- We continue to measure the toll taken by the drop in oil prices and the now nine-month long COVID pandemic.

Lives lost, businesses ruined, students falling behind, nerves frayed.

So many losses, so many needs and now, not enough to meet those needs.

We're taking about non-profits, those which provide human services.

Food for the hungry, help for the homeless, crisis counseling, services for seniors, shelter for victims of human trafficking and more.

And we're talking about the Arts, organizations which provide food for the soul.

Theater, music, dance and art.

The providers for these services depend heavily on charitable donations, many of which have dried up.

We wanna check in on our non-profits, so tonight we ask, how do you serve when the wells run dry?

I'm Becky Ferguson and this One Question.

(dramatic music) Tonight we will talk to non-profit executives, who will give us a status update on our West Texas Non-Profits.

How they're making ends meet with less as the needs in our community grow.

First this evening, Laurie Johnson, Executive Director of the Non-Profit Management Center, which provides a diverse range of management expertise, technical assistance in services for staff, boards and volunteers of Permian Basin non-profits.

Laurie, thank you so much for joining us today.

First of all, will you tell us a little bit about the Non-Profit Management Center?

Who it serves and how many organizations it serves?

- Thank you, Becky, thank you for inviting me to be here, I really appreciate it.

The Non-Profit Management Center is basically an organization who serves the non-profit sector.

Our clients are non-profits, so we're the business side of the non-profit world.

We serve Permian Basin and Trans-Pecos.

We go, basically, San Angelo, Abilene, Lamesa, over Del Peso and down the Mexican Border.

Last year we served over 1500 individuals, representing non-profit organizations.

I think that equated to almost 900 organizations.

- What do you see happening to non-profits since the pandemic started and since oil and gas prices went down?

- It has been a real whammy year for everybody, including the non-profits.

The non-profits had to adjust, to adapt, and those that have, that have stepped forward and really started thinking future-wise and how they're gonna change their model or how they're gonna change their business, are going to be okay.

But some of those that have not done anything, they're just now saying oh gee, this wasn't just a sneeze, we're gonna be in this for a while.

We're looking at probably 2022 before we really see some real relief, so some of those non-profits are not gonna be able to survive or they're gonna have to merge or they're going to have to start building collaborations.

I was reading some research the other day from a national organization called Candid, it was formerly known as GuideStar, it's the one that's kind of watched on to a lot of us.

And their research indicated that 13% of non-profits, nationally, will not survive 2021.

I don't think that's gonna be the case here because we've got a very generous community, but we do have to rethink how we do business.

- Well, I know the needs now must be greater than ever and the funding is less than it has been in a while.

What are some specific things that non-profits are doing to make the adjustment?

- Well, they're having to rethink their budgets.

They're having to rethink their funding streams.

They're having to think can we do everything pro-bono or do we need to start looking into some fee-based services?

And it's a good time for them to be looking at, is this a program that still needs to be taking place?

Maybe it's something, we've just done it or we just keep doing it and we don't really need to be doing that.

They also have to realize that, this year, funding has been really strong.

I've been very impressed with the funding.

The communities have stepped up and we're fortunate in West Texas for that.

We had some good Gives, we had Permian Basin Gives which we generated over two and half million dollars for that event.

- Talk a little bit about Permian Basin Gives.

We hosted it here on Basin PBS, but talk about how that came together and how that worked.

- Well, Kay Crotch from Big Brothers and Sisters and myself, six years ago, started trying to do a giving day, which is a 24-hour period to encourage people to give because we wanted to encourage individuals to really give to their non-profits, to give to the community.

It's not just about the foundations or the corporations and those small gifts, those 25, $50 gifts, add up.

They're just are a tremendous impact.

After six years, we finally decided we're gonna find a way to make it work.

So a group of us got together, we built a website, we generated the publicity, we got people to give and for 24 hours, people gave to-- Ended up being 103 non-profits that participated and it was over two and half million dollars was generated in that 24-hour period.

- Those giving days, that was kind of modeled after what they do in some other communities, isn't that right?

- There is a national Giving Day, it's actually December first this year.

