The Nonprofit Squeeze

Cash-poor, time-rich volunteers like Anglesea have every right to believe that what they are doing is just as valuable as handing over cash. Indeed, the charity world puts a cash value on volunteers' time--$19.51 an hour, estimates Independent Sector, a think tank for charities. But food banks still need supplies to distribute, and volunteers' shift toward time, not money, is only part of what threatens nonprofit budgets for years to come. Traditional bastions of financial support have plenty of their own problems. Corporations and foundation endowments have been crushed by the stock market. State governments, a key source of fee-based support, are seeing slumping tax revenues. On top of all that, Obama has proposed to reduce tax breaks for wealthy people's contributions.