Executive Directors in One City Share Their View from the Trenches

Not long ago, nonprofits in this idyllic mountainside town in central Oregon were thriving. Before the economy started to collapse in late 2007, the area’s reputation as a skiing, rafting, and hiking mecca helped it attract a steady flow of California exiles, real-estate agents, developers, and others, creating a building boom that fueled local industries.

And that helped fill the coffers at fund-raising time.

“We would sell the majority of our tables at a fund-raising event to real-estate agents,” recalls Cate O’Hagan, executive director of Arts Central, an arts education and advocacy group.

And today? “They can’t even afford to get their nails done anymore,” she says. “Seriously, my manicurist told me that.”

The recession put an end to the building boom, shifting the region’s economic fortunes and forcing charity leaders like Ms. O’Hagan to revamp their strategies. More than 60 percent of Oregon’s executive directors have suffered high or medium anxiety about the recession, according to results of a nationwide survey of nonprofit leaders conducted by the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation and CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, a management consulting group. (See article on Page 1.)

Over lunch following a recent nonprofit “town hall” sponsored by the Nonprofit Association of Oregon and in interviews afterward, Ms. O’Hagan and three other executive directors from Bend shared stories about the private money that dried up and the precarious state of government finances.

In a Fund-Raising Drought, a Leader Calibrates Her Pitch

A CEO Shoulders More Duties in a Struggle to Make Ends Meet

An Executive Adjusts His Strategy to the New Economic Reality

With Government Aid Drying Up, an ‘Unnerving’ Future Looms