We have never had one here.

And we didn't really have the mechanism to do it, so we said we're just gonna roll up our sleeves, find a way to do it, so we put it together and we've already got the next one scheduled for this next year of May 18th.

- How are you approaching fundraising differently?

Besides Permian Basin Gives.

- Permian Basin Gives.

Thinking more about the individual donor.

Trying to think about what really is the return on that investment for the donor.

We've got sophisticated donors across the board that are now saying, what are we getting for this money?

What are we getting in return?

Because, non-profits, this is a quid pro quo relationship.

We're giving and providing services that are needed in return for those dollars, but we have got to do better at telling our story.

I always get so upset when somebody says well, we've got our beg letter going out and I'm going, you're not begging, you are asking somebody to-- - You're making a case.

- Yeah, you've got to make your case.

And so, I think that's really important.

And then, something that our family does and we started a several years ago because we have a few children and they always get Christmas gifts, but we really started saying okay, we don't need any more things.

We don't need another it.

I would rather help the community so what we do, as our family, is we give gifts in honor of people to organizations that they support.

And then my husband and I both try to really give memorial gifts.

We don't send flowers, we try to take those opportunities to spread the passion of that person and we look at what that person really cares about, not what we care about at that moment.

- Well, that's a great idea for Christmas presents.

- Yeah, we're right here on the cusp of it and that's what we need to be doing.

- That's right, that one way that we can all help.

You're in touch with a lot of the non-profits that provide services that people need, have you seen a change in the needs of the community?

- There have been some changes in the needs and I think that we have to really look at what isolation has done to people.

What that solitude has done to people, that remote working, and that means we have to change the way that our employees, we have to think about them.

I mean, they're our customers as well.

And suddenly, they're being thrust into working from home and taking care of kids and having the stress of teaching and taking care of kids and loved ones and elderly family members and trying not to get sick.

So, we've had that change, but we've also had to see where people have had to change the way they do business, such as telemedicine.

There is several counseling services that really converted to telemedicine and have done so quite successfully and they started saying, we may not go back to seeing many clients in person.

We also have to think about how we deliver services when we're used to doing groups.

And for us, with the Non-Profit Management Center, we do so many trains that we're counting on groups, 40, 50 people and now we're having to find new ways to break that down, new ways to deliver programs, things to do virtually.

And then, also, we have to continue looking at are the services we're providing, is somebody else doing the same thing or something similar?

Do we need to start looking at merging and working together?

Also, we have to think about, okay, down the road, what's the best case scenario, what's the worst case scenario, what's in between?

And be prepared to pivot at any moment.

- Well, it sounds like this has been a difficult opportunity but also, an opportunity for creativity.

- It has been and so many organizations have stepped up to the plate.

Some haven't and they're gonna be the ones that we'll see struggling.

But I'm so impressed by the way people were able to adapt their programs.

- We're flexible people, I guess.

- Well, yeah, we're West Texans.

- That's right.

Thank you, Laurie, so much.

- Thank you - I appreciate you.

- I appreciate you, Becky and thank you for inviting me today.

- You bet.

Tim Jebsen serves as Executive Director of the Midland Community Theater, one of the top community theaters in the nation.

Since joining the theater in 1997, he has helped the organization increase the size of its operating budget, purchase a 1929 downtown historic theater and raise $3.6 million for renovations to the Cole Theater.

He has directed dozens of shows during his 23-year tenure.

Welcome Tim, thank you so much for joining us to day.

- Thank you.

- Okay, you're the director of the theater and the theater is about performance and performances are about audiences and I assume times have been sort of difficult.

- It's been unusual to celebrate something like a 75th anniversary by literally not having both our volunteers and our patrons in the building.

The pandemic has thrown all of our previous plans, all of our previous desires of what to do to celebrate that and just what we do on a day-to-day basis.

I mean, it took me about six weeks before I finally was able to sort of reset my balance.

Everyday felt like I should be doing the same thing I was doing before when you couldn't do it.

And it has been such a strange time, but I feel like now, that shift has happened and that's been freeing, in a way, to shift into what is the new norm in the world we live in.

