By Helen Weeber, CPA
Director, HW Nonprofit advisors

 

No one, in their wildest dreams, could have predicted a year like this. Even when COVID-19 first started, everyone thought it would only last a couple of months.  Here we are, almost nine months later, with no end in sight.

Nonprofits have been impacted particularly hard. They have had to adopt a new mission in 2020: Survival.  Every single nonprofit was forced to think fast and pivot. The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged nonprofits at a time when their services are needed more than ever.

Nonprofit leaders and boards have relied on a variety of tactics to survive 2020. This has resulted in restructuring, merging with other organizations, collaboration with government or other nonprofits, negotiating with funders, developing short-and-long term priorities, budgeting to conserve cash, investing in new technologies, and implementing cost-cutting measures.

Nonprofits have discovered that they can engage in remote work, Post-pandemic, this will help organizations broaden their pool of potential employees and make accommodations for the specific needs of their workforce.

As the demands for nonprofit services have expanded and nonprofits have been stretched thin, they have turned to one another to proactively expand and improve services.  The end result is that these organizations have come together to make meaningful progress on overhead costs, outcomes, repurposing how funding is used, making investments into technology, managing risk and creating sustainable organizations.

These are challenging times, for sure, when our hope and confidence waivers. However, as nonprofits adapt embracing the uncertainty and change, organizations find ways to survive and move forward into a new normal. And when the pandemic ends, nonprofits may find themselves stronger and not only surviving but thriving.

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