13 Percent of Nonprofits in a Survey Have Suspended All or Most of Their Operations

Thirteen percent of nonprofits have suspended all or most of their operations, and nearly 17 percent have eliminated or reduced positions, according to a new survey.

Nearly 43 percent have modified their operations extensively without eliminating positions, while slightly more than 27 percent have made no changes, according to the survey by Unemployment Services Trust, a provider of human-resource and unemployment-insurance services for nonprofits.

Forty-nine percent of nonprofits polled said more than half of their revenue would be threatened if current social-distancing and quarantine restrictions remain in place. That includes 27.9 percent who anticipate losing 50 percent to 79 percent of their revenue, 14.3 percent who said 80 to 99 percent of their revenue is threatened, and 6.8 percent who said all off their revenue is threatened by the pandemic response.

Compounding problems for nonprofits are limited emergency reserves. Thirty-seven percent said they could sustain their organization for three to five more months under the current situation before needing to make drastic cost cuts, while nearly 18 percent said they could press on for one to two months, and 7 percent said they could endure another nine to 11 months. Eighteen percent of nonprofits said they could last a year or longer.

The survey was conducted over four weeks starting March 26, with nearly 800 mostly smaller nonprofit employers responding. Seventy-nine percent of the nonprofits responding had no more than 100 employees, and 65 percent had no more than 50 employees.