- And what is the new norm?

What performances have you all been able to have and how have you done that?

- Well, when you ask what is the new norm, the best thing I heard was on a webinar.

And I was used to planning 12 to 18 months in advance.

And one of the other directors said, I've learned that I can't plan 12 to 18 minutes in advance in the pandemic.

And that really made something click, you know what I mean?

My focus went away from I've got to have everything planned up to a certain point to live in the here and now, live in the moment because every day can change and the plans can change and after throwing away five or six plans because they weren't gonna work out, I sort of got used to that idea.

So we certainly had to cancel many events, but we did do a streaming production of You're a Good Man, charlie Brown this summer that we were able to offer to our members.

We had hoped, when it first started rehearsals, that the audience could come in, but there was a summer surge that we really felt it was inappropriate to have a public audience in.

We did have the public come back for To Kill A Mockingbird which was originally gonna be our April production.

Now that show had already been cast and the set, really, had been built and the costumes made, but with a cast that large, there were 18 people in that show, it would've been impossible to social distance everyone and do a traditional production of it.

So what we did was a reader's theater production, where everyone sat.

Every chair was six feet apart from each other and they read.

And I would say about three quarters of the audience enjoyed it.

It was a literary source so it worked, but there were some people who were like I miss the movement I miss the traditional things and I had to explain that this how we could move forward in the world that we lived in.

Our Pickwick Players did a unique production of The Wind in the Willows that Bill Williams, our director, actually adapted after the pandemic started.

So he styled it after old, silent movies and really only had one person speaking and everyone else was sort of doing things more with movement than with actual dialogue.

And right now, we're just performing Tuna Christmas and that is a substitute for A Christmas Carol.

A Christmas Carol was a show I was actually working on this summer and I said, how am I gonna get 60 actors and 20 or 30 technicians backstage, working on a show like this?

And eventually, I just said I can't.

So we needed to find a show and we've double cast Tuna Christmas.

It's just two actors, if you're familiar with the Tuna, it's two actors, but we have two unique casts and each cast has their own unique dressers and unique ASMs and they're never in the building at the same time.

So these are the pandemic changes we've made at Midland Community Theater, based on 2020.

- And for Tuna Christmas, how do you accommodate the audience?

- So the audience is limited.

We're only performing shows and probably until at least next fall, only gonna perform shows in our larger Davis Theater one, which seats 485.

So right now, we're only allowing every other row, so every other row is closed.

Even the rows that are open, there are two empty seats between a group.

So that kind of limits us to about 160, 165 people in a 485 seat theater, which severely limits the number of people but provides the social distancing needed to still do a production.

So those who have came have appreciated the fact that we're still requiring masks, we're doing shows for 90 minutes with no intermission and we're social distance seating.

But if you're uncomfortable coming to a live event, we understand.

We just hope that you'll come back when things are more comfortable.

- And you raise a lot of money, I know, every summer with the Summer Mummers and this past summer, you weren't able to do that.

So what have you done instead?

- Yeah, hard to believe that an event that has happened every year since 1949.

Our annual fundraiser, Summer Mummers, did not actually happen this year.

And, boy, for our volunteers and for everybody involved in the show, on a traditional basis, it was a loss of a social event, it was a loss of a communal event and obviously, a loss of a fundraising event for us.

The Summer Mummer volunteers did put on a telethon.

That happened on September 12th and they did a fantastic job of that.

We were able to raise some money from that, certainly nowhere near what we would normally raise over the summer, but they were able to keep, I think, the spirit of the event alive.

They celebrated its history as well and raised some money for us.

We're anticipating, with the news in the world, I really do think that by next summer, we'll be able to do something.

I'm not saying we're gonna be able to do something like we've done in the past, but I think we'll be able to do something next summer at the Art Cole Theater.

And so, at this point, I would say we are cautiously optimistic.

- Because of the vaccine?

- Because of the vaccine, because of people's willingness, because of our ability to social distance, because of people's willingness to self-decide whether it's an appropriate thing.

If you've decided that it's just not appropriate to go to something, please don't come, you know what I mean?

