Common Good Vermont urges grant and contract reform, technical assistance for nonprofits

Emma Paradise, manager of policy and strategic initiatives at Common Good Vermont, told the Government Operations & Military Affairs committee on Jan. 17 that nonprofits are a growing industry in Vermont and urged the Legislature to pursue grant and contract reform and targeted technical assistance.

“More than 6,400 Vermont nonprofits provide services, good jobs, and civic engagement opportunities in our communities,” Paradise said. She told the panel that nonprofits employ about one in five Vermont workers and collectively pay more than $3 billion in wages.

Paradise outlined three categories of Common Good Vermont’s work — education, advocacy and connection — and described a data site the organization maintains with county- and sector-level breakdowns. She said sector challenges include late payments and complex reporting for state grants, restrained grant amounts that do not keep pace with rising costs, and administrative demands that reduce nonprofits’ capacity to deliver services.

To address those issues, Paradise asked the committee to consider creating a working group that would include nonprofit stakeholders, legislators and administration officials to evaluate the state’s grant and contracting systems and recommend improvements. She also proposed a technical assistance program to help nonprofits with grant applications, grant management and invoicing, arguing that such support would increase the impact of public investment and improve state–nonprofit efficiency.

Paradise described Common Good Vermont’s recent work: a nonprofit listening tour across several Vermont towns, a first statewide nonprofit summit that drew about 200 participants, a membership program that reached 72 members in its first month and a sector-wide wages and benefits survey carried out with counterparts in Maine and New Hampshire.

She said most Vermont nonprofits are small: about 59% report zero or less than $50,000 in revenue; roughly 25% have revenue between $50,000 and $500,000; about 13% have budgets over $500,000; and 3% exceed $5,000,000. Paradise said larger nonprofits are more likely to administer government-funded programs and therefore face stricter audit and reporting requirements, including single-audit rules for recipients of more than $1,000,000 in federal grants.

Committee members thanked Paradise for the presentation and said they hoped to continue the work on grant reform; Representative Nugent, who was acknowledged as the bill sponsor, was not present. No formal motion or vote occurred during the presentation.

Paradise asked the committee to consider both near-term technical assistance and a collaborative, stakeholder-driven working group to recommend procedural and policy changes to state grant making.