There is nothing funny about this recession; however, I can’t help but find a bit of irony in what an understatement my words were about the economy back in June, when I was talking to the Washington Business Journal about wanting to pull the covers over our heads because of high gas prices and foreclosures.
Would that those were our worries today.
We didn’t know then that the entire financial industry was about to collapse with foreclosures being the first real human face of the crisis. Or that there would be record setting unemployment throughout the country with little end in sight.
But today, we know. We’ve emerged from under the covers to find that our worries now require action—often in the form of tough choices, including staff cutbacks.
As a leader, it is never easy to lay off staff, but as I had to make that difficult decision two weeks ago, it was particularly difficult given that I know that The Women’s Foundation is well-positioned and relatively stable compared to many other nonprofits.
Still, we are not immune from the impact of this down economy. And if we are not, then I know that our sector as a whole is in a very troubling spot.
I was reminded by Diana Aviv’s Washington Post op-ed, “Where Stimulus Funds Can Make a Difference,” that I am not alone in my concern.
“Buried in last month’s staggering unemployment numbers,” she wrote, “are the thousands of nonprofit workers now without jobs. These losses do more than damage the lives of the employees—they also undermine services that the unemployed and other vulnerable groups desperately need in these troubled times.”
And this sector is not an insignificant one. As Aviv says, nonprofits employ 13 million people—more than the finance, insurance and real estate sectors combined.
As Isabel V. Sawhill at Brookings writes, “But there is one big sector that got left off the [stimulus] list: human infrastructure—in the form of investments in the nonprofit sector…By including this sector we can take advantage of a huge network of institutions that work hard every day to improve the welfare of communities and individuals, that will spend the money quickly, that have the capacity to spread the dollars widely, and that in the absence of such help will need to shrink and thus become another drag on the economy.”
And I would be remiss if I didn’t point out another striking trend in this sobering reality, which is that layoffs affecting the nonprofit sector will not only be a drain on the economy generally, but will disproportionately impact women, who make up the majority of employees of the nonprofit sector—70 percent in fact.
It begs the question, that we asked on this blog more than a year ago, of if the nonprofit sector isn’t seen as bailout material because it employs a majority of women and that inherently, we as a society continue to devalue "women’s work"—despite the reality of its magnitude and impact as outlined by Aviv and Sawhill.
It’s also important to note that many of the services provided by nonprofits serve the needs of women and their children—from domestic violence shelters to job training programs that move families out of poverty to advocacy groups that help ensure pay equity.
And through our work, we know that that investments these organizations make in women and girls pay high dividends for our communities and country as a whole. For instance, in our work, over three years, investments of $5 million in our region’s low-income women, have yielded a return of almost $20 million in increased assets and income for them.
Pretty much exactly what you want at a time when you’re trying to spur economic spending and growth.
It seems unfortunate then that as the country takes on talk of bailouts and finalizes the new stimulus package, that nonprofits haven’t gotten as much attention as the auto industry or the finance sector.
As my colleague, Gwen Rubinstein, noted earlier this month, the stimulus is in many ways a potential win for women.
But neglecting the nonprofit sector leaves vulnerable one that not only employs a significant number of women, but serves our families, communities and country as a whole at a time when the social and financial safety net is more important than ever.
Phyllis Caldwell is president of The Women’s Foundation.
