The nonprofit sector is strong and growing in the Ocean State. Public charities, excluding religious organizations, number 3,286, up from 1,888 in 2005, according to The Rhode Island Foundation.
Those nonprofits employ 18 percent of Rhode Islanders and generate $8 billion in annual revenue.
Yet the sector’s prominence belies a fragility amid declining government funding and increased competition for corporate donors, says Jill Pfitzenmayer, the foundation’s vice president of the Initiative for Nonprofit Excellence.
Their missions run the gamut, from the 150-year-old Goodwill Industries of Rhode Island, which provides job training to hundreds of people each year, to the first-year organization The Picture of Children’s Health, a one-woman operation with volunteers trying to teach children healthy eating choices.
For many, growth in a stagnant economy will be determined by smart leadership and creative ways to find desperately needed support.
The Rhode Island Foundation has provided $7.6 million over the last three years for primary health care initiatives and another $6.8 million for public education, another area of critical need.
But for many small nonprofits the needs are less high profile but still difficult to meet without outside support.
At the Herreshoff Marine Museum and America’s Cup Hall of Fame, for example, a project is underway to reconstruct the history of the Herreshoff Manufacturing Co., which built the famed Reliance vessel that won the 1903 America’s Cup.
And at Bristol’s historic Mount Hope Farm decades-old documents next year will finally be properly organized and archived.
In both cases the work is being done with the help of Roger Williams University students.
Yes, the challenges often seem daunting, but many nonprofits and supporters are finding increasingly creative ways to meet them.
Mark S. Murphy
Editor
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