Since the start of the pandemic, nonprofits led by people of color have faced significant increases in demand for their services at the same time they have struggled with severe budgetary challenges, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Building Movement Project.
About 80 percent of those surveyed for the report On the Frontlines: Nonprofits Led by People of Color Confront COVID-19 and Structural Racism lead groups that serve communities that have been directly impacted by the pandemic. More than a third reported helping individuals who had lost a loved one to the virus, and about 60 percent said they serve people who face unsafe working conditions.
The organizations are also serving people who have suffered the consequences of the economic contraction. About 60 percent are aiding people who do not have stable housing, and more than half are working with people who have lost utilities.
“This crisis is going to continue to get worse and come in waves,” says Deepa Iyer, a co-author of the study and the group’s director of movement building. “These groups have moderate budgets; they have smaller staff. They were already making do with little before the crisis. They are worried about whether they can meet the evolving needs of their communities that are leaning on them even more than before.”
The survey of 433 nonprofit leaders of color was conducted in May, and researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 41 leaders in June. Most of the groups surveyed are small — more than half have budgets under $1 million, and 75 percent have fewer than 20 staff.
About half of the groups reported increasing direct services and advocacy. Often these groups are helping those that the government has failed to support, Iyer says. They provide information about the virus in multiple languages, for example, and they serve people who are undocumented and cannot get government aid. The groups have also had to pivot to provide new services, Iyer says. For example, hotlines for gender-based violence are now handling calls about evictions, which only stretches their already thin resources.
While the demand for services has shifted and spiraled in ways that groups could never have anticipated, most organizations are making do with far fewer resources to meet those needs.
Thirty-eight percent of nonprofits reported that grant income was down. Those with Black leaders fared even worse — 46 percent said that their grant income had fallen. Among all the groups surveyed, roughly two-thirds reported that earned income and individual donations were also down. Government funding had remained unchanged for about half the organizations surveyed, but according to the report, that is likely to change as falling tax revenue forces state and local government to cut their budgets.
“We need money and trust. When we tell you, ‘We know what we’re doing,’ you can believe us.” Jamila Medley, executive director of the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance, told the researchers. “We need not just funding for this six-month period of crisis, not just for a year, but multiple years of funding so we are enabled and have the capacity and resources to create transformation.”
Only about half of the groups surveyed received a federal Paycheck Protection Program loan. Some had few problems with the application, but for others the process was “confusing and unpredictable; they filed paperwork that went nowhere, faced long delays, and spent a lot of staff time on the process,” according to the report.
Receiving a loan seemed to help groups financially. About half of the organizations that received the loan said they were very or somewhat concerned about their group’s financial stability in a year. Three-quarters of nonprofits that did not receive PPP loans were similarly concerned.
More needs to be done to aid these organizations because they’re critical to their communities, Iyer says.
“For community-based groups that are led by people of color, there needs to be a unique and particularized response because these groups are closer to the ground and closer to the communities that are being affected,” she says. “And they’re not completely set up to be able to handle the overwhelming needs that are in their communities.”
Stresses on Women Leaders
The last six months have been particularly devastating for the 70 percent of the survey respondents who are women of color. Those leaders are straining to fill too many roles at work and at home and need more support, Iyer says.
One survey respondent quoted in the report said: “I am carrying the entire load for the organization. Two staff members have lost close family members to the virus, and I have had to provide emotional and financial support to them, which has been extremely exhausting.”
Another added: “For women of color, there’s an extra expectation that we show up as not just leaders but like mom and sister, especially in a time of crisis like this one.”
But even though leaders are exhausted and groups are under financial strain and stretched thin, some expressed optimism, Iyer says. The survey was done in May before the protests over the killing of George Floyd and others at the hands of police, but the interviews were conducted in June when protests were beginning. Leaders felt that the pandemic and the protests illuminated issues of racial inequity in a way that created an opportunity for change, Iyer says.
“They are seeing these openings politically because of the uprisings to actually uplift issues, to get deeper in terms of their own advocacy and organizing, to build solidarity with other organizations, and to really ask for and demand some structural change in ways that they didn’t feel was possible before.”
