Human Services Organizations Take Hard Hits During Economic Crises

According to a survey conducted by Human Service Council (HSC) and Baruch College: School of Public Affairs in New York City, human services organizations in the New York City metropolitan area are being squeezed from both sides of service and funding. Human services organizations are seeing increases in demand for services and decreases in government funding, donations and endowments which all relate to the present state of the economy. For 84% of the organizations responding to the survey, public funding accounts for more than 40% of their operating budgets.

According to the organizations that responded to the survey, 60% are having difficulty managing cash flow, 30% have no lines of credit, and 67% have no endowment. Of the organizations that responded that had endowments, 73% saw decreases in their endowment. 53% of these organizations were forced to cut staff in order to cut costs. Some of these organizations have had to cut programs and those that have not are considering this option to cut costs.

While these statistics were gathered from organizations in the New York City metropoliation area, the current economic crisis is putting a great deal of strain on human service organizations around the country that rely a great deal on public funding.

The information above was summarized from the article “Governments Cutting Back on Social Service Spending” from NPT Weekly, a publication of The NonProfit Times. For more information, see www.nptimes.com.