A holiday season unlike any other: Responding to needs during COVID-19 and making an impact to the community with our clients

2020 will go down in history as one of the most significant years that the world has seen. When we started the year, nobody would have imagined that the world would come to a halt overnight, yet that’s exactly what happened. We witnessed something that we’ve never seen before. The Coronavirus spread through countries and continents faster than we could have thought with waves of lockdowns and travel restrictions that left businesses paralyzed and millions unemployed.

Nothing about 2020 was normal.

Generosity: A Resolution Worth Keeping

With a few short hours to go before New Year’s Eve, you remember that you were supposed to make a resolution for the new year. You quickly think through all of the possibilities: "What's something I can easily keep up with while simultaneously promising to set my year on a meaningful and productive course? Exercise? Drink less coffee? Read more? Spend less?"

Inevitably, you’ll land on something you are bound to abandon by the end of January.

Even if you have not yet made a resolution this year, but have a desire to do so, take some time to consider how you have benefited from others’ generosity. Then, think about how you can pay things forward in 2021.

Here are a few tips to get you started in making and keeping resolutions for yourself:

How Working Capital Protects Nonprofits from Rainy Days

 

The term working capital has been used in the for-profit industry for a long time. It is usually defined as the difference between a company’s current assets and its current liabilities. It is traditionally used as a liquidity metric in the form of a dollar amount. In addition, many individual financial plans include having a savings account, often referred to as “rainy day funds”, to be used when the “storm” comes.  Many have also likely heard the old adage of putting aside funds to cover at least 3-6 months of living expenses for emergencies (loss of job, unexpected expenses, etc.). 

Continuing a Shared Love of Generosity

My wife grew up poor. Her father was killed in a tragic accident when she was a toddler. She always said, “If my mother hadn’t run welfare in our small Montana town, we would have been on it.” We met in the air over the Pacific in 1985. She was returning from back-to-back Air Force tours as a mental health therapist in Korea and the Philippines. Lynnette was headed for a small clinic in Texas and I was going to take a Tropical Medicine course. We chatted, never expecting to see each other again, but in 1986 re-met at our thousand-bed medical center in San Antonio and married two years later. At dinner that week she said, “Peter, I’m a Lt Colonel; you’re a full bird. We can easily live on one salary and give the rest away to help our community.”

Reflections on 2020 as we move forward into 2021: A message from Michael Thatcher, President & CEO, Charity Navigator

 

Dear friends of Charity Navigator,

The year 2020 had a way of stripping away all that was not essential in our lives, our work and our giving. While no one could have predicted how 2020 would unfold, it is extremely heartening that millions of people stepped up more than ever before, to support the causes close to their hearts in their efforts to make things better for others and our world.  Giving was essential in 2020.  Charity Navigator was an essential tool of choice for many in their giving decisions this year.  Our work matters.  If you are reading this, it’s safe to assume that you use Charity Navigator and maybe even support us directly. Thank you for your generosity and investments in us and through us in 2020.  Although we are still very much in the midst of the pandemic, your generosity makes a difference.  

Building A Philanthropic Strategy in 2021

When we ushered in 2020 a year ago, none of us could have imagined what the next 12 months would bring.  We began the year with the usual and customary revelry, resolutions, and hopes for the future. Two months in, we were on the verge of what would be the beginning of an almost total nationwide lockdown.  It was a precautionary measure to slow the transmission of a deadly disease abbreviated as ‘COVID-19’.  We are now hopeful that, 10 months into the pandemic, we are turning a corner and nearing the end of an unprecedented set of circumstances.