / grants
• Ongoing unrecognized severity of the economic collapse and the resulting lack of effect planning and efforts to address the situation
• Funding from state, other strategies for fund raising, filling open positions to the Board
• The economy
• Funding
• developing a donor/fundraising plan in a difficult economic period
• Funding - consistent sources and amounts
• Meeting the budget and the needs of the comunity
• uncertainty of economy
• State funding for our food pantry
• the 11/12 state budget
• Volunteer recruitment and management
  Board recruitment
  Financial stability
• securing adequate funding to meet demand for increased services
• retaining staff and maintaining services
• Further state budget reductions
• STABILITY OF CASH FLOW
• Funding
• expanding capacity to address long-range planning
• Cash Flow as we are a state cost reimbursement agency and as of today we are awaiting 3 months (May-June-July) HOPWA reimbursement and two months Ryan White & State monies. It is over $30,000 and we have maxed our line of credit. Plus we had to pay August rents for clients and I cannot bill to HOPWA until September.
• Failure of taxing bodies to understand that most social services are most effectively delivered through established nonprofit organizations.
• Diversification of funding.
• Meeting the needs of constituents with diminishing financial resources
• Stability of government funding and cutural competency issues
• Funds for general operation - we run trainings for nonprofit executives and managers and their ability to pay tuition has grown much more limited, so having enough funding to support our work at a fee level that our consumers can afford is critical.
• funding and retention of medical staff
• maintaining our funding.
• Retention of current (2010) members and renewal of 2009 members
• Replacing lost funding
• funds for program development
• Membership
• adequate revenues
• Funding
• Sustainability
• Funding/Staffing
• Being able to pay our bills!
• Funding
• The lack of new funding sources and decreased funding from our traditional sources has put us in a defensive mode, while the need for our services has increased. We need to expand to meet the needs or our community, but we are stuck in damage control mode. I want us to grow and lead, but we are not in that mind set currently.
• Fundraising
• funding
• Reductions in United Way funding. Possible loss of state tax credit donations.
• Keep our offerings from our church up.
• Be able to feed all of the people in need of food
• revenue
• contributed income
• Fluctuating stock market
• Time to comply with all the rules and procedures required by HUD.
• Whether or not federal funding will continue or be stopped
• meeting our clients needs
• Finding new partners in the community.
• Continued decreases in state funding (as well as late payments for grants that are awarded) and foundations requiring ridiculous demands for an application processes that gives less and less $$
• State Budget cuts
• The economy.
• Funding by the Federal government
• cuts to non-profits
• Ability to sustain and improve our programs
• money
• Funding
• Staying afloat without the board and committees spending all the money they can with no regard to the long term financial well being of the org.
• Concerned our state funding will decrease due to new administration and/or lack of funds in the primary pot from which we are awarded grants.
• Enough students and money to receive to run a Catholic school for next year
• $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
• Raising funds
• maintaining funding with a $00K budget and only 1 PT staff member
• seeking and retaining non-tradional funds
• unable to continue to assist poor and impoverished children with help in their school work...
• funding to accomplish mission
• State funding reductions and the capacity to fully support program funded services with shrinking base mental health and mental retardation dollars.
• Continued decreases in state funding for our organization.
• Health insurance
• More state funding cuts when stimulus dollars are gone.
• fund raising
• Funding
• Fundraising, Participation of Board and committee members
• Availability of Federal funding for housing
• Weeding out board members who want to do nothing for the organization and recruiting new board members and being able to retain them.
• continued government funding challenges
• fundraising
• Driving Revenue
• State Budget
• PA budget and a political environment focused on short term solutions to long-term issues
• Increasing donor base and approved grants.
• how are our clients doing during the downturn and will they be able to survive until things improve.
• State budget shortfalls will reduce State funds even further.
• Improve our program
• funding to expand new services
• Too many non-profits; doing similar things asking for funds
• The PA state budget and services to MR/IDD populations, which is our biggest source of revenue.
• Staying afloat.
• Continued descreases in funding along with not being able to increase donations to organization to offset the funding decreases.
• how to expand
• funding
• Too many non-profits all competing for the pool of donors' dollars
• Need for some capital improvements of our facility and lack of foundational support
• Funding
• Sustainability
• fund raising success
• Revenue
• Money
• Fundraising, Fundraising, Fundraising.
• maintaing level of funding
• Having money not to reduce some services. Discontinuance of some services is not an option, it is truly about life and death.
• Connecting with people who share our vision and can help us grow.
• keeping diabled employees working
• Unforeseen costs.
• Income generation
• increased costs with no increase projected in revenues
• Ensuring growth of our services and mission, while resources remain tight. Our clients' needs are increasing, while our funding is decreasing.
• Holding on financially so we can just get by. With such a bare bones budget, and not enough staff, we can't even think about capacity building. We're all working as fast as we can just to serve clients and keep money coming in to do so.
