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For the common good

In 2012, La Plata County’s residents gave almost $36 million to hundreds of local nonprofits

Since the earliest days of La Plata County, when founders were forming a community from scratch, people have been raising money for civic improvement.

Pastors were passing the hat to build churches. Members of the Reading Club of Durango were organizing balls and lectures to build a public library and open a soup kitchen. And the Sisters of Mercy were going door to door to raise money to build a hospital and school, while the “Men’s Quartette” held a singing fundraiser for the cause. A newspaper account of the festivities is silent about whether there was a silent auction.

Fast forward 132 years, and raising money for civic improvement has exploded, with local residents supporting causes ranging from feeding and housing the needy to supporting the arts, sports and education; and to helping people in the world beyond our county’s – and nation’s – borders.

How many nonprofits are there in La Plata County? How big a part of the local economy is this sector? How much do area residents donate? How does Durango compare with the rest of Colorado? How many hours do residents volunteer? What is it like to work with the hungry, with artists, with abused animals? What does the future hold for this dynamic sector of the community?

View from afar

Eleven major funders from the Front Range have given more than $10.2 million to La Plata County nonprofits in the past five years. As organizations that work with nonprofits across the state, they are in a unique position to analyze the sector in La Plata County.

“You’re so geographically removed from the Front Range,” said Peter Maiurro, vice president of El Pomar Foundation, which has given $5.56 million in 535 grants to Southwest Colorado since 1937. “By necessity, you’ve had your own autonomy, and that’s a good thing. My sense is that you have a very, very robust nonprofit community.”

How many nonprofits are there?

The bottom line is, nobody can say for sure, but the number is in the 300 to 400 range.

Figuring out how many nonprofits operate in the county is a Herculean task with an ever-changing answer. GuideStar, which provides access to Internal Revenue Service Form 990s for many nonprofits, says there are 399, but a closer look shows that more than 100 are ditch companies, groups such as 4-H Clubs and churches.

(For sanity purposes, churches and many church programs are excluded from the total.) But Volunteers of America, which operates Durango Community Shelter, Southwest Safehouse and the Back Home and Transitional Housing programs for veterans, is technically considered a church, and Mercy Health Foundation is part of Centura Health. Those are clearly nonprofits that benefit the community, and they are included, even though neither organization files a Form 990.

According to the IRS’s Exempt Organization’s Business Master File, at the end of 2013, La Plata County had 248 nonprofits, with 200 filing a Form 990 or Form 990-N. Their total revenue was $85.3 million, and they held assets of almost $115 million.

Neither the IRS nor GuideStar count nonprofits that operate under the umbrellas of other organizations. Durango Friends of the Arts and the Health Coalition of Southwest Colorado, for example, are fiscally sponsored funds under the umbrella of another 501(c)3 organization, in their case the Community Foundation Serving Southwest Colorado. The community foundation had 15 fiscally sponsored funds at the end of 2013, not to mention 26 organizational funds (in essence, savings accounts for nonprofits) and 28 donor-advised funds (family funds that give to other nonprofits).

The final count comes out somewhere in the neighborhood of 300, but that does not include clubs such as Rotary, Kiwanis, Civitan and Lions or civic groups such as Elks, Masons, Veterans of Foreign Wars or others that raise money and provide numerous philanthropic services to our community.

Do we have too many nonprofits?

“Of course, we have too many nonprofits,” said Susan Lander, former executive director of the Women’s Resource Center and Music in the Mountains, who consults with nonprofits. “When I was at the Community Resource Center in the 1990s, there were 17,000 nonprofits in the state, and 11,000 of them didn’t have budgets over $25,000. That hasn’t changed.”

Going with the conservative estimate of 300 in Durango, that comes out to one nonprofit for every 167 of La Plata County’s estimated 50,000 residents.

“We have so many nonprofits that are one bake sale away from failing,” said Mike Smedley, who recently joined the community foundation’s board of directors. “We definitely have too many.”

People looking at La Plata County from outside aren’t so sure.

“You certainly have pretty strong numbers compared to nearby regions,” Maiurro said. “In the San Luis Valley, there are fewer than 30, and the San Juan Region, where Gunnison and Montrose are located, has about 40.”

Evaluating the number of nonprofits has more to do with determining whether they are meeting a community need. Every funder interviewed said most of La Plata County’s nonprofits are efficient and have strong leadership.

“I would say that most of them are obviously achieving their mission,” said Maria Fabula, president and CEO of the Community Resource Center in Denver, which offers training for nonprofit leaders and helps organize Rural Philanthropy Days, which introduces local nonprofits to Front Range funders and vice versa. “It’s very challenging to start a nonprofit, with rigorous and time-consuming paperwork. And you have to have community support, or you cannot and will not succeed. Nonprofits are just like the marketplace, and we see businesses close all the time because they can’t sell their product.”

One of Durango’s strengths may be that people have choices, said Sarada Leavenworth, executive director of Volunteers of America.

“When we go shopping, we have choices, and in the nonprofit service world, it’s also good to have choices,” she said, “For example, we offer the Safehouse for people in crisis mode, and Alternative Horizons helps women at a different stage in coping with domestic violence with counseling and vouchers. With two providers working closely with each other, there’s an increase in accessibility, an increase in feeling safe.”

abutler@durangoherald.com

Note: There are 29 types of 501(c) nonprofits listed under the Internal Revenue Service code, including social and recreational clubs, chambers of commerce, cemetery companies and veterans’ organizations created before 1880. This series is focusing only on those that fit under the 501(c)3 heading for what many people think of when thinking about charities.

