June 27, 2011; Source: The Gainesville Sun | There is no doubt that it is harder times than ever for many nonprofits and communities, as budget reductions are occurring at multiple levels, often negatively affecting multiple agencies in a single community. For instance, the United Way of North Central Florida found that its campaign this year took in 8 percent less than last year ($3.2 million as compared to $3.5 million) and it passed that along to its affiliate agencies.

We did another newswire recently about a United Way that used part of its reserves to allow it to level fund its affiliates in what was widely acknowledged to be a difficult year.

Again, NPQ published an article last week that pointed to Giving USA’s findings that there was a 5.6 percent reduction in giving to human services in 2010 and yesterday we ran a newswire reporting that the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has documented pretty starkly the depth of deficits that were felt last year at the state level – and this year’s so called recovery has still not hit for many of the nonprofits on every Main Street in this country.—Ruth McCambridge