The Pentera Blog
Report: Nonprofits Are Innovating and Collaborating to Meet Pandemic-Era Challenges
Faced with stagnant or declining funding, many nonprofit organizations are responding by adopting new technologies and also by collaborating with other organizations to achieve their program goals, according to a new report by UHY, an international accounting firm.
The report, based on a survey of 116 nonprofits, found nearly 60% said they have adopted new technology in the past year to keep up with the demands of the pandemic-era economy. This result echoed a trend the report’s authors say they have observed in the financial services space for some time: “the abandoning of outdated, labor-intensive processes in favor of efficient and increasingly sophisticated automation tools.”
More than half of the nonprofits surveyed also reported collaborating in recent months with other organizations to achieve their goals. Again, the report’s authors see this as a positive development for the nonprofit sector, stating that “collaboration between not-for-profits can lead to each organization achieving positive outcomes that may have otherwise not been possible...”
The need for cost- and time-saving measures is borne out by another of the survey’s findings, namely, that more than half of the nonprofits surveyed reported their funding levels have either remained stagnant or decreased in the past year. In addition, many organizations that received aid during the COVID-19 pandemic are now facing “the apparent and abrupt deceleration of [emergency] funds available,” according to the report.
The survey also found that 40% of nonprofits said attracting and retaining qualified people is a current top priority. About 13% said creating new programs should be a top priority, and another 13% would prioritize the need for more funds for overhead and indirect expenses.
Read the full report here.
