Study to analyze nonprofits’ role in city

By Crystal Betz
Daily Bruin Contributor

The UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research is
conducting an extensive telephone survey to determine the role of
nonprofit organizations in Los Angeles.

The survey will analyze more than 2,500 charitable organizations
and focus on services they provide to the city in areas of arts,
culture, environment, education, health and human services.

“Nonprofits fill a whole set of needs which are not
provided by either the government or economy,” said social
welfare professor and survey director Yeheskel Hasenfeld.

The survey will examine the responsiveness of the nonprofit
sector to the ethnic and cultural diversity in Los Angeles to
determine if the organizations adequately reflect the population
they serve.

Funded by a large anonymous grant requesting more research on
nonprofit organizations, researchers intend to develop a program on
nonprofit leadership and management from this study.

“Many executive directors of nonprofits have a need for
some counsel on management,” said Megan Cooper, executive
director of the Executive Service Corps of Southern California, a
nonprofit organization that assists other nonprofit groups in
developing and enhancing management skills.

“We were not aware of the survey, but it seems extremely
needed and useful,” Cooper said. “We are highly
interested to see the findings.”

One graduate student assisting Hasenfeld said the survey will be
valuable to nonprofit organizations.

“The survey is organized to hear from the bottom-level
nonprofits, like grassroots organizations, to the top level of
nonprofits, like community homeless shelters, to get the best
picture possible on how well nonprofit represent diversity,”
said Jennifer Mosley, a graduate student in public policy.

Those involved in the survey hope to highlight the extensive
role nonprofit organizations play in serving the community, Mosley
said.

The survey will be administered to organizations in the spring,
with preliminary results done by summer and completion by winter or
spring quarter 2003, Hasenfeld said.