Anyone who has met me knows that I believe nonprofits are the most direct manifestations of the wants and needs of our communities. In that, we have the best vantage point for what is happening on the ground level in our communities. When we couple that strength, knowledge, and trust with a clear-eyed view of the more significant issues emanating from outside of our regions, across all of Oregon, and even across the world, we can gain a better understanding of what we need to do to steer our organizations on the right paths. I’m giving you an idea of what I’m seeing for Oregon in 2024 and what we, as nonprofits, can do together for our communities in 2024.

The Big Picture

  1. The way we understand power and privilege is changing – dramatically and profoundly – this has incredible power in itself to help us all better understand each other as humans, our hope for our families, friends, and communities, and our needs. Not everyone agrees that these changes should happen. We can see this most profoundly playing out in the divisiveness of politics, which is as extreme as most of us have ever known and operates under a new set of rules and norms.
  2. We need to reach a new consensus on “common cause.” What are our shared values? Do we have common goals? We need to be willing to explore those questions openly. Through community conversations and civic discourse, we can find agreement and areas where we can agree to disagree but still move forward together. The Conversation Project that Oregon Humanities implements brings people together to talk about their beliefs and experiences around timely and important issues and ideas through reflective conversations.
  3. The effect technology has on our lives is profound and continues to accelerate. Amazing new opportunities are being unlocked, and the possibilities of artificial intelligence for use in fundraising, programming, and evaluation are amazing. With it, we must also be more aware of the impacts on us as humans in changed work roles and the siloing that technology can cause in our communities. We need to challenge ourselves to step out of our “echo chambers” and be willing to talk to others who don’t have the same backgrounds and have lived a different life. Technology should free us up to have more human interactions, not make us so reliant that we stare at screens all day.
  4. There continues to be a rapidly accelerating accumulation of wealth. We are living in the “wealthiest time” in human history. However, that wealth is accumulating at the top of the pyramid. A recent report noted that more than half of the new global wealth has been directed to the pockets of the wealthiest one percent of humanity in the past ten years. But between 2020 and 2021 alone, that rate accelerated further, with the wealthiest one percent getting 63 percent of all new wealth, leaving 99 percent of the world population with just 37 percent of new global revenue. At the same time, contributions to our causes are down across all types of donors, from the smallest to the largest.
  5. We are all seeing and experiencing the accumulating impacts of climate change. The devastating cold and ice storm that just wracked much of the state a week ago reminds us how we must prepare ourselves, our nonprofits, and our communities for continued extremes in our weather and wildfire seasons. That will take different policies and different kinds of investments than we’ve made in the past.

So, what can nonprofits do about these big issues? We must remind ourselves that nonprofits are the closest institutions in society to the “people.” We are led by the community (our boards); we are motivated by the community (our missions and values); and we are comprised of the community (our staff and volunteers). We must use that power to flip any challenges before us into opportunities for our causes. We need to double down on the strategies that have worked for us, look clearly at our business models, and be ready for changes in funding; be transparent about the impact we are having and communicate that; and we need to collaborate and work together. We have much to appreciate in 2024, and NAO is here to help throughout it all. So, let’s do what we need to do to enrich the lives of all Oregonians!

Jim White
Executive Director, NAO