Our Vice President of Policy, Chai Jindasurat-Yasui, testified at New York City's City Council Hearing on the Mayor's November Financial Plan this past Monday, December 11, 2023. He represented the over 250 nonprofits (as of 12/13/23) who have signed on to our open letter to the City government to oppose Mayor Eric Adams's 15 percent budget cuts as part of our #WHY15 campaign.

"We call on the City to partner with the nonprofit sector and work toward creative solutions - not hinder us further. The City cannot withstand a 15% cut to its budget, and any additional cuts to the nonprofit sector will only undermine the public safety, health, and cleanliness of New York City," - Chai Jindasurat-Yasui, Vice President of Policy, Nonprofit New York.

Nonprofit New York was among the over 100 organizations that testified about the detrimental effects the planned budget cuts would have on their community programs and services. 

Read Nonprofit New York's full testimony here. Watch it here.

The post Nonprofit New York testifies on effects of 15 percent budget cuts at City Council Hearing appeared first on Nonprofit New York.

2024 Nonprofit Compensation Survey Open Now!

Nonprofit New York is pleased to announce the 2024 Nonprofit Compensation Survey. This survey aims to produce a valuable resource for nonprofits that will provide insight into compensation trends, including salary and benefits across the broader sector, which will help guide organizations in their compensation strategies. Your contribution to this survey will ensure Nonprofit New York can provide a thorough and comprehensive analysis. Please see below for more details.

• Individuals who fill out the survey on behalf of their organization will receive a FREE copy of the report - a $350 value!
• It only takes 15-40 minutes to complete, and the survey will be open until February 16, 2024.
• All contact information is confidential and will not be disclosed in the analysis or report. Survey results will be reported in the aggregate and will not be attributed to individual organizations.
• Organizations based in the five boroughs of NYC, Westchester, and Long Island with at least one paid staff member are eligible to fill out the survey.

Complete the Survey

For your convenience, use the PDF version of the survey to prepare your responses.

The post 2024 Nonprofit Compensation Report appeared first on Nonprofit New York.

Whether you are a new member or have been a member for many years, we want to get to know you! Introduce yourself to the Nonprofit New York community by participating in our Member Feature series! Submit your response here.

What is your organization's mission?

St. Francis Friends of the Poor offers permanent supportive housing services to homeless men and women with histories of chronic mental illness.

What do you like the most about being a Nonprofit New York member?

The access to concise and relevant nonprofit news each day.

Have you made relationships with other Nonprofit New York members? If so, what has come out of building those connections? If not, is there any organization you'd like to partner with?

We have yet to make any connections but value the opportunities to interact with members via NYN-sponsored webinars and conferences and in general, by running in the same circles. We look forward to making stronger connections moving forward!

Have you read or listened to any sector or sub-sector-related publications, podcasts, or books that you would recommend to the community?

We appreciate the links provided in NYN Media's daily First Reads email that give us exposure and access to a variety of relevant sub-sector-related publications. Another daily email that I recommend is Harvard Business Review’s Management Tip of the Day. It’s not specific to the non-profit sector but still adds value.

Tell us a fun fact about your organization.

St. Francis Friends of the Poor pioneered the concept of permanent supportive housing for the homeless and mentally ill when we opened the first of our three residences in 1980. The project proved so successful that it became a national model for the permanent supportive housing movement. Over 40 years later, the St. Francis Residences continue to provide affordable, permanent housing coupled with on-site medical, psychiatric, wellness, and social services that enable our nearly 300 tenants to thrive. The average length of tenancy is 18 years, and our tenants, with an average life span of 68 years, are living longer and healthier lives than their unhoused peers, whose life expectancy is 42-52 years.

Please share your website link, LinkedIn page, social handles, etc.

• Facebook
• Website

The post December Member Feature: St. Francis Friends of the Poor appeared first on Nonprofit New York.

Your feedback matters! Nonprofit New York invites you to take a 5-10 minute survey to share your thoughts on our programs and services. Let us know what you find valuable, suggest new initiatives, and help us better address your needs. Your input is crucial -- please complete the survey by December 12th to shape how we support and strengthen nonprofits in our community.

The post 2023 Community Survey: We Want To Hear From You! appeared first on Nonprofit New York.

Nonprofit New York Members and Community,

Yesterday, Mayor Adams’s Administration released the November 2023 Financial Plan, which includes the first round of the 15% citywide budget reductions announced in September. The full budget documents can be found on the Office of Management and Budget website, and the 5% immediate budget reductions are included in the Program to Eliminate the Gap document. The administration has blamed the budget crisis on costs incurred as a result of an influx of migrants, but our financial challenges are driven by multiple factors, a number of which could have been prevented.

