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BarnRaisers
Index
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THE CAPE &
ISLANDS
NONPROFIT ALLIANCE
page 3
Through the Nonprofit Support Program,
varying levels of assistance are given to organizations depending on the
needs and capacity of the organizations (or coalitions of
organizations). Training workshops and seminars and the
Consultant Directory are available to all organizations.
Additionally, short-term technical assistance and capacity-building
grants are available to those organizations that take part in an
organizational assessment study and are determined to be at a level
of capacity sufficient for that type of assistance to be used
effectively. By providing appropriate levels of assistance to all
organizations, the Foundation strengthens the level of operational
capacity across the entire nonprofit sector.
While the Foundation does charge a fee for training workshops and requires
some match for consulting services, it has come to understand that the
services need to be subsidized through grants to the Nonprofit Support
Program in order to make the services accessible and beneficial to all
Cape Cod nonprofit organizations. The Foundation has been successful
in obtaining co-sponsors for training workshops, which decreases the cost
of implementing the workshops. We will continue to fund-raise for
the Nonprofit Support Program, and we will promote sponsorships and
partnerships and investigate other fee structures as well.
The Cape & Islands Nonprofit Alliance
To build upon the activities of the
Nonprofit Support Program and to provide more comprehensive and effective
services to the nonprofit sector, the Foundation, the Cape Cod Center for
Sustainability, and the United Way will establish the Cape & Islands
Nonprofit Alliance (CINA) this year as an umbrella network for nonprofit
support. To achieve this goal, the Foundation's existing Executive
Directors’ Roundtable group will serve as an advisory
committee, helping to set priority areas of work and promoting the
idea of the CINA within the nonprofit sector and in the larger community.
Within this first year, we will have
established the framework for the nonprofit alliance along with a general
understanding within the nonprofit community about the mission of the
CINA. The CINA will be managed by the Foundation in the beginning,
but it may spin off to be a separate entity as its components grow.
Certain components of the CINA will be managed by separate organizations
(for example, the Nonprofit Support Program and CapeCorps), but they
will be included in the framework of providing services to the nonprofit
sector.
The
CapeCorps Volunteer Center will be an important component of the CINA
because nonprofits face an ever-increasing need for their programs and
services due to extensive state and federal budget cuts in human
services budgets.
We will also investigate and
test various joint purchasing options and/or pooled service agreements (for
example, insurance, personnel management, payroll, bookkeeping, and
IT services) to assist the nonprofit sector in cutting costs. We
know from our work with the nonprofit sector that these joint purchasing
and pooled service agreements will be well received because of the current
dual situation of rising costs (such as health care and other insurances)
and declining contributions from state and federal budgets.
The Executive Directors' Roundtable has, in fact, discussed the idea of
joint purchasing agreements in the past.
The CINA will be a
membership-based organization; however, the timing and the fee structure
have yet to be discussed, and they will be decided upon with the
advisory committee. While offering services and cost-saving
measures to the nonprofit sector, we do not want to add an unrealistic
financial burden to them or base the sustainability of the CINA on an
unrealistic financial plan. The success of the CINA will come from
the high participation of nonprofit organizations. For example, the
larger the constituency the CINA represents, the lower the prices it will
be able to negotiate for goods and services.
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