Digital Commons Network^™

Serving Through Adversity: Community-Based Nonprofits Negotiating Race, Place, And A State Budget Crisis, 2007-2011, Eilleen Rollerson

Dissertations

This qualitative study examines the ways in which the leadership and staff of four community-based organizations in a high-poverty African American community in Chicago perceived and were impacted by economic, political, and social changes in their community from 2007 to 2011. During a time of economic hardship caused in part by the state's budget crisis that threatened their very survival, these nonprofits connected residents with community institutions, government, and church in response to their needs.

Processes of acquiring resources and capital, prioritizing the needs, shifting programs and people for maximum benefit, and finally shedding expendable programs and people for the …