A Window into the Future
Severson Center helps members keep up with nonprofit trends
Read article below or download a pdfIf scenario planning is one of the more valuable tools that organizations can use to prepare for an uncertain future (see article on scenario planning on page 38), the ability to track trends becomes a critical precursor to effective strategic planning.
Alliance for Children and Families members, as a benefit of membership, have an ally in the trend-tracking process: the Alliance’s trends website and the Alliance’s annual trend report. 
The website, alliancetrends.org, features information and material compiled by the staff of the Alliance’s Severson National Information Center. In addition, each year Severson Center staff publish the top five trends report.
Severson Center staff track and compile information on trends by subscribing to e-news updates from news sources that track the nonprofit and human service field, such as PNNonline, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Handsnet, and Open Minds; subscribing to alerts from Government sources such as the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Justice Statistics; utilizing Google Alerts that check news stories with the word “nonprofit”; and reviewing major newspapers daily. Trends are identified by staff based on the frequency they occur in these sources.
Elizabeth Caldwell, librarian and information specialist for the Severson Center, then uses the identified trends to develop a list of approximately 100 trends that is sent to the 33-person Alliance National Trend Advisory Committee. This committee of Alliance member staff leaders then identifies the top five trends they see affecting nonprofits.
“Once they (the trends) are identified, I review information I may already have in that subject area,” says Caldwell. “I also go to sources I know cover that subject and search their website or search a few good search engines to find reports and articles.
“We then send the committee the complete trend report that has entries we have been tracking since the last time we published the top five report.
“The committee bases their top five list on the report we give them or they can give us a list based on their own experience of what they are seeing in their agency.”
Because the top trends are based on the opinions of Alliance members in the field, Caldwell says, “I am confident they are a true reflection of what our members and others in the human service field are currently experiencing and will confront in the near future.”
The information Caldwell receives from committee members is used to compile detailed descriptions of current trends affecting nonprofit organizations, including the impact these trends may have. The trend website provides articles, studies, and reports on specific trends affecting nonprofits. And both are available at no cost to all Alliance members.
Susan Hornung, director of the Alliance Severson Center, says, “Our members have a lot of stressors; including not knowing what challenges will be thrown at them unexpectedly, increased competition for often dwindling funding, and figuring how to address evolving social challenges.
“The trend report provides a window into the future. Not only does it let members see new and emerging trends, but it gives the impact trends will have on human service nonprofit agencies from experts in the field. This gives opportunities to members to prepare for the future.”
Family Services of Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, is a great example of an organization that utilizes information in the trend report. “We go through an 18-month strategic planning process,” says Stephen Christian-Michaels, chief operating officer for Family Services. “We’re always thinking about what’s on the horizon. The Alliance provides that perspective better than most organizations we belong to and the trend report is one important way they do it.”
The annual trend report, Scanning the Horizons 2008-2009: Top Five Trends, will be available Oct. 6 online at alliancetrends.org and will be included on a CD in the Alliance National Conference registration packet, distributed at at the conference Oct. 28-30 in Baltimore. It is also available for purchase by UNCA members.
The trends website is updated regularly, says Caldwell; “We monitor information sources on a daily basis. However, sometimes a subject or trend needs to simmer for awhile before we can see where it is going—before we call it a trend. I have an e-mail I send out, the trends announcements list, that lets members know the specific updates that have occurred on the site.”
For more information, including how to obtain your trend website login and password information, contact Elizabeth Caldwell at contact@alliancetrends.org.
Here is a preview of the top five trends and trend subcategories currently identified by the Alliance’s nonprofit leaders:
1. Aging: care giving; early release of aged prison population effect on communities; agencies seeing increased demand from clients for aging services; seniors wanting to live independently; senior suicide and substance abuse; retirement hardships (especially women); poverty in rural older adults; lack of skilled workers to address needs of senior population; and lack of interest in working with seniors
2. Economy: mortgage foreclosure crisis; homelessness; rising cost of living food/gas; agencies experiencing increase in demand for services (financial counseling, food pantries); federal debt; budget cuts at state and federal level; and social security, Medicare, and Medicaid
3. Nonprofits, Philanthropy and Resource Development: narrow perspective of funders; restricted funding; no funding for administrative costs; need for capacity building; impact of Deficit Reduction Act; government funding roadblocks and influence within agencies; economic pressures on funding streams; and Medicaid funding under attack
4. Nonprofits, Workforce: recruitment and retention; aging of the workforce; succession planning/professional development; pay gap; leadership deficit; cost of providing health care benefits; generation Y; and competition for professional positions
5. Poverty: poverty gap; shrinking middle class; haves and have nots; poorer poor; hunger; and
working poor
National Trend Advisory Committee Members 2008-2009
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