June 26, 2011 | Read Time: 1 minute
Tim Rusk’s 10-year-old organization—MountainStar Family Relief Nursery, which offers programs to prevent child abuse—was growing steadily until donations from individuals peaked at $307,000 in the 2009 fiscal year and then started to fall. He says it lost $100,000 in canceled five-year pledges after the economy tanked.
Luckily, other revenue helped make up for those losses—for example, grants from the Meyer Memorial Trust and a contract from a new state program called Healthy Kids, which provides health insurance to children.
While the charity’s budget fell from $740,000 in 2009 to $705,000 last year, it rose to about $750,000 this year. Nevertheless, Mr. Rusk says he is operating differently now than when central Oregon’s economic growth helped his group expand from a staff of three to the 14 it has now.
“I find I have to do a new level of strategic thinking based on the recession,” he says. “I didn’t have to do this stuff four or five years ago.”
For example, he says, he is working to get board members more involved in planning the charity’s future and preparing for funding ups and downs.
With the economy improving, the board just approved a 2012 budget that projects that donations from individuals will rise almost to 2009 levels. Mr. Rusk concedes, however, that “this really is some aspirational thinking and projecting. If we don’t make this budget, we’re going to have to cut our program, so we’re going to set a high bar.”
