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.

Nonprofit leadership is messy Nonprofits leaders are optimistic by nature. They believe with time, energy, smarts, strategy and sheer will, they can change the world. But as staff or board leader, you know nonprofits present unique challenges. Too many cooks, not enough money, an abundance of passion. It’s enough to make you feel overwhelmed and alone. The people you help need you to be successful. But there are so many obstacles: a micromanaging board that doesn’t understand its true role; insufficient fundraising and donors who make unreasonable demands; unclear and inconsistent messaging and marketing; a leader who’s a star in her sector but a difficult boss… And yet, many nonprofits do thrive. Joan Garry’s Guide to Nonprofit Leadership will show you how to do just that. Funny, honest, intensely actionable, and based on her decades of experience, this is the book Joan Garry wishes she had when she led GLAAD out of a financial crisis in 1997. Joan will teach you how to: Build a powerhouse board Create an impressive and sustainable fundraising program Become seen as a ‘workplace of choice’ Be a compelling public face of your nonprofit This book will renew your passion for your mission and organization, and help you make a bigger difference in the world.

In Do More Good, Bill McKendry provides incredible insights and tips from his over thirty-five years of helping nonprofit organizations expand their reach and become more effective in their communication, and he provides a blueprint for expanding your brand’s impact. Giving nonprofit leaders the tools and decision-making power to move their organization from good to growth so they can DO MORE GOOD. If you’re passionate about doing good work for a cause—what birthed that desire in you? Somewhere, somehow, you were stirred by your experiences to do good things in this world. You also decided that you didn’t just want to make a living and survive—you wanted to make a difference. That’s why communicating effectively and maximizing your organization’s potential are so critical. Raising funds and public awareness are challenging enough for any nonprofit leader, but communicating well is really the fuel that will advance and grow your mission. Author and entrepreneur Bill McKendry is one of the leading authorities on nonprofit branding and marketing. In Do More Good, he provides incredible insights and tips from his over thirty-five years of helping nonprofit organizations expand their reach and become more effective in their communication. He shares dozens of examples and stories from his captivating career (including spending a day as a homeless man and shooting a commercial with Mother Teresa). Do More Good contains the blueprint you need to magnify your brand’s impact. With Bill's helpful advice and unique perspectives, you and your team will be inspired and equipped to do even more good.

A bold and provocative look at how the nonprofit sphere’s expansion has helped—and hindered—the LGBT cause What if the very structure on which social movements rely, the nonprofit system, is reinforcing the inequalities activists seek to eliminate? That is the question at the heart of this bold reassessment of the system’s massive expansion since the mid-1960s. Focusing on the LGBT movement, Myrl Beam argues that the conservative turn in queer movement politics, as exemplified by the shift toward marriage and legal equality, is due mostly to the movement’s embrace of the nonprofit structure. Based on oral histories as well as archival research, and drawing on the author’s own extensive activist work, Gay, Inc. presents four compelling case studies. Beam looks at how people at LGBT nonprofits in Minneapolis and Chicago grapple with the contradictions between radical queer social movements and their institutionalized iterations. Through interview subjects’ incisive, funny, and heartbreaking commentaries, Beam exposes a complex world of committed people doing the best they can to effect change, and the flawed structures in which they participate, rail against, ignore, and make do. Providing a critical look at a social formation whose sanctified place in the national imagination has for too long gone unquestioned, Gay, Inc. marks a significant contribution to scholarship on sexuality, neoliberalism, and social movements.

A trillion-dollar industry, the US non-profit sector is one of the world's largest economies. From art museums and university hospitals to think tanks and church charities, over 1.5 million organizations of staggering diversity share the tax-exempt 501(c)(3) designation, if little else. Many social justice organizations have joined this world, often blunting political goals to satisfy government and foundation mandates. But even as funding shrinks, many activists often find it difficult to imagine movement-building outside the non-profit model. The Revolution Will Not Be Funded gathers essays by radical activists, educators, and non-profit staff from around the globe who critically rethink the long-term consequences of what they call the "non-profit industrial complex." Drawing on their own experiences, the contributors track the history of non-profits and provide strategies to transform and work outside them. Urgent and visionary, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded presents a biting critique of the quietly devastating role the non-profit industrial complex plays in managing dissent. Contributors. Christine E. Ahn, Robert L. Allen, Alisa Bierria, Nicole Burrowes, Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA), William Cordery, Morgan Cousins, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Stephanie Guilloud, Adjoa Florência Jones de Almeida, Tiffany Lethabo King, Paul Kivel, Soniya Munshi, Ewuare Osayande, Amara H. Pérez, Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide, Dylan Rodríguez, Paula X. Rojas, Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo, Sisters in Action for Power, Andrea Smith, Eric Tang, Madonna Thunder Hawk, Ije Ude, Craig Willse

Nonprofits and the social sectors are taking on an increasing share of the world's most vital work. Make sure your organization is ready for the challenge. If you read nothing else on nonprofits and the social sectors, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you align your organization's mission and strategy, deliver immediate impact, and create lasting change. This book will inspire you to: Choose the right problem to solve Understand when the best practices of for-profits don't apply Assemble an engaged and goal-driven board of directors Make the most of for-profit initiatives and corporate partnerships Drive demand, scale up, and be ready to change course Learn from the success stories of the world's most respected nonprofit leaders This collection of articles includes "Lofty Missions, Down-to-Earth Plans," by V. Kasturi Rangan; "What Business Can Learn from Nonprofits," by Peter F. Drucker; "Life's Work: An Interview with Desmond Tutu"; "Are You Solving the Right Problem?" by Dwayne Spradlin; "Life's Work: An Interview with George Mitchell"; "Enterprising Nonprofits," by J. Gregory Dees; "Life's Work: An Interview with Wynton Marsalis"; "State Street's CEO on Creating Employment for At-Risk Youths," by Joseph Hooley; "Life's Work: An Interview with Salman Khan"; "Do Better at Doing Good," by V. Kasturi Rangan, Sohel Karim, and Sheryl K. Sandberg; "AEI's President on Measuring the Impact of Ideas," by Arthur C. Brooks; "Life's Work: An Interview with Michelle Bachelet"; "The New Work of the Nonprofit Board," by Barbara E. Taylor, Richard P. Chait, and Thomas P. Holland; "Life's Work: An Interview with Bill T. Jones"; "Reaching the World's Poorest Consumers," by Muhammad Yunus, Frederic Dalsace, David Menasce, and Benedicte Faivre-Tavignot; "Life's Work: An Interview with Muhammad Yunus"; and "Audacious Philanthropy: Lessons from 15 World-Changing Initiatives," by Susan Wolf Ditkoff and Abe Grindle.

Not-for-profit organizations play a critical role in the American economy. In health care, education, culture, and religion, we trust not-for-profit firms to serve the interests of their donors, customers, employees, and society at large. We know that such firms don't try to maximize profits, but what do they maximize? This book attempts to answer that question, assembling leading experts on the economics of the not-for-profit sector to examine the problems of the health care industry, art museums, universities, and even the medieval church. Contributors look at a number of different aspects of not-for-profit operations, from the problems of fundraising, endowments, and governance to specific issues like hospital advertising. The picture that emerges is complex and surprising. In some cases, not-for-profit firms appear to work extremely well: competition for workers, customers, and donors leads not-for-profit organizations to function as efficiently as any for-profit firm. In other contexts, large endowments and weak governance allow elite workers to maximize their own interests, rather than those of their donors, customers, or society at large. Taken together, these papers greatly advance our knowledge of the dynamics and operations of not-for-profit organizations, revealing the under-explored systems of pressures and challenges that shape their governance.