Arizona, Minnesota Nonprofit Groups Grow Anxious as Incomes Fall and Demand Spikes

A wave of cutbacks and consolidations is under way at nonprofit groups in the Phoenix and Minneapolis-St. Paul areas, report The Arizona Republic and the Star Tribune.

A survey by the Alliance of Arizona Nonprofits found that more than a quarter of charities laid off employees last year or plan to do so in 2009, with up to 5,000 jobs in the industry at risk. In Minnesota, an increasing number of organizations are merging or are simply dissolving and spinning off work to other nonprofit groups.

“Next year will be worse,” said Mike Weber, chief executive of Volunteers of America-Minnesota.

“The stress and strain in the nonprofit sector right now is really profound,” said Robert Ashcraft, head of the Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation at Arizona State University. Organizations need to “re-engineer how they accomplish their mission,” he added.