America has one of the highest number of charities to donate to, non profit organizations and volunteering groups for anywhere in the world. This is mainly because almost all Americans are driven by their need to make a difference in the world. Most Americans do not simply want to live their lives while ignoring the needs or requirements of society. They want to help out in any way that they can and contribute their time as well as money if possible.

However, over the past few years, charitable organizations and other non profit associations have been facing a number of challenges to continue with their activities. The top three challenges that these organizations are facing at the moment are as follows:

1) Raising Funds: For any charitable organization to operate effectively, needs a lot of funds. Being non profit organizations, they need to raise these funds from the public or via other legitimate sources. It had always been a challenge to bring in as much money as possible to help further their cause, but with the recent economic turmoil, it has turned out to be even more difficult to convince people to part with their hard earned money. Many of the charities relied on regular donations from large corporate houses. With so many large business houses being in a precarious financial situation these days, donations from them have started to either dry up completely or the gap between donations have increased. Also a lot of the individual donators have had to decrease or completely stop giving away part of their paycheck as meeting monthly household budgets have become increasingly difficult.

2) Getting Volunteers: Apart from money, time is of utmost importance to any charitable organization. If there are no people to take care of the actual operations of the charity, it won’t succeed in carrying out its activities. Getting people to volunteer their time on a regular basis is one of the top challenges faced by such organizations. The good thing however is that even though many individuals cannot invest their money anymore due to their poor financial situation, they are much more open to giving their time. The problem is to reach these people who are ready to volunteer and connect with them on a regular basis.

3) Getting Widespread Exposure: Perhaps this is the most challenging situation of them all. Many charitable organizations feel if they can reach as many people as possible and get widespread exposure all over the country, they will be able to generate enough fund and volunteers to run the organization effectively and efficiently. The challenge though is how to reach all over the country on a minimum or sometimes no budget at all. Charities often face this problem and also look for ways they can inspire people to join their cause. The idea for any such charity is to reach as many people as possible and either help the ones that require their assistance or get people on board to help others. Exposure for the charity is also extremely important so that people they are planning to help can know about them and contact them if required.