I look out the windows of our foundation office in downtown Honolulu and everywhere I see people hunkered down.  Are we running from the gusting winds of the past week or the continuing deterioration of our economy?

I don’t need to tell you about the state of our economy.  While it feels like this is a dark cloud that refuses to go away no matter how much effort and attention are given to it — and there’s been a lot from the hallways of Congress to the lanai of our own state capitol — these are interesting times.  Some have said it’s a contemporary version of Darwinism.

And we can’t let that be.  Already, our society is creeping towards a ladder of winners and losers with increasing short and long term consequences for us all.  And while there is no doubt that the coming months and possibly years will be tough, we would squander a great opportunity to define a new social compact for our society if we merely try to gut it out and hope it “returns to normal.”

Ironically, the leadership for this new vision, if it is to happen, is likely to arise from the civic sector, the third pillar of our society in addition to government and the private sector, which is already under siege by declining contributions, government contracts and grants.  Facing the necessity of reinvention, non-profit organizations must now realize its interconnectedness to the private sector and, more importantly, the interdependence it has with our government and the delivery of services to our people.

This is an opportune time for nonprofits to push harder for new partnerships in which costs, staff, systems, facilities and program services can be shared and to be hard-minded about program results and reach.  Instead of fighting for the status quo, the civic sector needs to be proactive and work closely with government to develop a funding framework that favors effective programs as well as programs that can access matching funds or can show the efficacy of today’s costs against tomorrow’s savings.  And government leaders need to encourage nonprofits to work with them to craft a tapestry of services based on lower funding levels instead of allowing a patchwork of services to result from severing programs in haphazard fashion.

Without a doubt, this is a time in which the more we share and sacrifice together, the better the outcome for all.  Just as families and neighbors are bonding together to help each other out while cutting back on their own personal spending, all three sectors of our society must rise or fall together.  The civic and government sector will need to “give up” programs, services and even staffing in order to meet expected shortfalls in revenue.  We are all in this together, and together we can emerge for the better.