Sometimes the best information you get from a conference in confirmation that you are on the right track. And looking back on last week's Philanthropy Northwest Conference I feel that is one of the lessons that I was able to learn at this year's conference. 

Many foundations throughout the Northwest are hearing the same thing from nonprofits that I have been hearing: new projects are having a hard time gaining traction while other groups are looking for every dollar they can find to make up for lost funding of current operations.

This situation is a challenge for foundations. They have to learn how to make grants based upon looking at different criteria.

It is also an opportunity for grant seekers. In this uncertain environment you have a greater opportunity to suggest what those different criteria ought to be.

Here are some ideas that might help.

Foundation donors are concerned about seeing important services survive this economic downturn. But foundations need to be warned that good programs will not survive just because they are good for the community; these programs need the right kind of support at the right time.

For example, a good program that gets caught in a cash squeeze can go under. Meanwhile, an average program that happens to have some reserves built up may weather this economic storm without any influx of new support.

If you work for a group that has traditionally operated on low, or no, reserves, and also has more people asking for help, now is the time to tell that story.

But it is also time to be sure that the organization looks at its needs in light of the next two or three years. Asking for help to make next month's payroll or to end the fiscal year at break even isn't enough. This economic crisis is not going to suddenly pass in two or three months.

You need to make a case for support that tells donors how you will weather the next two to three years.  This is especially important as the signs for 2010 indicate that foundation giving be dipping in reaction to last fall's decline in the stock market. 

Most foundations found that their giving decline little in 2009 since the stock market went down so late in the year. All of that drop, however, impacts foundations that began their fiscal year on January 1st.  

Just this past week the Foundation Center conducted an online survey that may begin to outline the extent of the cuts we may see next year. The survey closes this week, and I hope to see them public results in October for you to read here and in other outlets.

Do you have questions about the economic outlook or comments? Please share them here or write me at kenristine@hotmail.com