Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector in a Changing America

Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector in a Changing America
Author: Charles Clotfelter
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 580
Release: 2001-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780253214836

This collection brings together the views of a stellar assemblage of scholars, practitioners, . . . and a host of other talented and distinguished citizens of the independent sector . . . . A 'must read.' —Philanthropy Monthly In an attempt to analyze future directions of the increasingly influential nonprofit sector, the American Assembly and the Indiana Center on Philanthropy sponsored a conference that brought in leading scholars and practitioners. Participants were asked to consider what forces will determine the shape and activities of philanthropy and the nonprofit sector in the next decade. This volume is a product of this inquiry. Contributors focused on a variety of pressures, including the devolution of federal programs, the blurring of lines between non-profit and for-profit organizations; the changing distributions of income; a revived interest in community and civil society; the evolution of religion and other regulatory reform; and a retreat of government from various policy areas.

Philanthropy in America

Philanthropy in America
Author: Olivier Zunz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2014-03-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 140085024X

How philanthropy has shaped America in the twentieth century American philanthropy today expands knowledge, champions social movements, defines active citizenship, influences policymaking, and addresses humanitarian crises. How did philanthropy become such a powerful and integral force in American society? Philanthropy in America is the first book to explore in depth the twentieth-century growth of this unique phenomenon. Ranging from the influential large-scale foundations established by tycoons such as John D. Rockefeller, Sr., and the mass mobilization of small donors by the Red Cross and March of Dimes, to the recent social advocacy of individuals like Bill Gates and George Soros, respected historian Olivier Zunz chronicles the tight connections between private giving and public affairs, and shows how this union has enlarged democracy and shaped history. Demonstrating that America has cultivated and relied on philanthropy more than any other country, Philanthropy in America examines how giving for the betterment of all became embedded in the fabric of the nation's civic democracy.

The Nonprofit Sector

The Nonprofit Sector
Author: Walter W. Powell
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 679
Release: 2006-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300109032

Provides a multi-disciplinary survey of nonprofit organizations and their role and function in society. This book also examines the nature of philanthropic behaviours and an array of organizations, international issues, social science theories, and insight.

Making the Nonprofit Sector in the United States

Making the Nonprofit Sector in the United States
Author: David C. Hammack
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 508
Release: 1998
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780253214102

Now in paperback Making the Nonprofit Sector in the United States A Reader Edited with Introductions by David C. Hammack "Masterfully mining and sifting a four-century historical record, David Hammack has composed an extraordinarily valuable volume: a 'one-stop-shopping' sourcebook on the secular and religious origins and the astonishing growth (and periodic growing pains) of America's nonprofit sector--and the challenges and dilemmas it confronts today." --John Simon, Yale University "It is a delight to see an anthology on nonprofit history done so well." --Barry Karl, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University "This is a volume that everyone concerned about nonprofits--scholar, practitioner, and citizen--will find useful and illuminating." --Peter Dobkin Hall, Program on Non-Profit Organizations Yale Divinity School "A remarkable book." --Robert Putnam, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University "An outstanding and timely collection of essential readings for students, researchers and practitioners, carefully edited and introduced by one of the leading historical authorities on the nonprofit sector." --Roseanne M. Mirabella, Center for Public Service, Seton Hall University Unique among nations, the United States conducts almost all of its formally organized religious activity, as well as many cultural, arts, human service, educational, and research activities, through private nonprofit organizations. This reader explores their history by presenting some of the classic documents in the development of the nonprofit sector along with important interpretations and critiques by recent scholars. David C. Hammack is Hiram C. Haydon Professor of History and Chair of the Committee on Educational Programs of the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Case Western Reserve University. Philanthropic Studies--Dwight F. Burlingame and David C. Hammack, general editors

The Resilient Sector

The Resilient Sector
Author: Lester M. Salamon
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 126
Release: 2003-08-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780815796091

A Brookings Institution Press and the Aspen Institute publication The Resilient Sector makes available in an updated form the concise overview of the state of health of America's nonprofit organizations that Johns Hopkins scholar Lester Salamon recently completed as part of the "state of nonprofit America" project he undertook in cooperation with the Aspen Institute. Contrary to popular understanding, Salamon argues, America's nonprofit organizations have shown remarkable resilience in recent years in the face of a variety of difficult challenges, significantly re-engineering themselves in the process. But this very resilience now poses risks for the sector's continued ability to perform the tasks that we have long expected of it. The Resilient Sector offers nonprofit practitioners, policymakers, the press, and the public at large a lively assessment of this set of institutions that we have long taken for granted, but that the Frenchman Alexis de-Toqueville recognized to be "more deserving of our attention" than almost any other part of the American experiment.

