Broader reach on diminishing base

SURVIVAL TACTICS: Mikayla Anthes, Farm Fresh Rhode Island healthy foods/healthy families coordinator, and Raven Horn of Woonsocket discuss nutrition at the Children's Booth at the farmers market collaboration between the Thundermist Health Center and Farm Fresh Rhode Island. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
SURVIVAL TACTICS: Mikayla Anthes, Farm Fresh Rhode Island healthy foods/healthy families coordinator, and Raven Horn of Woonsocket discuss nutrition at the Children's Booth at the farmers market collaboration between the Thundermist Health Center and Farm Fresh Rhode Island. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Editor’s note: In celebration of Providence Business News’ 30th anniversary, staff writers and contributors examined the stories and trends that defined the region’s business scene for the period.
“Everybody in the state is touched by a nonprofit,” said Neil D. Steinberg, president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation, the state’s largest funder, when asked about the state of the sector over the past three decades.

That said, even though there are more nonprofits than ever in Rhode Island, funding for nonprofits remains challenging, and surviving, even with active succession planning for retiring leaders, has been difficult for some.

The universe of domestic nonprofit corporations has grown fairly steadily since 2000, the earliest date reliable data is available, according to the R.I. Secretary of State’s office. Rhode Island nonprofits, which include hospitals and universities, numbered 5,922 in 2000, peaking to 6,974 in 2007, dropping lower for two years, then climbing to 7,144 in 2015.

The foundation, which tracks only 501c(3) public charities, recorded growth as well, though on a smaller scale. From 1990, when there were 842 public charities, the number rose to 2,213 in 2010 and was at 3,749 by 2015, according to the foundation, which cites the Nonprofit Almanac and Guidestar as sources.

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In 2009 and again in 2016, Steinberg told Providence Business News that the “proliferation” of nonprofit charities makes fundraising for limited federal, state and donor dollars more competitive than ever.

The foundation itself grew by record numbers in 2015, but has been on its own growth path over the years.

Now marking its centennial year, the foundation reported in February it awarded a record $41.5 million in grants in 2015 to more than 1,600 nonprofits across the state. The foundation also raised $43 million in new gifts from individual, family, organizational and corporate donors in 2015, the fourth-highest total in its history.

Founded with a $10,000 gift from Jesse Metcalf in 1916, the foundation’s assets have grown to $790 million.

In addition, under Steinberg’s leadership, the foundation has spent recent years targeting critical statewide issues like public education, economic security and quality health care, including the 2012 Make It Happen initiative – all in an effort for the comprehensive funder to assume a stronger civic leadership role.

That initiative brought together private-sector leaders to brainstorm ideas for economic growth. “Buy Local RI” and “Rhode Island: It’s All in Our Backyard,” championing state strengths, arose from Make It Happen.

“When the economy is not doing well, the needs in the community go up and the resources go down, and the need to fill that gap becomes bigger and bigger,” Steinberg said, explaining the rationale for the targeted focus.

Like other states, Rhode Island has its share of larger nonprofits, such as Child and Family, Children’s Friend and the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, along with a plethora of small ones, including the Rhode Island Family Shelter, whose financial struggles led to closing the shelter in early July 2015. It continued to operate apartments for clients, and ultimately, Crossroads Rhode Island helped the shelter reopen.

Volunteerism, a key support for nonprofits, also has waxed and waned over the past decade. Serve Rhode Island Executive Director Bernie Beaudreau warned in the summer of 2015 that volunteerism was low in Rhode Island as compared with other states. However, in late 2015, volunteerism here reported an 8.8 percent increase in people in 2014 compared with 2013, with an estimated 212,590 volunteers contributing 21.1 million hours of service, itself an increase of 6.6 percent. Those statistics came from Volunteering and Civic Life in America 2015, Beaudreau said.

Along with volunteering broadly, corporate giving, including volunteering, has had a strong history in the state. Obvious – though not the only – evidence of that comes around the holidays, and in late 2015, businesses big and small found ways to help those less fortunate.

From CVS Health Corp., which has been supporting the Woonsocket Adopt-A-Family program for more than 10 years, to Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island and Amica Mutual Insurance Co., which joined forces with a “Gobble Games” contest and collected more than 21,000 canned goods for the food bank, corporations were frequently counted on to pitch in. And small firms and other nonprofits were as well.

For the companies and nonprofits, meeting a community need has both social and economic benefits.

“There is that strong motive to contribute to a better society,” said Carmen Perez, director of evaluation and data insight for New York-based CECP, a coalition of CEOs focused on societal engagement as a measure of business performance. “And the reason behind it is, [top executives] think of it as an investment: Their brand will benefit; the customers will respond.”

Though many philanthropists shy away from the limelight, two who through the Rhode Island Foundation have become familiar to Rhode Islanders are John and Letitia Carter, who founded and fund the Rhode Island Innovation Fellowship program.

Fellows chosen by a panel of judges each spring receive up to $300,000 over three years to test and implement innovative ideas that could dramatically improve an area of life in Rhode Island. Past winners have focused on the shellfish industry, independent film, food and public health.

“Letitia and I believe strongly in the promise of our state and the importance of innovation,” said John Carter in late 2015. “We hope this program will continue to generate creative proposals with the potential to lead to great things.” •

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