The key to success for three local nonprofit organizations can be summed up in one word: creativity.

Bethlehem Haven Women's Shelter, North Hills Community Outreach and the Women's Center and Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh are finalists for the Forbes Funds' 2005 Alfred W. Wishart Jr. Award for Excellence in Nonprofit Management, which carries a cash grant of $5,000. The winner will be announced tomorrow.

The award honors the local human services or community organization that best demonstrates leadership in its staff and board of directors, accountability, a commitment to excellence in human resource management, that measures and monitors outcomes and that shows continuous improvement in delivering services.

Bethlehem Haven, based in Fifth Avenue Commons, Downtown, has an annual budget of about $1.9 million and a staff of 36, with programs that include housing services, health services, job training and family reunification.

Like so many nonprofits, Bethlehem Haven is seeking permanent sources of funding to replace grants and government money that has dried up.

In February 2004, it acquired Ambiance, a Regent Square consignment shop for designer clothing for women.

Ambiance, said Bethlehem Haven executive director Marilyn Sullivan, "will help diversify our funding base and make our agency stronger. In addition to bringing in revenue, it should provide training and employment programs for our clients, help us attract new donors to the organization, and increase awareness in the community of what we do.

"You absolutely have to be creative in the non-profit environment because you do have such limited resources."

Another challenge faced by nonprofits is to find creative ways to serve a diverse population, which has been North Hills Community Outreach's task since 1986, when flooding overwhelmed a large portion of the North Hills.

The nonprofit, which has an annual budget of $1.4 million and a 30-person staff, operates food pantries and provides health and employment assistance and legal aid to families in 52 communities.

The idea of a nonprofit service agency setting up shop in the largely affluent North Hills may strike some Pittsburghers as strange.

But that's not a completely accurate picture.

Of the 3,680 households the agency served in the last fiscal year, about 25 percent were senior citizens and about 50 percent were unemployed or working poor, many with families.

So far in the current fiscal year, there's been a 26 percent increase in the number of families that North Hills Community Outreach has served -- 5,014 households. Families can get help with getting and keeping a job, receiving affordable and safe child care and other needs.

"We don't have to just depend on the staff to be creative because we do have people of good will who step forward with creative ideas or helping their neighbors," said executive director Fay Morgan.

For example, a local dry cleaner raised $3,000 by conducting a campaign that donated money to the nonprofit for every hanger returned. And Magoo's Bar & Bistro offered free lunches for everyone who donated $75 to help the needy pay utility bills.

At the Women's Center & Shelter, creativity and ingenuity are helping the agency to get the word out on a topic that many people either misunderstand or simply don't want to talk about: spousal abuse.

The agency, which provides emergency shelter, counseling and legal advocacy, has an annual budget of about $3.6 million and a staff of 56 full-time employees.

"We really do have to be creative here, " said Shirl Regan, the executive director. "People often are afraid to call us and they aren't sure who we are or what our response will be. We have to be creative in finding ways to make people feel comfortable during the first phone call."

Creativity also comes into play when group representatives do public presentations, she added.

"People don't like to talk about it and don't want to face it, so in a lot of our presentations, we use exercises to make people feel comfortable," Ms. Regan said. "We talk about the positive aspects of the work we do -- to let people know that life can be different. People want to hear the good stories where differences have been made."