Scholars and practitioners have argued that effective financial management, particularly the development of operating reserves, can help nonprofits survive economic shocks. The COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a significant impact on the nonprofit sector, provides an opportunity to test whether nonprofits have followed that recommendation, and if so, whether nonprofits with operating reserves were better prepared for the pandemic. Using data from an original survey of more than 600 nonprofit human service and arts organizations, administered when most states had stay-at-home restrictions, we show that most nonprofits experienced an immediate impact on their programs and financing. Yet, those nonprofits with more reserves were less likely to reduce operating hours, lose staff, or experience difficulty acquiring supplies or vendor services. Our study provides rare empirical data on the benefits of operating reserves for nonprofits. Our results also confirm that arts and culture nonprofits were more severely affected than human service nonprofits.

中文翻译：

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您准备好了吗：财务管理、运营储备以及 COVID-19 对非营利组织的直接影响

学者和从业者认为，有效的财务管理，尤其是运营储备的开发，可以帮助非营利组织在经济冲击中幸存下来。COVID-19 大流行对非营利部门产生了重大影响，它提供了一个机会来测试非营利组织是否遵循了该建议，如果是，则具有运营储备的非营利组织是否为大流行做好了更好的准备。使用来自对 600 多个非营利性人类服务和艺术组织的原始调查的数据，这些组织在大多数州有居家限制的情况下进行，我们表明大多数非营利组织的项目和融资都受到了直接影响。然而，那些拥有更多储备的非营利组织减少运营时间、裁员或难以获得供应或供应商服务的可能性较小。我们的研究提供了关于非营利组织运营储备收益的罕见经验数据。我们的结果还证实，艺术和文化非营利组织比人类服务非营利组织受到的影响更严重。