Natural disasters may be windows of opportunity for policy change and learning by local governments, which are the entities primarily responsible for the recovery and rebuilding process after a disaster strikes in the United States. During disaster recovery, local governments are faced with myriad policy challenges, from technical issues concerning the repair and replacement of infrastructure to broader substantive questions of reducing vulnerability to future hazards. Their actions are constrained by federal and state policies related to disaster recovery, and yet they must make their own decisions regarding disaster recovery finance within those constraints. These decisions may then influence a local government's long‐term fiscal planning, such as their target level of budget reserves, borrowing, categories of spending, and mechanisms to generate revenue. To assess how local governments respond to and learn from fiscal constraints during disaster recovery, we analyze flood recovery in seven Colorado communities in the three counties most impacted by extreme flooding in 2013. Data from in‐depth interviews with local finance personnel and other administrators, budgets, and public documents are used to analyze recovery decisions and postdisaster fiscal policy learning. While most local governments drew instrumental lessons from the disaster experience, such as how to better manage grant reimbursement processes, some also drew broader lessons that may contribute to achieving longer term community resilience, fiscal stability, and disaster preparedness.

This study examines the perspectives, resources, role and services provided by community‐based organisations (CBOs) in response to the integration of health and social services to address individual unmet social needs, as well as the impact on organisational carrying capacity related to the ability to receive referrals from health system partners. Mixed methods combining qualitative interviews with 24 organisations and Social Network Analysis with 75 organisations were completed in 2018 in two communities (Denton, TX and Sarasota, FL) with robust examples of health and social systems alignment. Findings suggest that while community organisations are embedded in robust cross‐sector networks, the potential increase in referrals from clinical settings is not something they are fully aware of, or prepared for, as evidenced by inadequate funding models, misalignment between capacity and capability, and a lack of coordination on screening and referral activities. Misalignment between clinical and CBO understanding of demand, needs and capacity present a potential risk in building strategies that integrate health and social services to address unmet social need. Failing to build a strong cross‐sector screening and referral infrastructure that considers CBO capacity from the start could undermine the goal of improving population health through the integration of clinical and social care.

This note delineates different motivations for holding endowment by nonprofits, analyzes the definitions and measurement of endowment in the literature, and details newly available data on endowment contained in the Form 990 since 2008. More than 43% of organizations report owning an endowment, and the overwhelming majority of endowment funds are held by higher education nonprofits. One third of endowment funds are unrestricted and 41% are permanently restricted, with heterogeneity across subsectors. Endowed nonprofits exceed average payout rates each year of 5%. Annual endowment payouts average 4.1% of total organizational expenses, which measures the sector’s dependence on endowment revenue for operations. We evaluate past endowment measurement approaches using actual endowment data and find wide variation in validity. Although still imperfect, the new endowment data allow researchers to better understand a key distinguishing financial feature of the nonprofit sector.

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The credit crisis that roiled the financial and housing markets in late 2007 and early 2008 resulted in well-publicized budget challenges for state and local governments. Less visible has been a dramatic change in the bond insurance market, which alters how governments issue long-term debt. Debt issuance data from Texas are used to model bond insurance premiums and examine utilization following the crisis. The results provide evidence that insurance premiums rose dramatically following the fiscal crisis, even when controlling for widening credit spreads and changes in the underlying credit quality of issuers.