[lbo-talk] Nonprofits brace for 2010 Armageddon

[Alan Rudy]

It definitely sucks that the non-profits - exploding in numbers over the
last 30 years as a result of federal and state governments destroying the
economy, erasing the social safety net, and struggling with fiscal crisis;
the expansion of the breadth and scope of political concerns across the
American public; and the proliferation of right-leaning non-profits - are
about to experience armageddon.
What'd be nice to see would be folks in the non-profit sector organized to
argue that the last quarter century of neoliberalism had effectively
displaced the state's fiscal crisis onto the non-profit sector - which more
or less worked so long as there was economic growth and the property value
bubble.
-A

PS: One thing Michael Goldman argues in Imperial Nature: The World Bank and
Struggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalization (2006: Yale U
Press) is the the Bank has consciously and strategically fostered the
proliferation of NGOs - wo/manned by folks trained by the bank in how to
work with the bank - as a means of working with people who work with local
peoples and understand local natures... all in the name of sustainable
development.  I've long wondered how many non-profits in the US have sprung
up as a means of taking advantage of the federalist strategies of neoliberal
governance, who their staff are and where they were trained.
*********************************************************
Alan P. Rudy
Visiting Associate Professor
Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
Central Michigan University
124 Anspach Hall
Mt Pleasant, MI 48858
517-881-6319

On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 12:50 AM, Steven L. Robinson <srobin21 at comcast.net>wrote:


> Bay Area nonprofits brace for 2010 Armageddon
>
> Meredith May, Staff Writer
> San Francisco Chronicle
> Sunday, March 1, 2009
>
> Nonprofits are seeing an alarming drop in funding and increased demand for
> help this year, setting the stage for a complete shakeup of the sector in
> 2010.
>
> Unlike recessions past, this one could permanently alter the nonprofit
> landscape, say nonprofit CEOs, forcing possible closures and mergers as the
> sector restructures to survive.
>
> Hardest hit will be the Bay Area, home to one of the highest concentrations
> of nonprofits in the nation. There are 25,000 nonprofits in the region;
> 7,000 in San Francisco alone. Among them are 10,000 charitable nonprofits
> with budgets above $25,000. Their combined budgets account for 14 percent
> of
> the Bay Area's gross national product - twice the national average.
>
> Many are teetering.
>
> ...SNIP...