Q&A: Nonprofits: roundtable.

• Position: Industry Outlook - Discussion

Leaders from Utah nonprofits discuss the impact of the Trump Administration on their organizations, as well as the value they bring to the business community and their efforts to increase diversity among their staff and board members.

PARTICIPANTS

ANDREA ALCABES I.J. & Jeanne Wagner Jewish Community Center

SHANDRA BENITO Art Access

MONA BURTON Holland & Hart, LLP

DENNI CAWLEY Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment

CHRIS CONARD Playworks Utah

ANDREA COX Refugee & Immigrant Center

SARAH FARR RiteCare of Utah

JANET FRASIER Girl Scouts of Utah

BLAIR HODSON Rocky Mountain Innocence Center

CHANDLER JORDANA Comunidades Unidas

VICKI MANN 90.9 FM KRCL

KATE MOSS Susan G. Komen Utah

KELLY RIDING Utah Afterschool Network

DIANE HARTZ WARSOFF Community Development Corporation of Utah

CRYSTAL YOUNG-OTTERSTROM Utah Cultural Alliance

PREMIER SERIES SPONSORS

MODERATOR

A special thank you to Kate Rubalcava, CEO of the Utah Nonprofits Association, for moderating the discussion.

Since the new administration and the new political climate, have you seen any changes in donations, fund-raising, volunteering or demand for services?

WARSOFF: It's a little early because there's so much uncertainty. We depend a great deal on federal funding. We receive funding through HUD. We get our recipients from the CDBG and home grants, and that underwrites a lot of the work that we do. Plus we get direct funding for our home ownership council.

Even though we haven't seen a significant change yet because the 2017 budget was approved with fairly flat allocations for those programs, we are prepared, particularly in Utah and particularly for HUD, because we have two senators that are fairly high up in the committees that would make those decisions. And I have already been working with other housing groups. So some of our partnerships have strengthened. We have spoken to our other funders. We are primarily funded through banks and other financial corporations. And we have given them a heads-up. We have let them know that this is something we are afraid could come down the pike and impact us. Funding has been kind of creeping down over the years anyway.

The key for us is being prepared now, because we are not sure what it's going to look like. All the congressmen say this budget is dead on arrival, but we don't know what that means in terms of what they will change.

MANN: KRCL has fund drives primarily in the fall and spring, and our most recent drive was our most successful ever. 1 do feel that has everything to do with what's going on in Washington. We may lose Corporation for Public Broadcasting money, so we have hired a director of philanthropy, which we have never had before, so we can potentially make up the money that we will lose if the CPB money goes away.

But people feel we are an important institution in the market, so they have really stepped up. And so it's actually been good news, but cautionary. We are waiting to see what happens in the future.

YOUNG-OTTERSTROM: Because our federal cultural entities are under threat, it has invigorated our members to become stronger advocates. It has strengthened our position as lobbyist for our senator and really helped us move into a new frame of business and activity with our elected officials. We were in DC lobbying. And our federal meetings usually aren't that great, actually, but this time they were really good. When there's actual, real threats to our sector, it does help buoy support elsewhere.

CAWLLEY: The environment has been very much in the news--how we are going to see a lot of funding get cut. The state relies on this, and we are going to see head count being reduced and research funding being reduced.

But what we see on the individual side is this passion that is coming out from people. "I want to do something," whether it's volunteering or donating. And we have been relying a lot on individual donations. I tried something different since joining UPHE last year: I tried to apply for federal grants from the EPA Environmental Justice office, but now we are not sure if these grants will even be there because we think the whole Environmental Justice office may not exist.

So I think right now it's the individuals and other groups who will step up. We have seen more engagement from the business sector and also from the local government, to see how they can fill that gap.

FRASIER: Girl Scouts started in 1917, which was a time of great social transition and revolution. And what keeps us going right now is, now more than ever, we believe that in strengthening girls you strengthen homes, and in strengthening homes you strengthen communities. We are part of that. We are back to our grassroots and finding girls and families really responding to that at this moment in time. Maybe it's the positive outcome of the kind of regretful journey that got us there.

BENITO: I think there is an increased sense of community within organizations--we are coming together in a way that is a little more urgent. But I do want to speak to some of the needs that we are seeing in the community in terms of what the political climate has created. And one is there's a lot of hate going on in the world right now and it's becoming, in certain places, more socially acceptable to voice that. And there's a lot of fear by marginalized communities of women, of Muslims, of immigrants and refugees here. And because we are dedicated to serving...