Even in that case, churches, ditch companies and a few other miscellaneous organizations have been excluded. La Plata Electric Association, for example, technically qualifies as a nonprofit because it’s a rural electricity cooperative, and its annual income of more than $99,000,000 would rank it as the biggest in the county. But it’s the LPEA Round Up Foundation that qualifies for this series.

Top outside funders to La Plata County nonprofits

Over the past five years, La Plata County nonprofits have received 300 grants totalling $10.219 million from 11 Front Range foundations. Almost all of these foundations have specific causes they support. Boettcher Foundation, for example, gives to “bricks and mortar” or building capital campaigns.

Top funders include:

1. Colorado Health Foundation: 24 grants for $4,627,264.

2. El Pomar Foundation: 114 grants for $1,309,500.

3. Temple Hoyne Buell Foundation: 27 grants for $985,105.

4. Colorado Trust: 7 grants for $694,991.

5. Daniels Fund: 26 grants for $616,500.

6. Gates Family Foundation: 9 grants for $603,000.

7. Helen K. and Arthur E. Johnson Foundation: 25 grants for $392,500.

8. Boettcher Foundation: 15 grants for $392,000.

9. Anschutz Family Foundation: 45 grants for $265,500.

10. Caring for Colorado Foundation: 5 grants for $239,760.

11. Adolph Coors Foundation: 8 grants for $150,000.

Largest 15 nonprofits in La Plata County

Nobody denies that La Plata County has a lot of nonprofits. Many fall under the IRS limit of $25,000 in revenues for filing a Form 990 and are hard to track. Others, such as Mercy Health Foundation and Volunteers of America, which operates the Durango Community Shelter and Southwest Safehouse, fall under the umbrella of a larger organization.

Using the best information available, here are the 15 largest nonprofits in La Plata County by revenue:

Axis Health System: $9,159,792. (Includes payment for services from individuals, insurance companies, the state and federal governments.)

Southern Ute Community Action Programs, Inc.: $6,829,485

Southwest Conservation Corps: $6,653,215

Community Connections: $4,631,533

Fort Lewis College Foundation: $3,432,908

Durango 4-C Council (elementary/secondary education): $3,376,414

Community Foundation Serving Southwest Colorado: $2,061,233

La Plata County Humane Society: $1,593,947

Four Corners Office for Resource Efficiency (4Core): $1,588,131

Mercy Health Foundation: $1,576,537

Housing Solutions for the Southwest: $1,451,320

United Way of Southwest Colorado: $1,186,339

Durango Education Center: $1,097,216

Habitat for Humanity of La Plata County: $1,046,371 (Includes sales to homeowners and proceeds from ReStore.)

Manna Soup Kitchen: $885,963. (Includes money raised in a capital campaign for the training and resource center.)

Nonprofits of the Year

In 2006, the Durango Chamber of Commerce began honoring area nonprofits. Each organization was nominated with an extensive overview of what it does and how effectively it does it for the selection committee to review.

The winners so far:

2006: United Way of Southwest Colorado (Finalists: Durango Education Center and Manna Soup Kitchen)

2007: Southwest Institute for Education and Conservation, better known as the Durango Education Center and Southwest Conservation Corps (Finalists: Trails 2000 and Women’s Resource Center)

2008: Community Connections (Finalists: Adaptive Sports Association and Women’s Resource Center)

2009: Southern Ute Community Action Programs (Finalists: San Juan Mountains Association and Sexual Assault Services Organization)

2010: Women’s Resource Center (Finalists: Boys & Girls Club of La Plata County and La Plata Youth Services)

2011: Manna Soup Kitchen (Finalists: La Plata Electric Association Round-Up Foundation and Volunteers of America)

2012: Durango Arts Center (Finalists: Boys & Girls Club and Regional Housing Alliance of La Plata County)

2013: Boys & Girls Club of La Plata County (Finalists: Axis Health System and Volunteers of America)

How generous are we?

Charity Navigator, which tracks the nonprofit sector, says Americans’ giving was up 13 percent in 2013. But the most recent data released by the Internal Revenue Service is for what income tax filers declared for charitable deductions in 2012.

The numbers, as compiled by The Chronicle of Philanthropy, show that we don’t give at the same levels as Coloradans overall or Americans in general, nor are we one of the most generous counties in the country as a percentage of median income given, falling in the bottom 40 percent of all counties in the country:

As of December 2013, Colorado had 17,923 public charities and 1,661 private foundations, with 13,335 charities filing an annual return in the previous 24 months.

Of those reporting, 62 percent had revenues less than $250,000. Only 7 percent had annual revenues more than $1 million.

Coloradans gave $3.367 billion in 2012, with La Plata County residents claiming $35.825 million in deductions.

About 25.5 percent of filers in our county who donated claimed deductions, lower than the Colorado average of 28.9 percent.

La Plata County residents, with a median income of $60,267, gave a median contribution of $2,466, 4.1 percent.

La Plata County ranks 1,916 out of 3,115 counties nationwide in percentage of income given.

Colorado residents, with a median income of $55,577, gave a median contribution of $2,317, 4.2 percent.

U.S. residents, with a median income of $54,783, made a median donation of $2,564, 4.7 percent.

According to the recently released Colorado Civic Health Index Report, which used U.S. Census data, 33.1 percent of Coloradans volunteer, ranking us 12th in the nation. There is a 25 percent increase in volunteer rates for people with bachelor’s degrees compared to those who graduated only high school.

The civic health index also found we are ninth in the nation both for working with neighbors to solve community problems and for holding group membership in a civic or community organization.

In this series

Today: The big picture of the nonprofit scene.

Monday: What does it take to work with the needy?

Tuesday: Who are the donors and how do they give?

Wednesday: The future of nonprofits in La Plata County.

Aug 23, 2014
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