This Triad Agency Advocates for Nonprofits
By: Donna Hayes
North Carolina has more than 62,000 registered nonprofit organizations. They do everything from helping feed people to helping the unhoused find housing, but there’s one nonprofit whose purpose is to help other nonprofits.
“Nonprofits are essential to having a civil society,” said Mary Herbenick.
“We fill gaps in our community all day, every day, and so we need to have a strong sector to be able to do that, and there’s a lot of energy and a lot of capacity here to make good things happen for our community. We work with nonprofits all the time.”
Working with other nonprofits is Herbenick’s job. She’s the director of the Guilford Nonprofit Consortium. It’s an agency that serves as a champion for nonprofits, advocating for what they need in order to have a thriving community.
“We work with all kinds of nonprofits across every single mission area,” she said. “Lots of arts and culture organizations. We work with healthcare organizations, mental health services, housing, food organizations that are combating food insecurity. So, we run the gamut, and what we do is consult with those organizations to find out what they need in order to meet their mission.”
Meeting that need includes finding people to serve as board members for nonprofits. The consortium recently hosted a matching event to pair nonprofits with local volunteers who are looking to give back to their community.
“Basically, we have 15 nonprofit organizations that are members of the Guilford Nonprofit Consortium in the room, and they are meeting community leaders who are interested in serving on boards and committees to give back to our community, and so it’s a really fun event,” said Herbenick. “Every person has five minutes with each nonprofit, and they get to think about how they want to serve in our community and then match with nonprofits that are interested in the key skills and talents that this community offers.”
Herbenick said the match isn’t just important for the nonprofits who help people. She says every single person in our community benefits from a nonprofit in one way, shape, or form.
“About eight and a half percent of the workforce of the Triad is employed by nonprofit organizations,” she said. “It might be a surprise that our hospital systems are nonprofit organizations. Our private colleges and universities are nonprofit organizations, and we have a lot of skin in the game for economic development.”
The consortium is comprised of about 330 member nonprofits. Herbenick said it’s a mutual fostering of aid, thanks to the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro.
“We are a program founded in 2003 by a Leadership Greensboro class, ironically, that has been around since then, and we have been housed in the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro since that time,” she said. “We have many funding partners, and CFDG provides backbone support that we couldn’t get if we rolled out into our own nonprofit, and so they do that strategically to be great partners in our communities, to the organizations that they fund and other foundations also help make sure that this is sustainable across all of Guilford County.”
The consortium also has a volunteer hub where people can match organizations to their interests and talents to help nonprofits thrive. If you’re interested in getting involved, visit their website.
Read the full article at myfox8.com