• Decrease in services due to loss of ARRA funds that the State heavily used.
• State budget shortfall
• Lack of funding for expansion.
• The economy.
• Fundraising!
• No increase in our rates for what will be 3 years by the end of FY2011; double-digit annual increases in health care costs; county staff unable to meet the demands of the state for paperwork and fiscal review paralyzes the contracting process.
• dollars to pay the bills
• Employee layoffs, company closings, and decrease in both state and federal funding for many social services.
• funding of youth programming in our region
• Funding
• Succession planning and public policy relating to food and nutrition programs on the state and federal level.
• Having the resources (money and staff time) to continue to build internal capacity to work more efficiently and effectively with regard to processes as well as organizational culture to work together with the greatest impact.
• Growth
• Conducting a capital campaign for an anticipated expansion. We want to have the entire cost in the bank prior to beginning the project.
• Sustaining higher level of financial suport for the 2010 expanded program. Capital campaign fund rasising had a lot of appeal. Operational support sometimes does not have the same sense of urgency and "band wagon" effect on donors. Need to be eve more creative and tuned into persoanl appeals that also use TECHNOLOGY.
• Funding
• Difficulty in raising money from all sources.
• operating capital
• Funding
• Fundraising, directors leaving board after term
• Being able to sustain a couple of our programs once grants run out.
• The alarming increase of mental health needs to be met by our community's charitable resources.
• Providing quality services in the most cost effective manner
• fundraising
• fundraising
• rapidly changing public funding environment
• funding to cover the expense of providing care to the uninsured
• Economy
• We've been operating at a deficit for 2 years, and have managed to "pull through" thanks to a local hospital and surprise major gifts at the last minute. Board no longer willing to do so & must downsize staff and services to meet our revenue abilities. This may negatively impact our public image at a time when we are trying to step up efforts to more effectively raise funds, and of course, we have no marketing/communications expert to help us with messaging. Also apprehensive about what it will do to morale & staff retention, and how staff who opt to exit will take vaulable organizational info/history with them. It is likely to be a difficult year, though these changes are necessary for our long term sustainability.
• Funding from State government- we are potentially in danger of losing 50% of our state funding
• Maintaining funding
• Cash flow and funding
• adequate funding
• future viability of our agency
• Funding
• Keeping highly qualified and motivated prospects informed about current project to ensure achieving fund raising goals.
• Need increase in contracted fee for services.
• Where will the funding come form for general administrative expenses.
• income
• economy
• Over the past two years, we have lost ALL Federal, State and Local funding because our organization is small and therefore "unimportant."
  we currently operate on a budget of under $60,000 which is less than half of our budget five years ago.
• Increasing revenue sources
• Continued economic downturn impacting our annual fund campaigns...
• Economy, high unemployment
• Funding and Membership
• funding issues
• funding
• Continuing reduction in donations and grants
• Maintaining an adequate levels of program fees paid by individuals and not by government sources
• ability to continure operations
• Possible budget difficulties
• getting continued source of income
• Programs
• Revenue
• Board development, increasing funding from foundations and corporations
• Raising significant additional funds for needed building repairs.
• The economy
• Funding
• Staying effective in our mission despite the constantly changing demands in consumer-employed vs. agency models of service.
• If funding will be available in the future?
• funding
• impact of healthcare reform on the cost of providing employee benefits
• Changing individual and corporate demographics in our local area.
• survival and growth
• Hanging on until the economy turns around.
• Lack of COLA for past 8 years; disappearing County discretionary money to reconcile expenses at the end of the year; lack of production work for our clients.
• Lack of rate increases for child welfare services.
• Need for increased funding.
• financial
• Slaes pipeline
• Whether the government will reduce funding further because there is not enough revenue coming in already this fiscal year.
• Lack of funding for operating expenses
• consistent funding
• state and federal funding is decreasing or remaining static while costs are increasing.
• Raising general operating support.
• No increase in funding - donations from individuals down
• fundraising/development
• Funding
• Preparing for a capital campaign to fund a new building. Looking for grants to fund the build.
• Money!!!
• Heathcare reform
• finances
• Money
• The response time from the state to issue reimbursement for grants/awards. Payment dissemination of reimbursements are to lengthy - resulting in our organization having to borrow monies from our line of credit until payment is rendered to us.
• Funding from foundations and corporations
• The toxic environment that OCYF has created. They have dismantled a healthy children and youth system in PA.
• Raising the funding needed to carryout our mission
• funding
• finding qualified staff
• Greater need in regards to our mission, but fewer resources to meet that need
• The state of the economy
• Uncertainty in State/Federal/Local funding
• funding in general
• Inability to anticipate what resources are available and how government changes will impact our ability to deliver on our mission.
• Economy, changing markets, changing service models
• Feeding the hungry
• Funding stability from the state

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