Every entrepreneur knows that it’s lonely at the top. Jeff Smith is no exception.

Public art is about more than intricate town square sculptures or decorative murals that mask the walls of blight. At its best, public art doesn’t simply beautify a space, it engages a community by reflecting and helping to define the environment around it.

After two decades of working in the nonprofit industry, Robin Chronister, an executive assistant for Mother Lode Rehabilitation in Placerville, noticed a gradual but clear change in the nonprofit sector.

In 2004, 28-year-old Kimberly Kaufman learned she had congestive heart failure.

In the fall of 2011, the executive directors of the Sacramento Philharmonic and the Sacramento Opera sat in their respective offices staring bleakly at financial reports that were telling each of them what they already knew:

Dorothy Hillbrant, who has stage III ovarian cancer, became one of about 30 local drivers for the American Cancer Society’s Road to Recovery Program, which has provided free rides to treatment for patients and their caregivers for about 30 years.

A twice-convicted felon, Ronita Iulio thought she had blown her last chance to salvage her life and family. After being released from prison in 2008, Iulio was anxious to reunite with her three children, but instead she faced an unsympathetic court that granted full custody to her ex-husband.

A growing movement of collaboration is uniting local nonprofits with faith-based organizations in an effort to maximize community impact by increasing manpower and financial support.

In her teens, Velvet Edwards dropped out of Lincoln High School to care for her mother, who had hepatitis and scoliosis. By 22, she had few life skills and no high school diploma as she watched her mother slowly disappear.  “Toward the end, her organs just started to shut down, and she faded away,” says Edwards, now 28.