Issue link: https://blog.providence.org/i/1367422
Orange County Community Resilience Fund Evaluation Report 17 are more able to reorganize responsibilities or fill in staffing gaps temporarily than a small organization that has little or no redundancy or cross-training, and may not have any capacity to perform layoffs. As might be expected, organizations that had layoffs, furloughs, or hours cut were more likely to have a decrease of services; it is debatable which caused the other. 10 organizations reported having to increase services while also laying off people, placing them in a difficult squeeze. There were no other significant differences on the types of organizations that have cut staffing, such as the population they served or the source of their declines in revenue. Surprisingly, organizations that received PPP were not less likely to cut staff than those who did not, despite prohibitions in PPP that prevent recipients from cutting personnel this may indicate that such organizations cut staffing before receipt off the PPP. Changed Services and Communication The pandemic has forced substantial changes in how organizations provide services and communicate with clients. In the immediate shutdown period, nonprofits had to wrestle with the question of whether to stay open and provide services. Some services, such as homeless shelters, community clinics, and food banks remained open, but most nonprofits stopped their in-person services while working to try to shift their service delivery to a remote format. By June, most had succeeded; only 5% of respondents reported they were not delivering services or communicating with clients. 48% of respondents reported actually increasing the volume of services they were offering. However only 23% were serving clients face-to-face, and most of those organizations were ones that had never shut down. Instead, nonprofits have shifted to delivering services in new ways. By June, 75% of organizations were now offering services online in some fashion. These include telehealth visits, online delivery of educational or cultural content, and virtual case management meetings, tutoring sessions, workshops and social gatherings. 39% deliver services via the phone. Only a few nonprofits have made wider use of the mail to communicate. Other innovations include drive-through food and supply pickup or direct home delivery, and "pop-up" shelters. Offering services remotely has advantages beyond simply providing services that would be impossible to do in-person at this time. Access barriers such as travel time and costs, scheduling difficulties, and concerns that some undocumented individuals may have about seeking services can be mitigated by remote delivery. Nonprofits have learned how to offer remote services, and clients have learned how to use them, which promises to improve access in the future. However, it is not without disadvantages. The digital divide is still real, and not everyone has access to the internet and thus cannot use these services; for some seniors, lack of comfort with technology is also a barrier. In addition, remote services such as physical or mental health visits, educational classes, and social gatherings are not the same as face-to-face as it is harder to pick up nonverbal cues, nuance, and the like, and physical examinations or contact are not possible.