Giving Compass' Take:

• Lynette Hazelton explains how the Center for High Impact Philanthropy's Regional Data Dashboard for COVID-19 Philanthropic Response aims to increase funding efficiency. 

•  The dashboard is limited to the 10-county Southeastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey region. How might a tool like this expand to cover more area? 

• Find COVID-19 response funds to support. 

I asked Katherina Rosqueta, founding executive director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for High Impact Philanthropy (CHIP) which is housed within the School of Social Policy & Practice, one last question.

The question was about how foundations will rescue the nonprofit sector.

Her blunt response shattered any illusions of a breezy, upbeat ending: “Philanthropy will not solve the problems of coronavirus.”

Rosqueta said the fact that philanthropic dollars can’t single-handedly end the economic strangulation that is COVID-19 was the reason behind the creation of a dashboard with the unlikely moniker — Regional Data Dashboard for COVID-19 Philanthropic Response. Limited dollars necessitate that decision-making has to be efficient in order to be effective. This COVID-19 funding dashboard, slated to go live in August, will attempt to help answer questions about the efficacy of COVID-19 funding in the 10-county Southeastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey region.

According to the National Council of Nonprofits, the majority of nonprofits are community based organizations that spend less than $500,000 annually to serve local needs making them as essential as they are vulnerable. “The nonprofits that are hardest hit by COVID-19 are those with slim margins between revenue and expense and those dependent on government funding and reimbursements for their services,” explained Sidney R. Hargro of the Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia, a partner in the creation of the dashboard.

Read the full article about the COVID-19 Response Dashboard by Lynette Hazelton at Generocity.