The Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington swallowed the Metropolitan Police Boys and Girls Club last year after it went broke and could no longer run its six clubhouses in crime-ridden D.C. neighborhoods and its summer camp in Maryland.
But the Boys & Girls Clubs are having trouble raising the $2.2 million it needs to operate the additional facilities and had to forgo the summer camp this year, said Patricia G. Shannon, executive director of the clubs.
Hilma Brisco gets a smile from son Deandre, 6, as they are helped at Catholic Community Services by Caitlin Brazill.
(Photos Lucian Perkins -- The Washington Post)
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"We're struggling," Shannon said. "We need help."
Other groups are pushing ahead. In a national survey of nonprofit groups released this year by Johns Hopkins University's Center for Civil Society Studies, nearly 90 percent of those surveyed reported some fiscal stress. Nevertheless, the survey found, nearly two-thirds of organizations had expanded their activities.
"There is just this incredible entrepreneurship in the sector that causes people to find every way they can to avoid affecting services," said Lester Salamon, the center's director.
One local example is DC Scores, an after-school program for about 700 D.C. elementary school students that lost $100,000 in funding from the DC Children and Youth Investment Trust last year. Despite the budget hit, the group doubled the size of its summer camp to 100 children this year and is expanding to a middle school, Kelly Miller in Northeast Washington, this fall.
DC Scores director Holly O'Donnell said she is holding more innovative fundraisers, including a recent soccer tournament pitting local lawyers against corporate executives. That raised $45,000.
"The key for us has been just to be creative," O'Donnell said.
The news is brighter for some arts organizations, particularly in the District, where Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) has made funding the arts a priority in hopes of bringing in tourists and tax revenue. The city has allocated millions to a second Shakespeare Theatre stage downtown and an expansion of Arena Stage in Southwest Washington.
Arena Stage executive director Stephen Richard said that after some lean years, the organization is thriving. "We're not running crazy surpluses," he said. "But we're in solid shape."
