As the financial situation continues to decline, the state’s non-profit sector is concerned about its future.

There are 36,000 non-profit organizations, employing 14 percent of the workforce in Massachusetts. But as credit markets tighten, stock markets fail, and the state government considers budget cuts, many in the field are increasingly nervous.

WBUR’s Monica Brady-Myerov recently listened in on a networking lunch as non-profit directors aired their concerns.

Community healthcare centers, housing organizations, and fund-raising groups are waging a preemptive fight against program cuts, warning the governor that slashing funding would destabilize the state’s leading employer – nonprofits.

The Massachusetts Nonprofit Network made the plea in a letter to Governor Deval Patrick this week, anticipating that their state funds are about to dry up amid state budget cuts.

Nonprofit hospitals, museums, healthcare centers, and human service agencies provide more than 13 percent of the jobs in the state – more than manufacturing or the financial services sector, the letter notes.

Dear Governor Patrick:

Nonprofit organizations now represent the largest sector of the Massachusetts economy with nearly 14% of all jobs in the Commonwealth. This number is larger than financial services, manufacturing and other sectors. To fix our state’s economic problems by cutting its major source of jobs is not wise, particularly when one considers three key facts: (1) these jobs won’t relocate out of state; (2) these jobs deliver services that are not “optional” especially in tough economic times when more and more citizens of the Commonwealth will turn to us for help and (3) we’re by far the leading employers in neighborhoods and gateway communities that can ill afford to have major job losses on the heels of a foreclosure crisis.

As top state officials size up potentially deep cuts in the state budget, human service providers say that increased caseloads created by the sagging economy have made the funding more vital.

A statewide umbrella group of non-profit organizations called on Gov. Deval Patrick Thursday to refrain from turning to aid set aside for the human service system as a way of preserving state funds.

The Massachusetts Nonprofit Network wrote to Patrick, “We went through this ‘perfect storm’ in 2001-03 under less enlightened leadership in the State House. We would like to believe that we can learn from the mistakes made seven years ago and not exacerbate an already dire economic forecast for our communities.”