By Debra E. Blum

Eleven out of 40 senior financial officers at charities around the country said that they expect their organization’s financial prospects to worsen in the next six months, according to a new survey. And eight of the charity officials said they expect the size of their group’s staff to shrink over the next six months.

Grant Thornton, a Chicago consulting and accounting company, conducted the survey, which was mostly geared towards for-profit business leaders, in September. Forty chief financial officers and senior comptrollers at nonprofit organizations participated, though, and Grant Thornton broke out their responses from the roughly 540 others.

Thirty-three of the charity officials cited employee benefits, including health care and pensions, as the “pricing pressure” about which they were most concerned. Energy costs were the next biggest concern, cited by 15 respondents.