But I think there are going to be enough people that have spent 15, 18 months of social distancing who are gonna be willing to, for lack of a better term, take that risk, you know what I mean?

Okay, they're taking precautions, I'm willing to go out and do something like this.

It's summer time, it's 98 degrees outside, I wanna drink a beer, I wanna cheer the hero and boo the villain.

Do something that feels normal.

- Well, it doesn't surprise me that you all have been very creative and what you have done to survive this, but how are you doing on your fundraising?

- Fundraising has really been a challenge.

I mean, we are certainly way down in 2020 over what we anticipated, especially with it being a celebrational year with potential celebration events.

We have made a lot of cuts, so that has kept us alive.

We will survive, but one of the reasons we will survive is that so many people out there have stepped forward and made a contribution to the theater and have said this is important, we want this to be here.

Really, honestly, Becky, probably the biggest challenge we have right now is 2020 was a survival-able year, 2021 is gonna be a bigger challenge for us because now people are used to the pandemic and even some of the things we've changed might create challenges for the future.

So we can't give up or we can't say that the need is gone.

We have to say that the need still exists and we still need you to support us, even if you're not necessarily making plans to attend a lot of shows, but to support us so that we're there when you are willing to come back.

- The theater has been such an important part of Midland, can we celebrate the 75th anniversary after COVID?

- I think so, I think one of the plans we have is to still do a few of the events that we had planned for 2020 in, probably, the fall of 2021 and still celebrate that history of Midland Community Theater.

Starting in 1946 with Art Cole, we wouldn't be here without the work of Art and all of the volunteers and donors who made Midland Community Theater possible.

- So amazing.

Thank you so much, Tim.

Good luck going forward.

- Thank you.

- Appreciate you.

- Thanks so much.

- Cookie Wetendorf has worked in the non-profit and government services in the Permian Basin for the past 30 years.

She was the first director of the Non-Profit Management Center and currently serves as Grant's Director for the Centers for Family and Children.

She's been singled out for honors for her service by the Girl Scouts and by Midland Professional Women.

Cookie, thank you so much for joining us today.

You are a professional fundraiser and these are really unusual times.

And so, I'm wondering, what has changed in the way you go about your job and other folks that do the same thing that you do?

- Fundraising can always be a challenging position with a non-profit organization, but this year, it has caused so many of us, in the entire global community of non-profits, to take a look at how to adapt to the changes that are affecting each and every organization.

We all have different missions, but we always need two different things and one is volunteers and the other is money to keep our organization going so that we can provide the services that we do.

Centers was very quick to adapt because we're a mental health counseling center and that's who I've been with for the last, gosh, 14 years.

We turned to teletherapy very quickly and then, also, virtual visits for some of our other programs that we provide.

So we've also adjusted our fundraising strategies.

Financial restraints on a budget is always very important.

Taking a really close look at your cashflow budget so that you can see what's gonna happen month-to-month and what kind of adjustments you need to make in your fundraising strategies.

I think there's so much going virtual now.

Our event got canceled and so many, as you know, were either postponed and those that were postponed to the fall of this year have now been canceled.

So, I'm getting a lot of year-end asks, which is very important for the non-profit organizations to get individual charitable contributions, charitable gifts, I call them.

So many of the different events have gone virtual, but they seem to be very successful, Becky.

And so, I think as we adapt, we'll have to incorporate a number of those changes into the way we do business.

It'll be an interesting year ahead too.

We don't have crystal balls, so we hope for the best.

- Well, that brings up my next question.

I was wondering if the news of the coming vaccine has changed attitudes on the part of your donors or helped you in your fundraising at all?

- That's a very interesting question because I was writing an article for our newsletter and I stopped and I looked at the screen and I went, I don't know what's gonna happen with the foundation giving.

So I called a couple of the EDs that I know well with the different foundations.

And one of them mentioned to me that they were much more optimistic in the future of foundation giving this next year because of the vaccine.

So we are all holding our breath and hoping that that's gonna be a turnaround for the overall health of all the communities across the world.

But I think it will also-- It's just something that we're gonna have to be adaptive, we're gonna have to be innovative, we're gonna have to take a look at what technologies, what kind of social media fundraising, I call it thumb raising.

