A little History on Nonprofits and Their Mission

By Dawna Baker

Many organizations across the country are in danger of shutting down due to years of declining support, what's more, the current recession is now forcing administrators to consider closing or cutting services (Reeves, 2009). Stories of organizations in danger of shutting down can be found in local newpapers and media outlets on a daily bases, and while this may be discouraging news, there is no reason to feel that nonprofit organizations will one day be extinct. David Hammack, in his book entitled, "Making the Nonprofit Sector in the United States," chronicles the era in which independent organizations were being shaped and developing into a distinct sector as early as 1601. While there were very few independent nongovermental, nonprofit organizations during that time, they did exist; however, the Catholic Church had legal responsibility for providing nearly all religious, cultural, human service and educational activity (Hammack, 1998).

Under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in 1601, the British theory found legislative expression in two laws that put into effect key elements of the new relationship between church and state. They were the Statue of Charitable Uses and the Poor Law (Hammack, 1998). In the 1600s, every European, including European rulers in the Americas, believed that religious institutions should be supported by taxes, and that the church should control education and social services. Thus the activities later taken by American nonprofits were conducted, during the colonial period by established, tax supported churches and church agencies that were instruments of the government (Hammack, 1998).


Hammack(1998) states the following:

The Statute of Charitable Uses addressed problems familiar to modern American readers despite its old-fashioned language (it was written at a time when shakespeare was still producing new plays in London and when scholars were completing the King James translation of the Bible) and its use of bishops to enforce civil law. The complex description of legal authorities in its fourth paragraph reflects the intricate complexities of a British Chancellor for separate parts of the realm, playing the part that an attorney plays in the government of a state in the United States. The last three paragraphs of the act reflect a phenomenon familiar in modern America: the granting of exceptions to favored institutions, in this case Oxford and Cambridge, several notable secondary schools and certain churches, cities and towns (p.5).

Essentially, before nonprofits had an official name they existed, and in the 1600s they were known as "charitable uses. Why do nonprofits exist? Nonprofits create extraordinary levels of social impact. Much more than the government is capable of creating. These pioneering "change makers" as Crutchfield and Grant (2008) call them in their book, "Forces for Good," are the vanguard of a growing civic sector--a segment of the U.S. economy now valued at more than $1 trillion. Operating at the interstices of government and the market--a broad and ill defined "grey space"-- these organizations play an increasingly important role in shapng our world (Crutchfield and Grant, 2008). Indeed, they have been shaping our world since before the 1600s.

While nonprofit orgnizaitons have changed and grown constantly over the past 400 years, the reason they came into existence is the same reason they are still being created today. The United States society evolves and needs to address common concerns such as education, proverty, and healthcare. Public government is not able to address these concerns; and subsequently citizens join voluntarily and create versions of nonprofit organizations. Citizen action is at the root of the nonprofit sector, and it is what continues to drive most nonprofits today. (The idealist guide to nonprofit careers for sector switchers, 2009).

In addition to the social benefits of nonprofits, nonprofits make our world go around. They provide a tangile, monetary contribution to the overall U.S. economy through jobs and products. Nonprofit organizatins employ over 12 million people, representing roughtly nine percent of the entire U.S. workforce (The idealist guide to nonprofit careers of sector switchers, 2009). The annual assets of the nonprofit sector total 4.2 trillion (Statistics, 2009).

Fundamentally, nonprofits exists for a numer of reasons, but the basic reason is because they help improve the quality of life for not only millions of people with various needs, but animals and even mother earth. Still nonprofit organizations don't exist without challenges. Many nonprofits generating less than $500,000 in surplus, are bearly surviving and often find themselves considering the prospect of shutting down. The reason for this constant feeling of insecurity could be due to something as basic as "change," or forces that influence nonprofit development such as politics, economics and culture. We will address these forces and how they shape the nonproit sector in a coming blog.