More than a year into the pandemic, Washington nonprofits have shown resiliency in serving their communities and staying afloat, a study from the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance at the 91̽�� shows.

The new study explores not only how the pandemic economy impacted donations to, and the operations of, charitable organizations, but also how nonprofits responded to the simultaneous call for racial justice.

“The dual pandemic created challenges and opportunities for funding, service delivery and operations,” said , a doctoral candidate in public policy and one of the report’s authors. “Changes made by nonprofits and funders will bring long-term benefits in terms of access to services and a greater focus on addressing racial inequities.ut the short-term sacrifices — especially for smaller, BIPOC-led and -serving organizations — were significant. And those sacrifices are ongoing.”

The marks the second phase of research into the effects of the pandemic on Washington’s nonprofit sector. The first phase, published in fall 2020, surveyed more than 200 organizations and showed how donations were down, community needs were up, and called on governments and other institutions to step up their support.

A year later, new findings from a subset of 37 organizations have revealed how public and private relief funds came to the rescue for many organizations but can’t be counted on over the long term. The new phase of research also concentrated on how organizations responded to communities of color and incorporated diversity, equity and inclusion into their decision-making and administration.

The more than three dozen organizations sampled for this second phase were based around the state and included those in health and human services, education, the environment and the arts. Researchers interviewed nonprofit leaders during spring and summer 2021.

Among the findings:

• Nonprofits have been stretched thin in an effort to continue providing services. Some shut down programs that were running at a deficit and others had to close their doors altogether
• Emergency relief funds and generous donations helped stave off even more dramatic losses than were expected after the first several months of the pandemic, when last year’s study found that funding was down 30%. Some nonprofits noted that a switch to online services helped reduce costs, so they could make the donations go even further
• Rapidly-mobilized federal assistance programs, especially the Paycheck Protection Program, were critical in keeping many nonprofits solvent at the peak of the COVID-19 crisis
• Some large foundations and government agencies prioritized nonprofits serving communities of color by increasing funding or loosening certain application and reporting requirements

• More nonprofits were able to engage in advocacy and participate in the legislative process as a result of their ability to provide online as it eliminated time and resource barriers
• Many nonprofits instituted or strengthened existing efforts to prioritize diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in their organizations. Researchers say it remains to be seen whether this results in stronger efforts to combat underlying structural racism.

“We’ve known that there are deep racial disparities in the nonprofit sector,” says report co-author and . “Seeing that their values, including their commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and access, were out of alignment with their mission, many nonprofits started shifting program priorities and engaging in advocacy efforts. There’s a lot more work to be done, but this trend is promising.”

In light of the findings, researchers recommend governments and large foundations take further steps to help nonprofits continue to provide essential services: allocating funding over longer periods of time (beyond just emergency relief), and imposing fewer restrictions on funds, thus allowing nonprofits to take actions they deem necessary both to survive and to serve their communities. “Nonprofits are closer to the communities they serve and understand the dynamic nature of the challenges those communities face. Trust them,” the authors wrote.

The study was funded by the Nancy Bell Evans Endowment for Excellence at the UW.

For more information, contact Associate Teaching Professor Erica Mills Barnhart at enm@uw.edu.

Here’s a quick look at a few such UW-created podcasts, from benevolent marketing to Arctic geopolitics — and a classics professor’s work being featured in a podcast produced by the Times Literary Supplement.

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EarthLab / 91̽��Tacoma
Hosted by , associate professor, 91̽��Tacoma Nursing and Healthcare Leadership Program.

“What do people think about environmental challenges? And what do they do every day to survive those challenges? We explore these questions in this podcast series,” say co-principal investigators Evans-Agnew and , urban ecologist and assistant professor in 91̽��Tacoma’s School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences.

Beginning in 2019 and continuing earlier this year, this team of 91̽��Tacoma professors and students asked people in Tacoma and the South Sound to fill out postcards with their own answers to those questions.

“We stood in the street, behind booths, in the sunshine and the rain … We chose places where we wouldn’t necessarily find the sort of people who already had a voice,” the researchers wrote. The team gathered about 1,000 postcards in all, and those responses are the subject of the podcasts.

Each podcast presents selections from the postcards, and the researchers also discuss their experiences. One episode features 91̽��Tacoma plastics researcher and geoscience lecturer .

Evans-Agnew said the team plans a second series of the podcast that will focus on COVID-19, environment justice and police oppression issues.

“I also do not want to lose sight of the continued — and quiet roll-backs of environmental policy that are occurring in the shadows of this unrest,” Evans-Agnes said. “It is the untold story of this time.”

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Written and hosted by , senior lecturer, 91̽��Bothell School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences.

“This podcast explores the emotional burden of climate change,” writes Atkinson, “and why despair leaves so many people unable to respond to our existential threat.”

The fourth episode, “Coping with Climate Despair in Four Steps,” outlines strategies to “beat the climate blues and become an agent of change.” Atkinson’s research focus is the environmental humanities and her teaching explores intersections between environmental studies and American culture and literature.

Atkinson added: “Meanwhile, frontline communities — particularly people of color, indigenous communities, and other historically-marginalized groups — are experiencing the heaviest mental health impacts of climate disruption and displacement. This series introduces ways to move from despair to action by addressing the psychological roots of our unprecedented ecological loss.”

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Hosted and produced by the Canadian Studies Center,
Jackson School of International Studies.

The inaugural 45-minute episode of this occasional podcast series features political science doctoral student

interviewing , former two-term premier of the Yukon Territory and the Jackson School’s 2013-14 Fulbright Canada Chair in Arctic studies.

The interview focuses on Penikett’s 2018 book “.” Publisher’s notes say the book explores the nature of a new “Northern consciousness” or “Arctic identity” beyond pop culture stereotypes that “fail to capture northern realities.”

Ahlness is a 2020-2021 Foreign Language and Area Studies fellow in Inuktitut with the Canadian Studies Center, which produces the podcast with the Jackson School’s International Policy Institute and Center for Global Studies.

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Hosted by , senior lecturer in the and co-director of the .

“Marketing can be a force for good,” says Mills Barnhart, but it can also be “complicated, confusing and downright nerve-wracking.” Her podcast seeks to bring clarity to marketing chaos. “I talk about how you can think about marketing differently so you can do marketing differently with less stress and more joy.”

Mills Barnhart has produced the podcast weekly since April, with 1,500 downloads so far. Most episodes are a half-hour to an hour in length and have featured interviews with the UW’s of the Department of Communication and of the Evans School.

“Whether you work for a for-profit corporation or a nonprofit organization,” Mills Barnhart writes, “if you’re out to make the world a better place, this podcast will give you the insight and inspiration you need to market your mission with clarity and confidence.”

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Times Literary Supplement podcast discusses book by 91̽��classics professor Sarah Levin-Richardson

A book by , 91̽��professor of classics, was the subject of a recent podcast by the Times Literary Supplement, a publication of the Sunday Times of London. The book is “,” published by Cambridge University Press in 2019.

The podcast series is called “Freedom, Books, Flowers & the Moon” and the episode about Levin-Richardson’s book, featuring Rebecca Langlands of the University of Exeter is “.” Langlands also published a of the book.

Read more on the Department of Classics’ , and listen to the podcast either or downloadable from .