Who has the Gloria Wise scandal damaged? The author traces the ripples to give us a sense of the social impact of one organization gone wrong.
Nonprofit Breaches of Sarbanes-Oxley: The Terrible Truth
Recent research shows that nonprofit organizations are not complying with a law that does not apply to them. Who cares?
E-Filing Update
E-Filing of 990s will become the new standard. Don’t be left behind.
Citizens at the Center: A Refocused Approach to Civic Engagement
Funders and nonprofits who seek to enrich our democracy must adopt citizen-centered approaches, driven by and for the people they affect, if they want to move from “outputs” to sustainable change.
Welcome to Fall 2006
In this edition of the Nonprofit Quarterly, we address how issues of social class affect the workings of nonprofits, and how that affects the viability of whole communities of people.
The Question of Class
The way nonprofits uphold monied influence is, unfortunately, by replicating hierarchies of elite influence and decision making. In so doing we short-sightedly gut our own populist power bases and, as a result and not coincidentally, provide unimpeded avenues for the domination of public policy by class-based power.
The Third Sector as a Protective Layer for Capitalism
One reason capitalism does not collapse, despite its many weaknesses and valiant opposition movements, is the nonprofit sector.
Battered Agencies
“Battered agencies” is a term that can describe local or indigenous agencies striving to serve low-income communities that are hindered by the same types of risk factors facing the families they seek to help. Although this article was first published by NPQ in 2006, it seems even more relevant today as social safety net organizations are stressed by the demand for service and the demands of regulators.
Class Consciousness Matters
Despite our national self-delusions, it is clear that class matters—just as race, gender, and other accidents of history matter—in shaping the opportunities and life experiences of Americans.
Diving into the Power Pool
Floyd Hunter developed a discipline for mapping who might be in these pivotal roles, and published his findings in the 1953 book Community Power Structure: A Study of Decision Makers. It and other work that flows from it provide a way for nonprofits to study their own environments to identify power actors.
Good Intentions: The Dilemma of Outside-In Help for Inside-Out Change
Philanthropic attempts to become more “strategic” may come at a price. Last week we printed Printice Zinn’s provocative “Strategic Philanthropy: Who Wins and Loses?” and we thought that we would follow that up with this classic article from the NPQ archives on a related topic. Who decides how money should be used to better a community?
Philanthropy and Social Welfare Policy: Observations from a Painting by Alice Neel
In a painting worth at least the proverbial thousand words, Alice Neel offers any number of trenchant insights into the often hidden dynamics of philanthropic social welfare investigation.