The Role of the Nonprofit Sector:
"The question I'm considering is this: What role, if any, does the nonprofit sector have in responding to this threat? Many people who are as alarmed as I am about these issues would tell me that, while individual organizations might, according to their mission, have a calling to respond, the sector as a whole does not. They would tell me that there is no moral center to the nonprofit sector and these matters are therefore none of our business. I think they are mistaken.
Nonprofit organizations, regardless of their mission, are founded on the idea that, while reasonable people may disagree about what constitutes charity and education, we do agree on the civil framework that allows us to pursue our different interpretations of charitable and educational purposes in the context of nonprofit work.
I believe that while the institutional shells of the nonprofit sector will undoubtedly survive, the civil framework that allows it to thrive is being destroyed by this march toward tyranny. For example:
A substantial portion of the funding of the U.S. nonprofit sector comes from the federal government. It's very clear that this funding is in serious jeopardy as deficits soar to fund the war industry and tax cuts for the rich. This was the argument I made in my editorial last year about the war, but it goes much deeper than that.
Advocacy organizations in particular, but nonprofits of all kinds rely upon the freedom of assembly and freedom of speech to thrive. Neighborhood organizations should not have to worry about police infiltration in their meetings, and hospitals should not have to worry about having abortion records seized.
Nonprofits depend upon a culture of responsibility, from the perspective of the question "what can I do?" as opposed to "who can I blame?". The culture of suspicion, aggression, and xenophobia being fostered is eroding the fundamental civil values on which our sector depends.
What sort of nonprofits will be permitted in a world of indefinite detention or one party rule? Will we need de facto party approval to form an organization or to have a meeting? Will controversial board members disappear? What sort of daily compromise of your mission will you learn to accept in order to survive?
What about our international organizations? What credibility will American relief workers and volunteers have if the world comes to see us as corrupt servants of big business and criminal partners with whatever tyrannies suit us?
What We Can Do:...."
1 comment:
I was struck by your comment:
A substantial portion of the funding of the U.S. nonprofit sector comes from the federal government.I didn't know this. I thought non-profits were mostly funded from the private sector.
Kinda saddening, really. It appears to me many non-profits hold a sort of elevated view of themselves, but I wonder if they realize their existence is founded on involuntary servitude (i.e., taxes). If people were free to directly choose how their money was spent, would many non-profits exist?
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