Advocacy | February 27, 2026
Today is World NGO Day, when we recognize the essential role nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations play in communities around the world.
Here in Pennsylvania, that role is deeply personal. Nonprofits are the organizations that show up when families need support, when communities face gaps in services, and when people need someone in their corner.
PANO is proud to join the national Nonprofits Get It Done campaign to spotlight the work happening right here in our state. Across Pennsylvania, nonprofits address some of the most pressing challenges our communities face in direct, concrete, daily ways.
To mark World NGO Day, we’re highlighting four PANO member organizations whose work reflects the breadth of Pennsylvania’s nonprofit sector. They span four counties, serve vastly different populations, and take on very different challenges. But they share a commitment to showing up for the people who need them.
For many people in central Pennsylvania, Centre LGBT+ is the difference between navigating a difficult moment alone and having a community behind them. Centre LBGT+ provides direct support, advocacy, and affirming community spaces for LGBT+ people in Centre County and the surrounding region. They connect hundreds of people each year to peer support groups, educational programming, youth groups, and resources for housing, affirming clothing, and legal assistance. Their work reduces isolation, improves wellbeing, and increases access to essential services. Through outreach and community events, they also work to create a more inclusive community where LGBT+ people can thrive.
New Hope Ministries is a social service agency that supports neighbors in need by offering food assistance, help with housing and utilities, transportation, workforce development, and one-on-one support for those working toward stability. Each year, they walk alongside close to 30,000 people in south-central Pennsylvania as they navigate food insecurity, financial hardship, and employment challenges. New Hope Ministries helps people build the skills and confidence needed for long-term self-sustainability.
The Pennsylvania Head Start Association leverages connection and advocacy to drive meaningful, lasting change for Pennsylvania’s youngest residents and the families raising them. They bring communities and leaders together to collaborate, share expertise, and advance policies that support Head Start children and their families. Head Start is one of the clearest examples of nonprofits doing what no other sector can do at scale: investing in children before they ever walk through a school door, and building the policy infrastructure to sustain that investment over time.
In 2025, Westmoreland County Libraries circulated more than 1.1 million items — providing an estimated $15 million in savings to community members by making educational, cultural, and everyday materials available at no cost. Libraries are among the most universal nonprofit services in any community. Westmoreland County Libraries demonstrates what that looks like at scale: not just lending books, but expanding access to learning and strengthening community infrastructure across an entire county.
These four organizations, and thousands more across Pennsylvania, do the direct work that holds communities together. PANO’s role is to make sure they have what they need to do it well.
That’s why we recently launched The PANO Navigator, a new resource designed to help Pennsylvania’s nonprofit leaders find guidance, tools, and connections when they need them. Whether it’s navigating a governance challenge, strengthening fundraising strategy, or looking for key data to support the work, the Navigator’s curated resources puts PANO’s network behind the people doing the work.
Nonprofits get it done. PANO helps them get it done better.
These four organizations represent just a fraction of Pennsylvania’s nonprofit sector. Across the Commonwealth, nonprofits provide health care, feed families, protect children, support veterans, respond to disasters, advocate for policy change, and hold communities together in ways often invisible until they’re needed.
PANO will feature member nonprofits throughout the spring as part of the Nonprofits Get It Done campaign, with additional spotlights on March 24 for Celebrate Impact Stories Day of Action and April 20 for Volunteer Recognition Day.
If you’re a community member, a policymaker, or someone who benefits from the work nonprofits do, today is a good day to say so. Share what nonprofits get done in your community using #NonprofitsGetItDone, and visit NonprofitsGetItDone.org to learn more about the national campaign.
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