Letter From John: The Power of Nonprofits

A few months after I started Floricane, I formed a small advisory council to help me make good business decisions and bolster my mercurial self-confidence.

At the time, we were midway through the Great Recession (circa 2009) and the bulk of Floricane’s clients –- The James House, the Valentine, the Virginia Society of CPAs, Richmond Region Tourism, Leadership Metro Richmond –- were nonprofit and community centered organizations.

Early in one of our first sessions, someone questioned the wisdom of focusing Floricane’s time and energy in the nonprofit sector. Surely, the argument went, there’s not a lot of money to be made supporting nonprofits.

My friend Stephanie stepped to the plate and quickly made three succinct points: 1) There is plenty of money in the nonprofit sector. 2) Supporting Richmond’s nonprofits is good, meaningful work. 3) John (that’s me) has a lot of passion for nonprofits and community organizations.

Fast forward almost 15 years. The passion hasn't faded, and the sector has grown. While the nonprofit sector may have been somewhat invisible to most folks way back in 2008, a recent article in the Washington Post reports that nonprofits have never been a bigger part of the U.S. economy.

"Over the past 15 years, nonprofit employment has grown 33 percent, dwarfing the 9 percent job growth enjoyed by the for-profit private sector over that time. Nonprofits have passed local government to become the second-largest source of employment in the country, behind the for-profit sector."

In fact, nonprofits have grown far faster than any other segment of the economy. Almost 40,000 people in Richmond, Henrico and Chesterfield are employed by nonprofits. (That number swells above 100,000 people when I glance at Floricane’s primary service area of Central Virginia and the Virginia Peninsula.)

As the nonprofit sector has grown as an employer, it has also grown as an influencer. One example: There are 11 nonprofits and foundations represented on the Chamber RVA Board.

And the increased attention to, commitment to, and investment in organizations centered around issues of equity and inclusion, and social good, continues to influence the ways in which the for-profit sector thinks about its role in the community.

One of the most meaningful decisions I made early on was to maintain Floricane’s consulting focus on the nonprofit sector. Today, nonprofit and community organizations are about 40% of Floricane’s core focus – balanced by a surprisingly equal balance of business, government and educational clients.

More important – to me, and our team – is the fact that most of our work (regardless of sector) is geared toward helping individuals, teams and organizations do more good for the people and communities they serve.

-       John

P.S. Belated thanks to Donald Jones, Joe Ruiz, Stephanie Kirksey, Greg Moyer, and Nikole Sarvay for leaning into that frenetic first year – and all the support since. And special thanks to Tom Herr, Floricane’s former accountant. Tom died late in 2018, and took his good business sense and a sense of humor with him.