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T. Rowe Price Foundation Releases First “State of the Baltimore Nonprofit Sector” Report

Wednesday, 02 November 2022 09:05 AM

T. Rowe Price

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / November 2, 2022 / The T. Rowe Price Foundation today announced the release of its "2022 State of the Baltimore Nonprofit Sector" report, providing data and insights into the health and capacity of Baltimore's nonprofit community. The report details 10 key insights covering topics pertinent to sustaining effective organizations within the nonprofit sector, including partnerships, diversity, fundraising, technology, and more. This report is available for reading and downloading here.

Those 10 key insights are:

  1. Partnerships are the key to strong organizations.
  2. The nonprofit leadership pipeline remains tenuous at best.
  3. Effective capacity building requires organizations to dig deep into financial realities and sometimes face hard truths.
  4. To increase funding, organizations need dedicated staff and capacity to support it.
  5. The best expense is technology.
  6. When it comes to evaluation practices, it is better to focus on learning, not counting.
  7. There's a difference between having a strategic plan and being a strategic organization.
  8. Effective management can result in stronger programs and increased revenue streams.
  9. To achieve diversity in leadership, it's imperative to target recruitment and advancement efforts.
  10. Reimagine the governance structure.

The "State of the Baltimore Nonprofit Sector Report" is a result of years of collaboration between the T. Rowe Price Foundation and dozens of community partners throughout the city of Baltimore. Findings presented within the report results from a compilation of a variety of sources, including an economic analysis conducted by SeaChange Capital Partners, a review of iCAT (Impact Capacity Assessment Tool), and fundraising audit data submitted by several dozen organizations throughout Baltimore since 2016, which also includes analyses of financial audit and 990 data and feedback from local nonprofit leaders and staff using the Race to Lead (RacetoLead.org) and Daring to Lead survey tools.

To analyze the financial health of the nonprofit sector in Baltimore, the T. Rowe Price Foundation engaged SeaChange Capital Partners to review data from 1,723 of the city's nonprofit organizations that electronically filed their 990 forms in one or more years from 2014 to 2019. Aside from year-over-year comparisons of select metrics, the analysis mostly focused on 2019 990 data submitted by a core group of 731 organizations with total expenses of $2.7 billion. More than half of these organizations-both by number and total expenses-are in the health and human services or community capacity sectors. Of these 731 organizations, almost two-thirds had expenses less than $1 million.

Beginning in 2015, the T. Rowe Price Foundation began engaging with community-based leaders throughout the city of Baltimore to understand how they hoped to make positive change. Through these conversations, Baltimore residents reported how much they loved their local nonprofits, respected their leaders, and wanted them to grow stronger. Recognizing that strong, local organizations with equally strong leaders are vital to creating and maintaining strong communities, the T. Rowe Price Foundation launched its Capacity Building Program, offering training in key areas local leaders had identified as the most important to them.

In 2022, the T. Rowe Price Foundation has engaged over 5,000 organizational leaders in Baltimore through the Foundation's Capacity Building Program. The program offers tailored trainings, focused cohorts, educational webinars, and organizational health assessments. The latter section, organizational health assessments, yielded tens of thousands of data points on the organizational health of many Baltimore nonprofit partners that formed the basis for the "State of the Baltimore Nonprofit Sector Report."

"We view the data in this report as a resource for the broader nonprofit and funder community in Baltimore and beyond. We hope that it helps our nonprofits develop strategies for future growth, enables grant-makers to develop better strategies to serve their grantees, and helps intermediaries think through stronger supports for their networks," said John Brothers, president of the T. Rowe Price Foundation. "We hope that this report supports a more robust sector conversation that moves our discussions toward an emphasis on the organizational health outcomes of our nonprofit sector, rather than the current overemphasis on program outcomes, while considering factors such as racial equity and nonprofit leadership. This is one of the most comprehensive case studies on the health of a city's nonprofit sector. We hope it will provide inspiration for others to investigate the health of the nonprofit sectors in their own cities, states, and regions."

Supporting partners for the "State of the Baltimore Nonprofit Sector Report" include SeaChange Capital Partners, Algorhythm, the Building Movement Project, and the Meyer Foundation.

About the T. Rowe Price Foundation

Founded in 1981, the T. Rowe Price Foundation is steadfastly committed to its mission of pursuing the long-term success of the communities in which T. Rowe Price associates live and work. The Foundation offers direct grants, a generous matching gift program, pro bono opportunities, and robust capacity-building programs for grantees and partners. The Foundation is one of the largest corporate philanthropies in Baltimore and Maryland, contributing more than $140 million since its inception to support local organizations dedicated to creating positive change.

The T. Rowe Price Foundation aims to be a strong collaborator in communities where T. Rowe Price associates live and work, and we believe that our partner organizations are best equipped to decide how their resources should be utilized. The Foundation champions trust-based philanthropy principles and partners with communities to measure impact through grant-making. Recognizing that meaningful, lasting change cannot happen overnight, the Foundation is deeply committed to the long-term success of its grantees and partners.

The Foundation partners with colleagues from across T. Rowe Price to advance the firm's corporate social responsibility and equity goals.

Learn more by visiting troweprice.com/foundation.

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from T. Rowe Price on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:
Spokesperson: T. Rowe Price
Website: http://corporate.troweprice.com/ccw/home.do
Email: [email protected]

SOURCE: T. Rowe Price

Topic:
Environmental, Social and Governance
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