Local not-for-profit organisations can win in a post-pandemic world

Not-for-profit organisation could be alarmed by the Killian Plastow’s article in The New Daily 8 September article, Charities slammed by triple threat as coronavirus damage takes its toll.

The story reports on JB Were modelling that found Australia’s charitable sector could expect around a 7.1 per cent fall in donations in 2020, followed by an 11.9 per cent drop in 2021. In dollar terms, it’s an annual fall of over $2 billion in 2021 from an estimated $14 billion in 2019.

It paints a pretty gloomy picture If you’re involved in fundraising for a small not-for-profit but, I would argue, only if you allow it to shape your perspective. The flip side of the COVID-19 story for smaller not-for-profits with a local focus is that the pandemic has brought people back to community, closer to neighbours and seeking comfort in the aspects of their lives that they can control.

Even working from home has embedded more people into their local environment. The village has reawakened and local faces, albeit half-hidden behind surgical masks and make-do bandanas, are becoming as familiar as the colleagues encountered in the office.

For organisations focused locally, there has never been a better time to build a presence and articulate a value proposition that can deliver tangible and demonstrable community outcomes.

I recently joined the board of such an organisation in my local community, The Mornington Peninsula and Westernport Biosphere Foundation (biosphere.org.au). I have been interested in the environment and animal welfare for many years and worked on global fundraising programs for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF Australia).

Theirs were exciting and grand campaigns - The Southern Ocean Sanctuary for Whales, Taskforce Tiger (preservation of the Indian tiger population), the Geneva-based Sustainable Fisheries and others. As someone involved in those campaigns, it was extremely gratifying to see great results, but their resonance was felt in places that, if I am lucky, I might visit only fleetingly.

Joining the Biosphere involves me in projects from which I will see, feel, and live the outcome as part of my local environment. It’s exciting to be able to work and benefit from local projects that contribute in a small way to a much broader, worldwide environmental effort.

I propose this enthusiasm to engage in projects and causes that have local impact will be more widely shared in the post-pandemic world. It is why I believe that locally focused charities and not-for-profits will benefit from redoubling their efforts to articulate their community alignment and affinity.

This is not to deny the challenges posed by Plastow’s article and that not-for-profits will find that Australian government authorities from national to local, businesses and individuals will be more frugal and their generosity constrained in the months and years ahead. The competition among not-for-profits for a share of the diminished pool of discretionary savings will be fierce.

In this circumstance, the advantage will notionally lie with the ‘big brand’ charities with resources to advertise, campaign and project manage major programs. What they cannot match, however, is the capacity of smaller, focused organisations to evolve more intimate and mutually beneficial connections with community.