Based on Nonprofit New York’s initial analysis, crucial services for New Yorkers carried out by nonprofits will bear a disproportionate brunt of immediate budget cuts this fiscal year. The city has made immediate programmatic cuts to language access and legal services ($600K); environmental protection ($4M); after school community programs ($10M); library services ($23.6M); cultural development and cultural institutions ($8.6M); the participatory budget program, racial equity initiatives, and civic engagement efforts ($643K), among other services. Significant cuts to youth services are set to take place in fiscal year 2025. The Department of Youth and Community Development, which funds many culturally specific, BIPOC-led organizations and major youth services, is facing cuts of close to $4 million in the current fiscal year and $32.5 million in the next fiscal year.

The City did not engage with their nonprofit “partners” prior to the release of the November Plan. We continue to call on the City to provide additional clarity on the real impact of the immediate programmatic cuts and their effect on all New Yorkers in every neighborhood. Another 5% budget reduction will come in mid-January. Nonprofits cannot be expected to simply implement decisions made about us – decisions that will determine how and whether we’re able to serve our communities - when we are not playing any meaningful role in making these decisions and not being provided transparent information about the rationale for and impact of the cuts.

We will continue to organize our members and the sector to preserve critical resources for every New Yorker.  We are also happy to work in collaboration with the City to elevate our advocacy to the state and federal levels.

Please join our #WHY15 campaign and call on NYC to provide greater clarity on the rationale and impact for the City’s 15% budget cuts, to demonstrate their understanding of the meaningful impact nonprofits have on NYC, and to create opportunities for substantive engagement with organizations that have the expertise and community connections to generate creative, concrete solutions. To include your voice: 

1. Join the more than 100 nonprofits who have signed our open letter to the City government calling for transparency and inclusion regarding the 15% budget reduction.
2. Participate in our 15 Days of 15 Cuts Storytelling Campaign. If interested, complete this form.

Questions? Please contact our Vice President of Policy, Chai Jindasurat-Yasui

The post Nonprofit New York Statement on the City’s November Plan Budget Cuts appeared first on Nonprofit New York.

Nonprofit New York Members and Community,

Following two Coalition to Advance Nonprofits meetings to discuss Mayor Adams’ 15% budget reduction directive, we are launching the #WHY15 campaign to call for clarity and unified opposition to the City’s impending budget cuts. To include your voice, please take these two steps:

1. Sign our open letter to the City government that asks for transparency about the basis of the 15% reduction, calls for clarity about which services will be cut, and urges that the nonprofit sector be meaningfully included in the budget planning process.

1. Participate in our 15 Days of 15 Cuts Storytelling Campaign. We are collecting video testimonials to illustrate what a 15% reduction in City funding would mean for our crucial organizations and the communities we serve. If interested, complete this form.

Nonprofits want to be a part of the solutions to our City’s fiscal challenges, but this is not possible when decisions are made about us without us. Please join us to help make the case that all New Yorkers win when nonprofits have substantive, timely, and influential roles in developing and implementing problem-solving plans for our communities. Ask #WHY15.

Questions? Please contact Policy & Advocacy Coordinator Thara Duclosel.

The post #WHY15 Percent Budget Cuts Campaign appeared first on Nonprofit New York.

Whether you are a new member or have been a member for many years, we want to get to know you! Introduce yourself to the Nonprofit New York community by participating in our Member Feature series! Submit your response here.

What is your organization's mission?

House of SpeakEasy connects authors and audiences in innovative and sustaining ways. Founded in 2013, SpeakEasy is dedicated to the idea that literature matters and that the essence of literary culture is the relationship between writers and their readers. To foster that relationship, SpeakEasy brings authors out from behind the book into direct contact with audiences, ensures that writers are compensated for their work and time, and stimulates the audiences of tomorrow by exposing them to the best writing of today by offering literary programs to students in underserved communities and through a bookmobile delivering literature to areas of high need.

What do you like the most about being a Nonprofit New York member?

Access to a community and resources to support nonprofits

Have you made relationships with other Nonprofit New York members? If so, what has come out of building those connections? If not, is there any organization you'd like to partner with?

We have yet to, but we would value the opportunity to collaborate with literacy and educational nonprofits to help complement their work.

Tell us a fun fact about your organization.

We operate a bookmobile that delivers brand-new books to students, families, and communities living in "book deserts," high-need communities. And we do this for free! The bookmobile thrived during the pandemic, given that our bookmobile fosters open-air browsing that was ideal for social distancing.

Please share your website link, LinkedIn page, social handles, etc. www.houseofspeakeasy.org

The post November Member Feature: House of SpeakEasy Foundation appeared first on Nonprofit New York.

Councilmember Stevens urged the sector to leverage their collective power to push back: “The reality is they come to us because we are the ones that deliver the services,” said Councilmember Stevens. “They cannot do that work without you; we have to continue to do the work and live in that power.” She advised the coalition to develop a unified strategy for the City’s November financial plan. 

