From United Way of Westchester and Putnam:

The United Way of Westchester and Putnam is accepting applications for the Phase 36 (2019-2020) Emergency Food and Shelter Funds available through the Local Westchester Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) Board.  This program provides federal funding which helps to extend currently available services for the hungry and homeless. The deadline for submission of completed applications is 4 p.m. on Monday, July 29, 2019.

The Emergency Food and Shelter Program National Board, which is chaired by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency, announced that Westchester County was awarded $466,615. United Way of Westchester and Putnam is the administrative agency of the Local Emergency Food and Shelter Programs in Westchester and Putnam counties........

Read the full article on the UWWP website.

From Philanthropy News Digest, Feb. 5, 2019

A majority of nonprofits (54 percent) raised more money in 2018 than they did in 2017, while slightly more than a quarter (28 percent) raised about the same, an annual year-end survey by the Association of Fundraising Professionals finds……

Read the article on Philanthropy News Digest.

From TheNonProfitTimes, Feb. 5, 2019

The Foundation Center and GuideStar, the two largest data and information nonprofit organizations in the United States, are merging in a deal that took about two years to consummate but was at least a decade in the making. The organizations will be rebranded as Candid. (with a period)……

Read the article on TheNonProfitTimes.

The Westchester Community Foundation website now provides “The Westchester Index,” a robust source of relevant and extremely useful statistics for Westchester County.

The Westchester Index includes over 200 indicators of demographic, economic, housing, health, and other data from the American Community Survey, with underlying links to the source of information, such as the Census Bureau, Centers For Disease Control and the NY State Education Department.

Information can be searched by zip code, school district, municipality, legislative and congressional districts.

Access this new handy resource here.

The following text is excerpted from a post on the daily forum of the Grant Professionals Association website. The author, who gave permission for us to share this, is a grant writer with 18 years of experience who specializes government grant writing. Her comments were in response to a question from another forum participant who asked about the effects of the government shutdown.

The writer’s opinion about the long term impacts, based on her experience and connections, gave us enough concern that we felt it was important to share:

Hi Betty,

The impacts of the shutdown will, in my opinion, be experienced for years to come. The immediate impacts of the shutdown include so many delays. Just think how much of a backlog you would have if you were suddenly gone from the office for more than a month, with no one to do your work! Now multiply that by hundreds of thousands of employees. Yes, it's that bleak. As one of my good friends who works for HUD put it...I was already so far behind that getting caught up was improbable...now it's a myth!

In addition to the delays grantees have experienced in payments, many are waiting for answers to questions, policy interpretations, approvals for changes in their program or grant budgets, etc. There has also been a delay in issuing RFPs that will just scrunch the calendar for the whole year (making grant professionals like us, lose our minds later in the year)!

My bigger concern is the brain drain. I used to work in DC and knew many of the program officers and higher level folks in several departments. Many left shortly after the inauguration. Others waited...holding on out of a sense of civic responsibility or just holding out for retirement. I'm now hearing rumblings that some of the program officers I deal with a lot are either actively looking (yes, a few have asked if they can use me as a reference) or have resigned. One of my dearest friends decided to go to the private sector where, as he put it, I'll earn more and likely have greater security in terms of getting a paycheck! 

I also predict that the loss of institutional knowledge will impact programs for years to come in so many ways. For example, many of our program officers act as active advocates for their programs with Congress (through report writing, relationships with staff, subcommittee staff, etc.). Now imagine that person, with 20 years of knowledge as to how to get things done, is gone. That's the reality. Federal employees, who have been vilified by political extremists and reporting in the media, already had very low morale levels -- imagine how they must feel now, knowing that this whole shutdown mess might come back in 3 weeks, and then again later this year. Now, with the uncertainty of whether or not the politicians can govern, would you stay? If you knew that your paycheck was dependent on what many consider a dysfunctional mess in our country, would you stay? 

Now consider that federal employees who leave will have to be replaced. How can they possibly recruit new, high qualified individuals? Don't we want the best and the brightest? Doesn't our country deserve the best and the brightest? Further, department heads are under pressure to reduce head count, which often means that more and more contractors are used. Knowing that contractors are not protected during shutdowns, would you want a federal contract? In the news today is a report of a small business that is likely going to go belly up because of not having any revenues for more than a month. Also, there's another piece about an employee of a contractor who lost her health insurance in the shutdown and how that's impacting her family (her husband has MS and was hospitalized without insurance). She's apparently worked for an agency as an employee of a contractor for more than 10 years in the Mine Safety and Health Administration. I know if I were her, I'd be looking for another job where my family's health insurance was stable.

The brain drain -- that's the really big impact that we will feel for years to come.  Just my $0.02.

Karen L. Cassidy, GPC
Governmental Grant Professionals, LLC

Karen@governmentalgrantspro.com

As a part of the grantseeking community, you know how important it is to stay on top of trends. The State of Grantseeking Survey from Grant Station spotlights recent developments in funding so that organizations can be more strategic in their grantseeking.

The resulting free reports, published in May and November, can serve as a valuable benchmark for organizations to review their grantseeking efforts, and will provide leading-edge information months earlier than other annual surveys.

View the Spring 2018 Reports here.