File this one in the “tell-me-about-it” folder: A late-June survey of nonprofits by the Center for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins University found that 83 percent of respondents reported “fiscal stress” during the period from September 2008 to March 2009, with nearly half of organizations saying their stress was “severe” or “very severe.” The report on the findings, “Impact of the 2007-09 Economic Recession on Nonprofit Organizations,” says that one-third of child-serving nonprofits fell into the “severe” or “very severe” stress category. Fueling the strain, authors say, was a “perfect storm” of impacts compounding the economic recession, including declining revenue, increasing health care costs, and diminishing endowments. Despite these negatives, the report says nonprofits are hanging in there and are even reporting less stress than during the 2002-2003 post-9/11 recession. The majority of family and children’s service organizations reported only “minimal” or “moderate” financial pressure during the survey period.
