I strongly believe and know that non-profit organizations need adequate funding. My mother is a chief financial officer for a non-profit organization. That is her full-time, 40 (more like 60) hours a week job. Those are hours she spends creating, analyzing and maintaining a budget. It upsets me to think that members of Congress are not aware of the importance and necessity of financing non-profit organizations. Manpower, time, and money are only a few of the requirements needed to have a functioning agency or corporation. Non-profit organizations are not an exception. Without paid, full-time staff on hand, like you and my mom, non-profits would cease to function. Irrelevant this may be to some people, recovering drug addicts, abused family members, those living in poverty, those affected by natural disasters and many other members of society would beg to differ. I would like to point out that these citizens could fall into any social class, which I am of the opinion some people don't realize.
If our officials do lack the education on the issue, then the non-profits need to take big steps to enlighten the policy makers of our country. I know response to the cuts of federal support has not been taken lying down. AmeriCorps has an online petition to the U.S. Senate with over 117,000 signatures (one of them is mine) since February 19, 2011. I also read on the Corporation for National & Community Services website that President Obama proposed a $109 million budget increase for CNCS. It is comforting to know that funding cuts for non-profits does not seem to be too trendy in national politics.
For those interested, here is the link to the AmeriCorps petition:
Help the Citizens of Our Nation
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Sandra Weatherly’s blog posting, I can see that she is very passionate about non-profit organizations and how the federal budget can affect them. I know that there are non-profit organizations out there that rely heavily on the federal government for financial assistance. I am all for the federal government allocating money to help out non-profit organizations. However in these economic hard times, unfortunately there are going to be programs and organizations that will experience budget cuts.
In a utopian society, there would be enough money for all the programs and non-profit organizations to continue the important work that they do. Unfortunately, we do not live in a utopian society and there is simply not enough money to support every program and organization. The federal government no doubt has a very difficult job in trying to come up with a federal budget that everyone can agree on. Once the budget has been approved and passed, then there will be people that will be upset at the cutbacks. The truth of the matter is that Republicans and Democrats are really never going to agree on anything. Each party has their own agenda and ideas about how to accomplish these agendas. Instead what happens is that each party has to settle on giving and taking.
When this giving and taking occurs, the citizens of the United States are the ones that are affected the most. Many citizens from all socioeconomical ways of life are the ones that suffer. Sandra is correct that these programs and organizations need fulltime staff to take care of the people that they serve. Many people, especially the federal government, do not realize just how important these programs and non-profit organizations are important to the ones they serve.
It would be wonderful if all those making decisions see both sides of the coin and try to work it out so that everyone can continue to benefit from the work of these programs and non-fit organizations. It seems that the programs and organizations that rely on government assistance are the ones that are most effective in helping out those it serves. One can only hope that the trend that Sandra mentioned can continue and that Republicans and Democrats can start working together rather than against each other.