2013 Western Region Conference

A Second Chance, Inc. (ASCI) is a nonprofit organization established in July of 1994. Allegheny County Children, Youth and Families and the Department of Human Services of Philadelphia are the primary funding sources of ASCI. ASCI specializes in Kinship Foster Care, reunification, kinship adoption, subsidized permanent custodianship, and in Philadelphia the organization has a Kinship care, traditional foster care program, and the primary contract for Family Group Decision Making.

In today’s economy, when everyone is being asked to do more with less, the nonprofit sector faces a particularly challenging environment. The demand for nonprofit services will continue to grow given the continuing high rates of social problems such as poverty, unemployment, underemployment and child abuse.

Sustaining an organization over time can be a challenge as priorities change, community issues come and go, and retooling an organization to meet the needs of a changing environment can be costly. The workshop will look at factors affecting sustainability of a nonprofit organization. These factors are based on A Second Chance’s 18+ years of experience as a dynamic community-based nonprofit organization in both Allegheny and Philadelphia counties in the state of Pennsylvania.

Successful organizations are good at networking, secure social capital from local supporters, are innovative and passionate about the mission; develop a diverse resource base using networks and relationships, and are flexible and creative (can do much with little). In addition, there are internal support systems that support the needs of staff and volunteers. They use collaborations, are focused and think strategically about how they work with funders.

Community based nonprofits are often at the center of many important community and social issues, playing a critical role in helping those communities and consumers. This workshop will help nonprofit organizations to use their creativity to set up business management practices to effectively sustain and retool the work over time.

• These leaders of these organizations understand the importance of being able to work with other groups in the community and the benefits of linking to support systems and networks regionally and nationally.
• It can take up to five years sometimes longer, for a group to obtain a stable resource base for an organization. This stability depends on the ability of the organization to develop social capital that can be used to leverage grants and contracts to accomplish organizational goals.