Every so often, Napa Valley Community Foundation (NVCF) takes a careful look at the local nonprofit sector. The questions we ask are straightforward: What has changed? How is funding shifting? And where can the Foundation’s attention and resources make the greatest difference? We published the last comprehensive study of this kind in 2003 — two decades ago.
Now, we’re publishing an updated look at Napa County’s Nonprofit Landscape.
The Foundation works side-by-side with local donors and nonprofits to tackle the most important challenges our Valley faces, but while we are the largest public grantmaking foundation in the county, we don’t deliver services ourselves. No one on the Foundation’s team is a case manager, clinician, or home visitor; that work belongs to the hundreds of organizations described in our report.
What the Foundation can offer, beyond significant grant funding each year, is perspective — we have a bird’s-eye view of the charitable sector. We know what various organizations do, and how they do it. We have an informed point of view about their financials and their leadership. Importantly, we can also see where residents may be slipping through the cracks of an otherwise robust tapestry of services.
The report takes this bird’s-eye view. As we did twenty years ago, the Foundation drew a line around Napa County, gathered the public data on every charity incorporated within it, and worked to make sense of what we found. The short version: compared with twenty years ago, Napa’s nonprofit sector is sizeable, dynamic, and under strain.
There is also a call to action in these documents. Government funding has long been one of the forces that makes this sector strong, and that funding is now being reduced. This report is meant not only to describe the landscape, but to invite everyone who gives — through organized philanthropy, as individuals, or as businesses — to help meet the moment together.
Dig Deeper
- Download Napa’s Nonprofit Landscape narrative report
- Watch the recording of our June event previewing the data
- View the presentation slides
- Download the full list of Napa’s 678 nonprofits