Non-profit organisations facing less money for more work by IRIN News 8:21pm 21st Apr, 2009   21 April 2009    Non-profit organisations and NGOs are laying off staff and cutting back aid programmes as the global recession bites, and the prospects for 2010 also look bleak.    "Clearly the impact of the financial downturn on charities is widening and deepening," said Suzi Leather, chair of the Charity Commission, the independent regulator for charitable activity in England and Wales. "Some charities still face that double whammy of a drop in income as well as an increased demand for services."    In its latest update the Commission reported that 64 percent of charities with an annual income of over £1 million (about US$1.48 million) said they were concerned their services or funding might be greatly affected.    "In 2009, we’re estimating that giving from foundations will decline in the range of the high single digits to the low double digits," said Steven Lawrence, senior director of research at the Foundation Center, a leading US authority on philanthropy, noting that foundation assets declined double that amount, almost 22 percent, in 2008.    "Unquestionably 2010 is going to be another year of decreasing foundation giving, but based on past experience it will still be in a more modest range," he told IRIN. This is going to be felt right through the non-profit world for NGOs in Africa and elsewhere, he said.    The overall effect of the crisis on charitable giving both by foundations and individuals is wide-ranging.    "There have been cutbacks in budgets and programmes. Some members have instituted wage freezes, hiring freezes, travel restrictions, etc. There also have been functions eliminated and layoffs," James Bishop, vice-president of Humanitarian Policy and Practice at InterAction, the largest coalition of US-based international NGOs, told IRIN.    Reduced operations    One NGO that has resorted to most of these measures is Catholic Relief Services (CRS), which reaches more than 80 million people in over 100 countries, and is now facing a 13 percent shortfall in revenue from its private US donors for the first six months of the 2009 financial year.    "In a normal year our private revenue coming into the agency from mainly American Catholics would be $150 million - we expect that to be reduced by $16 million to $17 million and we’ve lost an equal amount in equities," Executive Vice-President of Charitable Giving Michael Wiest told IRIN.    CRS already had in place plans to reduce - over a three-year period - its operations in East Asia, Eastern Europe and South America in favour of increased growth in Africa, South Asia and the Middle East.    "But because of the financial situation we had to move in that direction very quickly," Wiest said. "We’ve reduced our programming in those three areas sharply over the past six months so as to maintain to the degree possible our efforts in Africa, Pakistan and Afghanistan."    Programmes cut include economic development in agriculture, micro-financing and maternal child health, while the programmes benefitting Africa range from anti-retroviral therapy and other AIDS projects such as care for orphans, to agriculture, microfinance and water development...    * Visit the link below to access the complete article. Visit the related web page
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