How the Pandemic Left Some Nonprofits Stronger Than Before

During the pandemic, the South Asian Council for Social Services found itself on the front lines of New York City’s relief work. Its food program — previously almost an afterthought for an organization focused largely on health care and education for South Asian immigrants — grew from serving 350 families to 1,700. Staff set up tables across Queens to hand out masks — 3.5 million altogether. Hospitals and health centers opened vaccination clinics at its main office, providing shots to more than 7,500 people.

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Three years after the pandemic’s start, the organization has raised its profile with city-council members, the mayor’s office, and local foundations and donors. And its budget, which was $2 million before the pandemic, now stands at $3 million.

Executive director Sudha Acharya says she’s confident that more money is coming. “It’s probably not a smart thing to say,” she says, laughing. “Community organizations are supposed to say, ‘There’s no funding.’ And it’s true: We need funding. But I think the powers that be will respond if you make the right case.”

The council’s growth during the pandemic illustrates one of the pandemic’s unexpected twists: Despite forecasts of doom at the start, many nonprofits emerged fiscally stronger than before, thanks in part to government and foundation emergency relief as well as a surge in individual giving. Some 36 percent of organizations had cash reserves in 2022 equal to at least one-quarter of their operating budget — twice the share as in 2018, according to the Nonprofit Finance Fund.

Many direct-service organizations like the South Asian Council saw new funding. They say their pandemic work illustrated the value of their community connections to government agencies and institutions like hospitals that needed to reach the grassroots level. Small community groups across the country stepped into the gap left by the underfunded public-health system to provide Covid testing, vaccines, and help navigating the pandemic’s economic storms, says Chet Hewitt, president of the Sierra Health Foundation in California. “I would argue that nonprofits helped save the health and well-being of our country.”

Other causes benefited as the pandemic laid bare some of the country’s starkest disparities. The frequent images of long food-bank lines illustrated how many Americans live without the financial cushion to withstand a single emergency, says Casey Marsh, chief development officer at Feeding America. The network saw more than 1 million new donors in 2020 and 2021, and its national office raised more than $200 million from first-time donors making gifts of $1 million or more.

“It was an explosion of new support for the issue, the topic, and the willingness to help,” Marsh says.

Philanthropic support of work on rural health issues has accelerated in recent years, says Keith Mueller, director of the Rural Policy Research Institute. “That’s due in part to the pandemic calling attention to all the weaknesses in the U.S. health care delivery system. People became aware of those and the inequities.”

Thom Bridge, Independent Record

In Montana, the scarcity of affordable housing became glaring as the influx of wealthy West Coast city dwellers seeking a pandemic sanctuary sent home prices and rents soaring. The Helena chapter of Habitat for Humanity, which had recently purchased tracts of land, wanted to continue building despite the pandemic and lockdowns, and donors stepped up. The group’s operating budget climbed from about $850,000 to $1.5 million, thanks in part to increased giving.

“The attention on the issue meant funders were eager to step up and help,” says executive director Jacob Kuntz. “People just recognized the need.”