The stock market finished 2009 up for the year, way up. Unemployment showed signs of moderating if not yet improving, if 10% can be called “moderate.” Yet the sources most commonly found in nonprofit budgets – state and local government, individual donors, and foundations, are all still pinched.

In fact from Hawaii to California to New York, and even small Nevada, state budgets are more than pinched, they are strangled. In Hawaii the state’s schools are closing 3 days a month. California’s UC system  is furloughing everyone from professors to janitors. In fact Berkeley normally hires around 60 new professors a year; this year it is 10.

The bottom line is the recession is over but that makes no difference to the 11 million people who have lost their jobs. Many of them are relying increasingly on nonprofits, especially after their unemployment runs out.  My new year’s predictions are almost too grim to recount: more nonprofits failing, more layoffs and service cuts, continued self-serving conservatism by most foundations, when now is the time to increase their payouts, as a few brave leaders have done.  So, 2010 will be another tough year for nonprofits, perhaps worse than last.

I am currently working with a client who is looking to better target the Latino market. One of their two offices is in a city with a Latino majority (above 75%).  The office staff speaks Spanish, and all their material is translated. Yet they know that to attract and keep their clients they need to go beyond translated materials and bilingual staff, and really understand who their clients are.  I applaud them– it’s unfortunate that more nonprofits don’t think this way.

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