Last week at dinner my mother’s friend Mary told me my blog postings were too serious. “Lighten up,” she said.
Those who see me day-to-day know that I am not always too serious. I’ve been known to encourage beach ball bowling in our office in Ellsworth and to run down the hall without shoes. There was also the time at a conference in Arizona when, thinking I knew who was calling, I answered the phone as a barking dog. My attempt to humor a colleague who’d complained about not sleeping the previous night because of barking dogs went awry when the front desk clerk on the line exclaimed surprise and said she must have dialed the wrong number.
These are sobering times for all of us in the nonprofit sector, and it’s hard to find humor in what has happened to us in the last eight months. State government support for human service agencies and vulnerable populations has been cut dramatically. Corporate and individual contributions are down; and philanthropic dollars are scarcer due to declines in the stock market. All of this is happening when the need is greater than ever.
Ever the optimist, I see light at the end of the tunnel. Consumer confidence is up and the stock market appears to have stabilized (albeit far below historic highs of 2007). At the same time, many of us in the nonprofit world are taking advantage of this crisis to reaffirm our mission and be more focused, more strategic, and more efficient.
As part of a special response to the recession, MaineCF has joined up with the Maine Association of Nonprofits, the Institute for Civic Leadership, Common Good Ventures, three United Way agencies, Maine Network Partners, and the Maine Health Access Foundation to help nonprofit organizations strengthen their internal capacity through Viability Clinics.
A year (or two or three) from now, when life returns to “normal,” I’m confident we will have a vibrant and stronger nonprofit sector ready to harness community assets and meet community needs. In the meantime, perhaps a little levity can help take the edge off the situation. Heard any good ones lately?