April 5, 2017     

 

Is it time to establish a capital fund to help finance Cape Cod’s infrastructure needs?

Life as we have known it on Cape Cod is changing. The scale and complexity of the regional problems that now confront us far exceed the financial capacity of our governing institutions to implement solutions.

       Environmentally, this disconnect has long been evident as we’ve wrestled with how best to handle solid waste disposal and the treatment of wastewater. Now, apart from the Cape’s demonstrated commitment to protecting the Cape’s groundwater and air quality, federal and state regulatory agencies are pressing our regional agencies to design and implement affordable remedies without delay.

       Economically, we’ve long valued the importance of our tourist economy as we’ve also looked to incorporate into our economic base some of the opportunities presented by advances in technology. For more than two decades, initiatives like the Silicon Sandbar, Open Cape, the Highlands Center, and the current Cape Cod Blue Economy Project have been stalled by the difficulty of accessing necessary capital.

       Other capital needs add to these financial pressures. We need to fund treatment centers to combat and destigmatize substance abuse. We also need to expand the availability of affordable housing, in part to retain a Cape-based workforce.

       Until now, we’ve often addressed regional concerns by taking collective actions, such as purchasing open tracts of land to combat sprawl or implementing regulations, such as the Title V septic system requirements, that affect the actions of individual property owners. Now these types of limited actions are insufficient. They are dwarfed by the scale of the problems we confront. This disconnect between what we need to do and what we have the financial capacity to do stymies our efforts to act effectively.

       In the past, we’ve put our heads together and come up with creative solutions. In the 1980s, the formation of the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates, the establishment of a regional land bank, and the creation of the Cape Cod Commission were responses to large-scale growth pressures. In the 1990s, the Cape worked well with state and federal governments to protect the 15,000 acre water reserve at Joint Base Cape Cod.

       Now, we need now to build upon this legacy. One idea to consider is to establish a capital trust fund of regional scope. Whether or not such a fund realistically could be a source of financing for regional projects is not clear. To answer that question, we need to define the minimum level of funding that would be necessary. We also need to define from where the revenue to establish such a fund would be derived. While the answers to these questions are yet to be determined, one thing is clear: if we are to improve our ability to sustain Cape Cod, we need to get a handle on how we will come up with the wherewithal to do so.

The op-ed above is a consensus statement from the Cape Cod Business Roundtable, which is chaired by Alan McClennen. Allen Larson was the principal author. It was originally published in the Cape Cod Times on April 5, 2017. 

 

 

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Establishing a Management Support Organization 
to Serve the Nonprofit Sector

by Allen Larson

The article below, "Establishing a Management Support Organization to Serve the Nonprofit Sector," was first published here and in the Cape Cod Times in December 2003.  We are reprinting it now, in October 2008, because the current turmoil in the financial markets has the nonprofit sector heading into a serious financial storm.


Last week, in an article published on September 22 and linked to in the box above, the Boston Globe highlighted that nonprofits will face constrained giving by their usual funding sources. There's no time to dawdle now.  We need to come together and find ways that reduce costs and potentially add new sources of revenue.


One way would be to promote the existence of the Community Directory and its list of individuals interested to be engaged in the Cape community. This is something we had not developed at the time of the first printing of the article below in December of 2003.


Another way would be to become part of the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network (MassNonprofitNet.org), which also did not exist in 2003 and is something that is patterned after discussions that we helped prompt at that time about the need to collaborate.

The Massachusetts Nonprofit Network (MassNonprofitNet.org) is hosting its first conference October 24 at Bentley College, for which Gloria Larson, the president of Bentley, will be giving the keynote address. The conference will be organized similarly to the Volunteer Expos the Cape Cod Center for Sustainability has held in the past.

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Revised and updated from the first version originally published in December 2003:


Sustaining Cape Cod involves a lot more than attention to the Cape's natural environment. Equally important are the people who live here, the factors that affect their ability to make a living and to use each day to fulfill their interests and ambitions. In this context, one sector of the Cape's economy that tends to be overlooked is the region's active and extensive nonprofit sector.

Over the past several years, the Center for Sustainability has been working with many of the nonprofit organizations that direct their efforts to serving Cape Cod and its residents. These organizations define their missions in terms of the economy, the environment, health concerns, and social welfare. Many have been struggling recently. Some have even closed. These events compel the effort to determine if there is anything to do.

From these discussions and observations, we've concluded that there is an outline of an idea that merits closer scrutiny by others who have knowledge and expertise. We suggest that there is a void in the nonprofit sector that could be filled and lead to improved administrative and operational efficiency. Doing so would provide economic and operational benefits that could help sustain our nonprofit sector.

     Common organizational tasks provide the context in which technology advances as well as specialized professional services could be used in ways that would save money by realizing efficiencies of scale and by providing access to a deeper reserve of managerial experience and counsel. These savings could be applied to the programmatic purposes for which any particular charity was formed.  (continued)


 

 

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