How can local nonprofits “cross the chasm”?

It seems like most obstacles of making sustaining impact are about funds. It would be much easier to make sustainable impact by getting sustainable funds. In Chapter 7, Cruchfield and Crant raised examples of how national nonprofits such as Teach for America and CitiYear managed to get over the chasms by their relentless efforts.

Since this semester we also evaluated local nonprofits, it interested me to think about “how can local nonprofits get through financial or other crisis, since they are more easily to collapse without a solid fund basis to withstand emergencies as national nonprofits do?” When we are making our decision about which local nonprofits to donate, Professor Campbell and Andrea both mentioned that Suicide Prevention and Crisis Services has a over $7,000 deficit last year, which can be considered as a downfall of the organization and make us reconsider whether to donate to it based on its failure to managing funds. So can this be a vicious circle for local nonprofits once they failed to perform well in a single year? On one hand, faced with financial crisis, the most urgent need for local nonprofits is continuous funds, on the other hand, donors, after seeing the deficit of the past year, might decide to change their options of donation or stop donating. So what would happen when the local nonprofits lose their fund when they need money the most? Is that true that as a local nonprofit, it has to maintain a good performance all the time to attract donations? Is it a choice between either expands continuously or collapse after a chasm occurs?

So when it turns to local nonprofits, I would suggest donors to think twice before they decide this organization is not worth donating, by looking at their annual reports, and financial report in the past few years rather than concentrate on just last year’s performance.