Interestingly, at least in the San Francisco Bay Area, boom times actually hit the non profit sector very, very hard. Many had to relocate out of San Francisco to Oakland, or points east, or go out of business because of skyrocketing rents.
In terms of funding, imo the most objectionable part of the rise of non profits is the extent to which they provide services the government should be providing itself. Governmental agencies are, at least in theory, much more amenable to popular will than non profits governed as, they often are, by all powerful executive directors and self selecting boards of directors. SR
----- Original Message ----
From: Alan Rudy
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
[WS:] Our studies of nonprofits suggest that they have been growing faster than the rest of the economy and did not shrink during the last recession (http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/09/art3full.pdf http://www.jhu.edu/ccss/research/pdf/md2003update.pdf).
However, it is worth noting that the main source of nonprofit revenue is not charity, as many mistakenly believe, but government (about 40 % of total revenue, charity accounts fore mere 13 %). So while the collapse of the stock market will wipe out charitable giving, especially foundation giving, since this depends on investment income) - the effect of that on the nonprofit sector as a whole will not be that great due to the relative small size of private charity in nonprofit finances. The worst hit will be religion where the bulk (33%) of private giving goes - which is a good thing. Education gets the second largest share (14%), health 7%, human services 10% arts 4% and environment 2%.