Hawai‘i charitable nonprofits and social enterprises may face fundraising challenges in the coming years that may prove challenging in their services to their communities. Hawai‘i Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations (HANO) and Hawai‘i Investment Ready (HIR) are launching the Hawai‘i Sector Pulse – an online survey to engage the nonprofit and social enterprise community. The survey hopes to garner data from at least 250 organizations throughout Hawai‘i and can be found at www.hawaiisectorpulse.com

“In almost every facet of Hawai‘i, nonprofits and social enterprises are providing vital services and support for our communities, with many seeing an increase in demand due to COVID-19. We want to be able to better support these critically important organizations, but we need accurate information and data,” said Lisa Maruyama, president and CEO of HANO.

The Hawaiʻi Sector Pulse survey will gather comprehensive information from participating organizations on the multitude of impacts they may be experiencing as a result of COVID-19.

“Given the projected long-term economic fallout, this sector will be hard hit by a lack of resources,” said Keoni Lee, CEO of HIR. “Collected data will empower decision making based on evidence to inform where training and technical assistance can be provided, as well as where philanthropic and government dollars can be best invested,” he continued.

“We truly believe these findings will make an impact for our nonprofits and their funding partners to work collectively through this crisis,” said Maruyama.

While CARES act monies are set to expire at the end of 2020, there are talks of Congress wanting to extend these funds. Results from this survey can be utilized to better inform the state and counties on the distribution of these funds.

“This sector has a significant role to play in Hawaiʻi’s recovery and road to resilience. These organizations are – at times – the first and sometimes the only qualifying entities that can bring these needed dollars to Hawai‘i. We need this data to support their collective good work,” Lee added.

Prior to the pandemic, Hawai‘i’s nonprofit sector was a $6.6 billion industry, employing 56,000 workers in over 6,000 charitable nonprofits. Survey data will provide some sense of how COVID has changed the sector’s makeup and impact.

The survey will close September 4th. Questions should be directed to survey@hiready.net.