The State of Nonprofit America

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A Brookings Institution Press and the Aspen Institute publication

The thousands of organizations that comprise America’s private nonprofit sector represent a national treasure. Yet serious pressures are altering the playing field on which nonprofits operate, and many are responding in ways that may undermine their popular support.

Despite the significance of these developments, little has been done to analyze and interpret them in a clear and understandable way. Lester M. Salamon, a leading authority on the nonprofit sector, has joined forces with more than a dozen other experts and the Aspen Institute to produce this volume, an integrated, authoritative assessment of the state of nonprofit America and the key trends affecting its evolution.

The book is organized into three sections. The first summarizes critical trends and issues; the second examines each of the sector’s major subsectors (e.g., health, education, social services, arts and culture, international assistance, advocacy); the third focuses on major cross-cutting trends and issues (commercialization, changing government policy, accountability, and demographic and technological imperatives).

The Resilient Sector will be updated every two years. It provides a basic sourcebook for sector leaders, the press, public officials, and citizens concerned about the future of America’s nonprofit sector and eager to understand the forces affecting it.

Lester M. Salamon is the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies. He has written or edited more than twenty books, including a leading textbook on nonprofit institutions, ＂America’s Nonprofit Sector: A Primer ＂(The Foundation Center, 1999).