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.

Clarifies the basic scope, structure, operation, and role of the nonprofit sector in the US, and places it into context in relation to government and the business sector, showing how the position of the nonprofit sector has changed over time. Separate chapters on various subsectors of health care, education, social services, and arts, as well as advocacy, legal services, international aid, and religion, identify the role of the nonprofit sector in each area, compare it to roles played by government and for-profit firms, and highlight recent trends. Includes margins notes and quotes, graphs and charts, and space for notes. For students, journalists, and government officials.

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

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.

In Nonprofit Nation, the new edition of his classic work,O'Neill takes a fresh look at the nonprofit sector and the power ithas to use its growing visibility and strength. Like the firstedition, this new book is an up-to-date, comprehensive guide tounderstanding the nonprofit sector. Identifying and examining themajor nonprofit subsectors-health care, arts, social service, andreligious organizations, for example-and detailing their particularconcerns and impact enable O'Neill to explore their influence onbusiness, government and society. The new edition also features: * Expanded sections on scope and impact * Updated and enlarged statistical information * New insights on the development of the nonprofit sector * A new section on theories of the nonprofit sector

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.