The Community Foundation for Nantucket is always looking for new ways to advocate, support, and convene for the more than 100 nonprofit organizations on our island.
For the past two years, the Community Foundation has worked with several other nonprofits to look at Island-wide giving and donation trends, looking to see if legislative efforts could negatively impact our local charities. Our Steering Committee has included representatives from the Atheneum, NHA, Maria Mitchell, NCF, access nantucket, Nantucket Public Schools, Boys & Girls Club and NCH. Our hope in spearheading this new initiative is that Nantucket nonprofits will combine their voices in educating our community about the wonderful good works they do, and the challenges they face.
As we begin 2015 and another year of philanthropy, we want to start by examining the current state of the nonprofit sector, not only on a national level, but also specific to Nantucket. Nonprofit Finance Fund (nff.org) is conducting its seventh annual nationwide survey and we hope you will add your nonprofit’s voice to this collective action.
What is the Survey?
The survey, which is anonymous and takes about 10-15 minutes to fill out, collects data on challenges facing the nonprofit sector, as well as new and emerging trends. NFF’s Survey is one of the largest data-driven community organizing efforts in the social sector. We support the survey because NFF is committed to turning the survey results into action and making them available to everyone, through an online Survey Analyzer and other tools. Findings from NFF’s survey have been included in government testimony and policy recommendations, presented at dozens of conferences, and used to bring your challenges to life in new ways.
How does it work?
Through the NFF, the Community Foundation has been given a dedicated survey data collection link for distribution to the nonprofit community on Nantucket. Use of this dedicated survey link will take respondents to the comprehensive survey questions of NFF’s State of the Sector Survey, but will do so via a unique pathway that allows for those respondents’ data to be parsed separately from the broader set of national data. Data collection via the dedicated link will provide a window into the current dynamics and challenges that face the Nantucket nonprofit community as described by the nonprofit leaders themselves. This approach also allows for a comparison of local response data to that of national data to illustrate how the Nantucket nonprofit community’s self-reported environment is similar and/or different from nationally identified trends.
What are the benefits?
Here are just a few examples of how your Nantucket nonprofit and the Nantucket community as a whole will benefit from your participation in this survey.
- result in or offer increased collaboration among our island nonprofits
- establish common grounds among similar nonprofits
- offer statistics and information on the economic impact of our island sector
- will allow us to assess the findings and improve upon our philanthropy tactics for the future
How do I fill out the survey?
Please click on the link below to take the survey before it closes (in about a month). We encourage you to urge other Nantucket nonprofits to complete it as well. The more survey respondents, the more representative and useful the findings will be.
http://fluidsurveys.com/surveys/nff/2015-state-of-the-sector-survey/?collector=143892
NFF will analyze the results and distribute them to the community in early May.
Thank you for all that you do.