Nonprofits In Crisis: Charitable Giving Down While Needs Up

TAMPA BAY, FL — As the coronavirus pandemic continues into its sixth month, Tampa Bay charities are struggling to provide more services with fewer dollars.

Charitable giving across the country was down by 6 percent in the first quarter of 2020 compared to the same time last year, according to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project’s 2020 First Quarter Report. FEP is the world’s largest publicly available database of donations to nonprofits in the U.S., providing giving details from 2,496 nonprofit organizations based in the United States.

“The first two months of 2020 started out strong,” said Elizabeth Boris, chairwoman of the FEP's Growth in Giving Steering Committee. “But in March alone, we saw an 11 percent decline in donations, which was almost certainly a reflection of the impact of COVID-19.”

She said, if the 6 percent loss in the first quarter continues for the entire year, more than $25 billion that would have been given to nonprofits will be lost because of the pandemic.

The giving gap is especially wide in Florida where the Department of Economic Opportunity has now paid unemployment benefits to 1,923,315 Floridians totaling nearly $14.4 billion as of Friday.

This week the personal finance website, WalletHub, released a study that shows Florida has the third slowest recovery rate in the nation. Only Georgia and Kansas had slower recovery rates.

According to WalletHub, Florida had a 625.19 percent increase in unemployment claims the week of Aug. 17 compared to the same week in 2019. And between March 16 and Aug. 17, Florida had a 2,440.44 percent increase in unemployment claims when compared to the same period in 2019.

Feeding Tampa Bay Opened 6 Mega Pantries To Meet The Demand

As a result, Feeding Tampa Bay, part of the Feeding America Network that provides food to residents in need, is seeing record numbers of people who can't afford to buy groceries.

According to Thomas Mantz, president and CEO of Feeding Tampa Bay, since the coronavirus pandemic began, people in need within the 10-county area it serves has mushroomed from 650,000 to 1.7 million.

To keep up with the demand, Feeding Tampa Bay has opened six "mega" drive-thru food pantries in addition to the organization's 150 monthly mobile food pantries.

On a typical Saturday morning at the mega pantry at the Dale Mabry Highway campus of Hillsborough Community College, more than 400 vehicles line up at the drive-thru. On average, each mega pantry serves 3,500 people.

Report Shows Floridians Falling Further Behind

Other Tampa Bay nonprofits are equally stressed.

The United Way Suncoast, which provides financial, organizational, volunteer support and connects businesses partners with hundreds of Tampa Bay nonprofit organizations in DeSoto, Hillsborough, Manatee, Pinellas and Sarasota counties, is also struggling to meet the demand for funds and volunteers.

According to United Way Suncoast CEO Jessica Muroff, Floridians were already in a financial spiral when the coronavirus pandemic hit.

In early May, United For ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed), a collaboration of 650 United Ways in 21 states along with corporations and foundations, released its latest Florida ALICE Report.

Before the pandemic was declared, nearly 2.6 million Florida households were one emergency away from financial ruin — a 10-year record high, said the report. Over the last decade, Florida’s low-income families systematically lost buying power and financial stability as the high cost of essentials outpaced wages, driving the number of ALICE households to rise 66 percent by 2018, the report said.

The pandemic only compounded the crisis, said Muroff.

“We’ve known that our economy was increasingly reliant on these families we call ALICE, who are financially vulnerable to one emergency,” she said. “COVID-19 became that one universal emergency. ALICE families are facing the greatest health and financial risks today, as they are the workers who don’t have health insurance, have no paid sick days, and whose children receive daily meals at school.”

In 2018, of Florida’s 7.8 million households, nearly 2.6 million were ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) a record number that were unable to afford the basics for survival, despite working. That’s in addition to the 1 million families that were in poverty.

“No matter how hard ALICE families worked, the gap between their wages and the cost of basics just kept widening,” said Muroff “These already fragile ALICE households are now facing an even deeper financial hole due to the state of emergency created by COVID-19.”

The study showed that the cost of survival ranges annually from $24,600 for a single adult to $27,348 for a senior citizen and $69,516 for a family of four with an infant and a preschooler. Putting this in perspective, the median hourly wage in Florida is $22,040, less than all the budgets.

This mismatch between wages and costs is demonstrated in a new measurement debuting in this year's ALICE report called the ALICE Essentials Index. The index chronicles how the cost of housing, child care, food, transportation, health care and a smartphone plan rose at nearly twice the rate of inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index. During the same period, the number of low-wage jobs grew by 69 percent, accounting for the majority of all jobs in Florida.

“The ALICE Essentials Index shows that, through no fault of their own, ALICE families have been priced out of economic stability, setting the stage for the scope of this crisis,” said United For ALICE National Director Stephanie Hoopes. “Using the Consumer Price Index alone to measure inflation provides an incomplete picture of the cost of living, severely underestimating the mounting financial pressures on ALICE families.”

In March, United Way Suncoast launched its COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund with 100 percent of the funds, mostly corporate donations, going to provide people impacted by the coronavirus.

By late April, a matter of weeks, the United Way Suncoast had provided $867,149 in funding to 37 human services agencies serving 504,799 people.

“United Way Suncoast, our donors and volunteers are continuing to work hard to serve our community at a time of greatest need," Muroff said.

City, County Governments Step Up To Plate

With food banks struggling and eviction rates expected to soar when the eviction moratorium in Florida ends, more city and county governments are stepping up to the plate to bail out nonprofits using federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funds.

At the beginning of August, the Pinellas County government in partnership with the Pinellas CARES Nonprofit Partnership Fund operated by the nonprofit Pinellas Community Foundation announced it providing $30 million in CARES Act funds to qualifying nonprofit organizations. This is the first time the county’s CARES Act dollars were offered expressly to nonprofits.

Among the nonprofit agencies welcoming the news was Gulfcoast Legal Services.

“Even with the moratorium extension on evictions, landlords can still commence residential eviction proceedings due to rent non-payment,” said Tammy Greer, executive director of Gulfcoast Legal Services. “Landlords just cannot seek a final judgment.”

She said the money will be used to help build the legal staff to handle the influx of eviction calls expected this fall.

New Visions of the Well was also grateful for Pinellas County's help.

“Mental health support for the Black community is a crucial need,” said Dr. LaDonna Butler, president and CEO of New Visions of the Well, a mental health services provider focused on the Black community.

The Black community has been doubly challenged due to the combination of the stress of systemic racism and rising concern about health and Covid-19, she said.

Signs Of Hope

The FEP said the effects of the pandemic on donations were seen across all types and sizes of nonprofits, especially since most fundraising events were canceled or postponed due to the pandemic.

“Unfortunately, very few nonprofits were immune to the virus,” said Steven Shattuck, a member of the FEP steering committee.

But there were some signs of hope, he said.

Donations of under $250 were up 6 percent, which is unusual since recent tax changes allow all taxpayers—including those who do not itemize—the ability to deduct their donations this year, Shattuck said.

“While much of the world went into panic mode, and many larger donors pulled back because of the decline in the stock market, the everyday person who gives smaller amounts stepped in to fill the void,” said Ben Miller, secretary of the FEP steering committee. “It is incredible that these smaller donations are up that much, and it reminds us of the collective power that donors can have together.”

This article originally appeared on the Tampa Patch