Uncharitable

Uncharitable
Author: Dan Pallotta
Publisher: UPNE
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2010
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1584659556

A courageous call to free charity from its ideological and economic constraints

The State of Nonprofit America

The State of Nonprofit America
Author: Lester M Salamon
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 722
Release: 2012-05-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0815724365

Today, America's nonprofit organizations seem caught in a force field, buffeted by four impulses—voluntarism, professionalism, civic activism, and commercialism. Too little attention, however, has been paid to the significant tensions among these impulses. Understanding this force field and the factors shaping its dynamics thus becomes central to understanding the future of particular organizations and of the nonprofit sector as a whole. In this second edition of an immensely successful volume, Lester Salamon and his colleagues offer an overview of the current state of America's nonprofit sector, examining the forces that are shaping its future and identifying the changes that might be needed. The State of Nonprofit America has been completely revised and updated to reflect changing political realities and the punishing economic climate currently battering the nonprofit sector, which faces significant financial challenges during a time when its services are needed more than ever. The result is a comprehensive analysis of a set of institutions that Alexis de Tocqueville recognized to be "more deserving of our attention" than any other part of the American experiment.

American Foundations

American Foundations
Author: Helmut K. Anheier
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 471
Release: 2010-09-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0815704577

Foundations play an essential part in the philanthropic activity that defines so much of American life. No other nation provides its foundations with so much autonomy and freedom of action as does the United States. Liberated both from the daily discipline of the market and from direct control by government, American foundations understandably attract great attention. As David Hammack and Helmut Anheier note in this volume, "Americans have criticized foundations for... their alleged conservatism, liberalism, elitism, radicalism, devotion to religious tradition, hostility to religion—in short, for commitments to causes whose significance can be measured, in part, by the controversies they provoke. Americans have also criticized foundations for ineffectiveness and even foolishness." Their size alone conveys some sense of the significance of American foundations, whose assets amounted to over $530 billion in 2008 despite a dramatic decline of almost 22 percent in the previous year. And in 2008 foundation grants totaled over $45 billion. But what roles have foundations actually played over time, and what distinctive roles do they fill today? How have they shaped American society, how much difference do they make? What roles are foundations likely to play in the future? This comprehensive volume, the product of a three-year project supported by the Aspen Institute's program on the Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy, provides the most thorough effort ever to assess the impact and significance of the nation's large foundations. In it, leading researchers explore how foundations have shaped—or failed to shape—each of the key fields of foundation work. American Foundations takes the reader on a wide-ranging tour, evaluating foundation efforts in education, scientific and medical research, health care, social welfare, international relations, arts and culture, religion, and social change.

A Versatile American Institution

A Versatile American Institution
Author: David C. Hammack
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2013-02-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0815721951

America's grantmaking foundations have grown rapidly over the course of recent decades, even in the face of financial and economic crises. Foundations have a great deal of freedom, enjoy widespread legitimacy, and wield considerable influence. In this book, David Hammack and Helmut Anheier follow up their edited volume, American Foundations, with a comprehensive historical account of what American foundations have done with that independence and power. While philanthropic foundations play important roles in other parts of the world, the U.S. sector stands out as exceptional. Nowhere else are they so numerous, prominent, or autonomous. What have been the main contributions of philanthropic foundations to American society? And what might the future hold for them? A Versatile American Institution considers foundations in a new way. Previous accounts typically focused narrowly on their organization, donors, and leaders, and their intentions—but not on the outcome of philanthropy. Rather than looking at foundations in a vacuum, Hammack and Anheier consider their roles and contributions in the context of their times and their economic and political circumstances.