Where are nonprofit funds in Obama’s FY2010 budget?

Nonprofit Quarterly’s Rick Cohen has analyzed President Barack Obama’s federal budget proposals for fiscal year 2010, which was released to the public on May 7, looking for how it will impact the nonprofit sector. His first report reveals that the administration’s budget contains several programs of crucial importance for nonprofits, “but it’s not all peaches and cream.”

Some budget lines dedicated to nonprofits amount to next to nothing, Cohen writes. Nonprofits shouldn’t fight over those scraps while the big dollars slide by nonprofit radar screens.

Unfortunately, even funds aimed at nonprofit “social innovation” or to replace the Bush-era Compassion Capital Fund often do little to assist smaller and medium-sized nonprofits, “the organizations that comprise the overwhelming bulk of nonprofits on the front lines of addressing social needs in America’s urban and rural communities,” Cohen writes.

“Even with the otherwise friendly Obama Administration, nonprofits have to watch out for agency agendas that undo the intent of hard-fought legislative victories and redirect funds away from nonprofits into discretionary agency budgets-with the result that nonprofits might not see, much less get, the resources they need,” Cohen said. Click here to read the entire Cohen Report.