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This article draws on literature on nonprofit resilience to hazards to explore the impact of federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans on nonprofits' staffing, services, and financial health during the COVID-19 pandemic's first year. Through propensity score matching with survey data collected in spring 2020 and winter 2021 from the New Orleans area, linked to publicly available PPP data, nonprofits that did and did not receive a PPP loan were matched on covariates representing critical resilience capacities pre-pandemic, allowing calculation of effect sizes for short-term outcomes. Results suggest that PPP tentatively supported nonprofit liquidity in the form of reserves, but had at best mixed results in promoting service maintenance, and did not support hiring or staff retention in excess of the non-treatment group. Despite the small sample size, these preliminary findings inform how PPP may have supported short-term sustainability and help guide future federal policy to support nonprofits during crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: access; advocacy; pandemic; charitable nonprofits; interest groups; equity EN access advocacy pandemic charitable nonprofits interest groups equity 91 118 28 04/29/22 20220401 NES 220401 1 Introduction The nonprofit sector serves many vital functions. 7 Conclusion The case study described in this article, comprised of interviews with nonprofit leaders and analysis of legislative records and committee hearings, suggests that charitable nonprofits' legislative access was impeded during the spring 2020 session of the Louisiana State Legislature. Nevertheless, the bill was voted down by the Republican majority on the committee, helping to underscore the political disadvantage that small progressive charitable nonprofit organizations face in the conservative Louisiana Legislature ([3]; [52]), and the need for nonprofits to engage in aggressive in-person grassroots advocacy in order to make their voices heard within this context ([39]). Studies have explored the dynamics of the so-called "nonprofit industrial complex" - a system built on mutually beneficial relationships between the nonprofit sector, lawmakers, and industry ([47]) - and criticized the potential for this system to co-opt community leaders by providing them with opportunities for employment and professional advancement in the public and nonprofit sectors, thereby realigning their interests with maintaining the system as opposed to transforming it ([24]). [Extracted from the article]