Nonprofit New York proposed the nonprofit sector implement a storytelling campaign to portray the detrimental impact the budget cuts would have across all communities. LiveOnNY shared a model they are using from a recent survey that found about 39,000 older adults utilize older adult centers daily. “The picture we want to paint is that cutting 15% of programs will affect all 39,000 of these older adults,” Jenna Gladfelter of LiveOnNY, said. 

Interested in getting involved in our coordinated efforts to respond? Contact Thara Duclosel, Nonprofit New York Policy & Advocacy Coordinator.

The post Coalition to Advance Nonprofits 15% Budget Meeting appeared first on Nonprofit New York.

For questions, please contact Chai Jindasurat-Yasui, VP of Policy at cjindasurat@nonprofitnewyork.org.

October 16, 2023

VIA EMAIL

Hon. Kathy Hochul
Governor of the State of New York
Executive Chamber
New York State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224

RE: Nonprofit Sector Support for S.5806 /A.6940 Authorizing Certain Nonprofits to Classify Their Boards Through Bylaws

Dear Governor Hochul:

We, the undersigned organizations, write to urge you to sign S.5806 (Comrie)/ A.6940 (Simone), which passed the state legislature in June with broad bipartisan support. The bill authorizes non-membership not-for-profit corporations incorporated in New York to classify their boards through their bylaws. This change aligns the law with best practice for corporate governance and creates greater flexibility for organizations to create different classes of their boards.

The Not-for-Profit Corporation Law (N-PCL) Section 704 regards the classification of directors, or the process of staggering the terms of board members. Organizations stagger their board terms of service so that classes of board members do not all begin and expire at the same time.  While this is a critical practice for institutional knowledge and organizational stability, Section 704(a) provides that an organization with a board elected by the directors, i.e., a non-membership organization, may only adopt a classified board structure where the certificate of incorporation so authorizes. Membership organizations, on the other hand, may authorize board classification via a by-law adopted by the members under the current law.

To be in compliance with this requirement under the current law, non-member organizations must either anticipate such growth at the outset as they put their charter documentation in place, or amend their certificate of incorporation later in their life cycle in advance of implementing the practice. A common practice for organizations adopting a classified board later in their life cycle is to record the authority in their bylaws.  Under the present law, however, organizations that follow this common practice are operating with invalidly composed boards, threatening the authority of their board and therefore calling into question corporate decisions.

The current classification of directors structure under Section 704 of the N-PCL is likely a carryover from the Business Corporation Law, which requires corporations to have shareholders (akin to members). Unlike for-profit business corporations, not-for-profits do not have shareholders and many organizations are non-member entities that would benefit from the ability to classify their boards through a by-law.

On behalf of New York’s nonprofit sector, we respectfully request you sign S.5806/A. 6940.

Sincerely,

The Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities

Equality New York

Girl Scouts of Greater New York

Human Services Council

LiveOn New York

New York City Bar Association, Non-Profit Organizations Committee

New York Council of Nonprofits

Nonprofit New York

Nonprofit Westchester

Pro Bono Partnership

The post Nonprofit Letter to Governor Hochul Re Signing S.5806 – A.6940 appeared first on Nonprofit New York.

Welcome to our Member Feature series! For the month of October, we are excited to introduce Checkley & Associates, one of our members at Nonprofit New York!

Whether you are a new member or have been a member for many years, we want to get to know you! Introduce yourself to the Nonprofit New York community by participating in our Member Feature series! Submit your response here.

What is your organization's mission?

To provide superior service above our competitors by supporting our clients with an understanding of the individualized accounting, audit, and tax needs of not-for-profit organizations, for-profit organizations, individuals, and businesses of all sizes. We do this by providing our expertise, experience, knowledge of industry trends, and awareness of continual accounting and tax changes, thereby giving our clients peace of mind and a greater ability to focus on their sustainability and growth.

What do you like the most about being a Nonprofit New York member?

Fostering new connections and being able to assist numerous nonprofits in their search for a CPA firm that specializes in Nonprofit accounting and catering to the financial needs of the companies in the non-profit space.

Have you made relationships with other Nonprofit New York members? If so, what has come out of building those connections? If not, is there any organization you'd like to partner with?

Long-lasting relationships have been formed between Checkley and Associates and other Nonprofit New York members, which have changed from in-person event connections or referrals to becoming a part of the Checkley and Associates family.

Have you read or listened to any sector or sub-sector-related publications, podcasts, or books that you would recommend to the community?

The Journal of Accountancy provides a wealth of information regarding new AICPA guidelines to assist non-profit organizations in becoming audit-ready and GAAP-compliant.

Tell us a fun fact about your organization.

At Checkley and Associates, our clients are treated as a part of our family. They are treated with kindness and respect while providing a high level of professionalism and care as it pertains to their financial needs.

The post October Member Feature: Checkley & Associates appeared first on Nonprofit New York.