I think that's just a part of being in this business.

It's just the best way to connect with individuals, corporations, foundations, and to keep those relationships very vibrant and to always say thank you for every dollar that you give.

- What are some of the-- You talked about thumb raising, tell me a little bit more about that and how that works.

- I think that a lot of it has to do with fundraising through social media.

Whether you have a website where you can donate.

It used to be you had to write a cheque, remember?

For me, those days.

But now, you're gonna get credit cards and so, you have to be very careful about how you can have any age group be able to give funds to you immediately.

And it's also a way of connecting with people, with your mission, with programs, with stories about the clients whose lives are being changed and putting that on the different social medias.

Whether it's a Facebook page or Instagram or Twitter, whatever account they have, those seem to be working.

And 55% of the funds that are being generated are through those social media outlets.

- Wow, how is that different from your past?

I mean, it's just a growing-- - Yes ma'am.

- Does most of your funding come from individuals or from foundations or how does that break out?

- Typically, when you look at Giving USA and they're giving you an overview of the most popular donor groups, it's usually individual giving, but I think if you were to ask, probably, the majority of non-profits in Midland, we're very reliant on foundation income.

We are so blessed to have so many family foundations in this community that invested their dollars in our communities and all of the non-profits benefit, as long as you connect with their areas of interest of giving.

But Centers has been very, very beneficial from the foundations, as well as United Ways.

They're still great in their fundraising arena.

And then, corporate giving.

There's a lot of foundations that are corporate foundations as well.

And individuals, we lean on them very much.

- So you have made adjustments in your budget and made adjustments in the way you deliver your services, but I don't sense that there's panic.

(Cookie laughs) Or you're just covering it up?

- Depending upon what day you talk to us because our forecasts may have to be adjusted, even now.

The lady that is our Development and Marketing Director is looking at how to reach out to individuals because, typically, our fundraiser is in August.

So we're moving forward at a slower pace to kind of make contingency plans that if we cannot have an indoor event, that we'll make adjustments.

The Permian Basin Gives Tuesday that you all hosted, that was fabulous and it was a real benefit to our non-profit organizations as well.

So I think there are all different kinds of community groups that are stepping up and realizing that we need to support non-profits now more than ever.

- What can we do to help, as individuals?

- I would say go to the different non-profit organization websites and if you have a special connection, whether it's your church or the schools that your children attend or somebody in your family has had some kind of a connection to a health issue or something, it's just so important to visit the websites.

Then either make a call or give a donation through the website because that's the quickest way to help support our organizations.

We all need that support right now.

Financial assistance is so important, now more than ever.

- So that you can continue to deliver your services?

- Yes ma'am and keep the lights on.

- Thank you, Cookie, I appreciate you so much.

- Thank you, Miss Becky.

- The Permian Basin has a long and rich history of helping those who need help and supporting the charities that do that best.

Our painting tonight is by American artist, Robert Kelly, born in 1956.

Influenced by a myriad of dispirit and iconic artists, Robert Kelly creates art that is intelligent, alert, harmonious and yet, paradoxical.

Incorporating unexpected materials from his travels, Kelly layers for example, printed antique papers, documents, signs and vintage posters on to panels that are then built up and covered with saturated pigments.

Remnants of their beauty and the history and language they impart are thus preserved in modern ways.

Paint is applied with puzzle-like precision in shapes that capture strong lines, forms and colors.

These are sophisticated works that carefully melt the past with the modern and the new and elegance that is just beautiful.

Kelly is especially mindful of how the shapes in his works interact with each other.

You can see this painting and other works of fine art at Baker Schorr Fine Art Gallery in Midland.

Finally, tonight.

Thank you for joining us this fall for One Question.

We appreciate being invited into your home as we have explored questions important to West Texans.

We'll be back in 2021 to continue to get answers to the questions you want to know from the people who know.

Watch for us in the spring.

Coming up on Basin PBS, BBC World News America with Katty Kay, followed by PBS News Hour.

I'm Becky Ferguson.

Good night.

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