Lorain County nonprofits talk need for collaboration in Community Conversations panel

LORAIN — The Lorain Historical Society continued its Community Conversation series on Thursday with local nonprofit leaders discussing their organizations' roles in Lorain County civic life and the challenges philanthropic organizations face in 2025. Held on the second floor of the Historical Society's Carnegie Center in Lorain, the panel saw discussions of a continued need for collaborations and creativity for nonprofits to remain solvent moving forward. Thursday's panelists were Second Harvest Food Bank President/CEO Julie Chase-Morefield, North Pointe Ballet Development Director Elizabeth Radachi, ONE Lorain County President/CEO Lisa Hutson and Nord Family Foundation Director of Strategy and Engagement Nick Turner. Lorain Historical Society Executive Director Barb Piscopo moderated the morning's discussion. Panelists touched on their roles in Lorain County's ecosystem of more than 1,000 nonprofits, crossover work between groups and efforts to improve quality of life for residents. ONE Lorain County may focus on attracting businesses and spurring economic development, Hutson said, but the ultimate goal is to improve the quality of life for residents. "The ultimate goal of that is to have everyone in our community live in a vibrant community and have the resources and life that they want," she said. "My goal is to make sure that we don't have a need for Second Harvest Food Bank because everyone has a livable wage and the resources they need — I think our philanthropic community understands that they have to respond to those crisis issues and support those things, but there's also a bigger vision of how can we help lessen the needs for those resources going forward." Piscopo said nonprofits try their best to collaborate with each other and connect individuals to organizations that can best meet their needs. "We're stitching together people in a community to provide them not only with basic services, but also quality of life issues," Piscopo said. "... We want to let people in the community know what's available to them." Panelists also touched on the change in governmental support for programs and how nonprofits are shifting to remain solvent while losing potential grant funds. It is no secret that Second Harvest lost funding, Chase-Morefield said. Earlier this year the food bank lost more than 148,000 pounds of food scheduled for delivery through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Commodity Credit Corp. and have seen rollbacks to pre-pandemic funding at the state and federal level. That cut in funding has required being innovative and open to trying new things to get food into families' homes, Chase-Morefield said. Many nonprofits have also shifted to include policy advocacy for themselves and collaborating organizations, Turner said. "Our nonprofit organizations, especially in this economy, advocacy has moved up the list of tools in our toolkit," he said. "... There's going to be a time when they pit nonprofits against each other: 'Explain to me why food is more important than housing, explain to me why arts are more important than economic development,' and somebody's going to lose. I think one of the largest advantages that nonprofits have is the ability to work together." Thursday was the second Community Conversation event this year. A video of the full panel will be available on Lorain Historical Society's website. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.