Evidence first. Argument second.
Papers, books and studies on how the nonprofit sector is financed, governed and changing.
The Ninety-Two Percent
In 2007, 92 percent of Americans told the Pew Research Center they believed in God or a universal spirit; by 2023 and 2024 that share had fallen to 83 percent, while Christian affiliation fell from 78 to 62 percent. Belief has declined far more slowly than the institutions built around it, and philanthropy’s response has concentrated among people those institutions already reach. The paper names four frontiers where the gap between spiritual need and philanthropic attention is widest: the spiritual disengagement of men, the erosion of interior life by digital technology, the collapse of communal grief, and the workplace.
The Last Nonprofit
The American nonprofit sector is not in a downturn; it is approaching a structural break. Eight fractures have converged within a single decade, from the largest withdrawal of federal funding in the sector’s history to the consolidation of donor-advised funds and the maturing of artificial intelligence. The functions nonprofits perform will migrate into a post-institutional “impact ecosystem.” The question the book asks is whether its benefits reach the communities that need them most, or leave a second America served by no one.
The New York Metro IDD Benchmark
The twenty-five largest providers serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in New York City and its four surrounding counties form a $3.1 billion enterprise financed almost entirely with public money. The study reconciles 163 organization-years of federal filings to the dollar against audited statements. Its central finding is a problem of allocation, not survival: reserves accumulate in the middle of the sector while the providers delivering nearly three of every ten dollars of service operate on almost none.
The Business Case for DAF Reform · Inside Philanthropy
Strategic Partnership or Strategic Communications · The Giving Review
The Case for Whole-Organization Funding · The Giving Review