Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Non-profit funding

According to Wikipedia, a non-profit is "a legally constituted organization whose objective is to support or engage in activities of public or private interest without any commercial or monetary profit." But, the thing is non-profits need some profit in order to run. There are specific ways that NPO's go about getting money whether it's from private lenders or the government. And, there's only one way for us to prove that we are achieving what we want to achieve. Some of you out there may no what that is and some of you only think you know. But, I can say that I fully appreciate anyone who has to do quarterly reports and budgets and set up grant goals for their employees. This is a recent promotion in my job responsibilities. The last two weeks have been solidly devoted to tracking down our stats and client demographics so we can prove to our board and the community that we are doing something so important. And, that there is a need for our services. People can hear that, "1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men will be a victim of sexual assault in their lifetime," yet it still is not resonating with the world at large that those statistic are on the rise. And, will continue to go up every day with more and more people reporting. Sexual assault is still one of the most under-reported crimes that a person can go through. But, as someone who has been doing nothing but staring at numbers I can tell you in our town of Fredericksburg the numbers have increases significantly just within the last 3 months. This isn't a plea for money only but it's a plea for people to start becoming more aware of what is going on in your own town. Get involved. Volunteer. Find out how to be safe in your town. And, for people who want to see our numbers I am hoping to help generate a percentage report for the year and show what we have been doing with our money and our time in providing this valuable service. I hope to one day not need something entirely devoted to Sexual Assault/Trauma but until that day my office will continue to come in and help provide prevention to the communities and help change the numbers.

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