Insight for Sunday 30 August 2009

A perfect storm appears to have enveloped the not-for-profit sector.

The recession is making funds harder to attract, while at the same time the demand for services is going up.

Added to that there's been recent negative publicity about the amount of money some charities spend on administration.

And the line-by-line review of spending by the new National led government is creating some uncertainty.

The one bright spot is that growing unemployment has seen a jump in the number of volunteers - but even this has its down-side as poorly funded organisations struggle to manage the influx.

So can they all survive?

Sue Ingram investigates the situation and asks what steps charities are having to take to ride out the storm.

Surf Life Saving is one of the organisations finding it harder to raise funds in the recession. Source: NZ Surf Life Saving