Challenges Facing Our Communities
Communities across the country and around the world face complex, urgent challenges, ranging from economic inequality and unaddressed educational and health disparities to environmental issues. Recent economic turbulence has intensified the vital role that nonprofits and other social impact organizations must play in resolving these challenges. Needs have increased while resources have decreased, placing significant pressure and stress on organizations whose capacity was already constrained. In the short term, these organizations must do more with less to continue to deliver critical services. To survive, they need to find new ways of doing business, explore alternative funding streams, better engage volunteers, increase operational efficiency and effectiveness, and strategically plan for the future.
Over the longer term, an aging population, climate change, and increased density in urban areas will create new challenges for our communities and the organizations that serve them. Complicating this is a looming leadership crisis. Community-based organizations are already struggling to recruit and retain the diverse talent they need to achieve their missions, and this problem is expected to intensify. According to The Bridgespan Group, there will be a need for over 500,000 new leaders in the nonprofit sector alone in the next eight years. By 2016, nonprofits will need 80,000 new senior managers a year. If nonprofits and other social impact organizations are to continue to provide critical community services and act as champions of the common good and incubators of social innovation, the sector must develop new leaders.
Meeting the Challenges
New Sector addresses these challenges by strengthening community-based organizations today while developing leaders for tomorrow. We recruit, train, and support diverse top talent to deliver consulting services and capacity to clients, helping organizations better serve their constituents. At the same time, we provide transformative professional and personal development experiences to our program participants and staff, inspiring lifelong civic engagement. By providing essential services in the short-term while developing leadership for the long-term, New Sector creates sustainable solutions to pressing community challenges.
