News Nonprofits Nonprofit, not non-impact
Nonprofit, not non-impact
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By Joe Boomgaard | MiBiz
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Grand Rapids Community Foundation President Diana Sieger has heard people pity the “poor souls” in nonprofits. What they don’t realize, she said, is that the nonprofits actually have a great deal of benefit in economic development and business assistance programs – far beyond social programs. COURTESY PHOTO |
WEST MICHIGAN — When people hear talk about the reinvention of Michigan, they’re likely to think of the roles that the government and business sectors play in helping turn around the state’s economy.
But in so doing, they gloss over a sector that has hundreds of billions of dollars in economic impact each year in Michigan: the nonprofit community.
According to the Michigan Nonprofit Association, some 47,000 nonprofits around the state employ more than 440,000 people. Collectively, the groups have assets of more than $179 billion, receive more than $133 billion in annual revenue and generate more than $108 billion in overall annual economic activity.
Diana Sieger, president of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation, said she’s used to hearing people pity the “poor souls” who work in nonprofits.
“I often hear people’s perception of the nonprofit sector is less than the for-profit sector, but that just isn’t the case,” she said. “One of our overarching goals is economic prosperity.”
Sieger believes the sector can play a key role in Michigan’s economic reinvention, but said that starts with nonprofits being more willing to take risks. Not all nonprofit programs have an immediate impact, either, so their influence on the economy might take years to materialize.
Stereotypically, people would peg the nonprofit sector as working on social problems, but Sieger is quick to point out that is not universally true. Many nonprofits, foundations and other organizations fill a gap in helping for-profit business grow and expand.
Most economic development organizations, such as The Right Place Inc. or Southwest Michigan First, are nonprofits whose ultimate goal is helping market the region to businesses for them to grow and expand here.
Through the programs they offer, such as The Right Place’s Innovation West Michigan or the Michigan Small Business & Technology Development Center through Grand Valley State University, many nonprofit organizations help the local economy retool, she said. The Cassopolis-based Edward Lowe Foundation, for one, has partnered with the Michigan Economic Development Corp. to help the MEDC focus more of its efforts on helping grow the state’s second-stage companies.
Sieger said even the many nonprofit-led social initiatives play an important role in helping spur on the Michigan economy because many are aimed squarely at helping provide a way out of poverty for those who would otherwise be getting government assistance of some sort.
She points to the work of the Grand Rapids Area Coalition to End Homelessness, which the GRCF supported. In essence, the coalition looked at a different model for helping homeless people than adding more beds to homeless shelters. Instead of focusing on shelters, the program looked at providing housing options to families in need of help.
“Versus having them go to an emergency shelter, isn’t it better for them to have a two-bedroom apartment and then work on job skill training (to avoid repeating the cycle)? That’s the whole notion (of the program),” Sieger said, noting GRCF shifted its funding from shelters to helping the coalition provide quality permanent housing. “It’s a substantial shift, and it’s not without bloodletting.”
By taking risks, she said, organizations think about solving problems in new, often more effective ways. If nonprofits’ goals are to do the most good with the resources they have, then they need to ensure they’re looking at new models and innovating their delivery methods.
“In the greater Grand Rapids area, we’re more willing to risk in a lot of ways,” she said. “We have the entrepreneurial spirit. If anything can really be a reinvention, it can happen here.”
