Nonprofit Finance Fund Unveils Illinois’ Results From 2013 State of the Sector Survey
On March 25, the Nonprofit Finance Fund unveiled the results of its 2013 State of the Nonprofit Sector Survey, detailing the finances, operations, and outlook of 5,983 nonprofit organizations across the U.S. The organization was kind enough to supply its data from Illinois organizations to Donors Forum.
Illinois nonprofits continued to report strong demand for services, with 76 percent of respondents indicating that service demand either slightly or significantly increased in 2012. However, just 51 percent of organizations said that they were able to meet service demand in 2012, and 52 percent expect to be able to meet demand in 2013.
The NFF data emphasizes the significant impact of nonpayment by the Illinois state government to nonprofits for services rendered, with just 16 percent of organizations surveyed indicating they receive state and local government payments on or ahead of schedule, compared with 39 percent in the full data set. Forty-two percent of organizations said they anticipate and plan for this delay, while the most commonly report impacts of the late payments were use of reserve funds, accessing lines of credit, and utilizing funding from other sources.
Sixty-three percent of responding nonprofit organizations in Illinois said that funders asked them to measure the long-term impact of their programs, and 82 percent said they collect such information either regularly or sometimes. Of the organizations that do not regularly measure long-term program impact, the most common reasons for not doing so were a lack of staff or time, no resource to hire outside consultants, or program impact that is not easily measured.
When asked what they expect to be the most significant factors for their ability to fulfill their mission in 2013, the most common answers from Illinois nonprofits were recent natural disasters, the preservation of the charitable deduction, continued slow jobs recovery, and the outcome of the fiscal cliff negotiations. Forty-nine percent of respondents said the 2013 financial outlook for their organizations should be more or less the same as in 2012, with 16 percent saying 2013 would be easier than 2012 and 35 percent saying 2013 would be harder.
The report with data specific to Illinois can be found here. The full report with data for the United States can be found here.
~Nick Ammerman, Library Services Coordinator, Donors Forum