presumably, these revenues go towards federal (or state) programs like AFDC, Medicaid, and MEdicare, which are far more efficient and effective at keeping people alive and healthy than 99.999% of nonprofits will ever be.

so it seems like you’re basically advocating a teabagger mentality for nonprofits. this is, frankly, crap. maybe that’s all you can see as the Harvard-educated Prime Mover in a 501(c)3 Financing Operation, i dont know. perhaps you need to spend more time on the ground.

I am constantly struck by what can be done utilizing online organizing, leveraging other for-profit and non-profit organizations’ back-ends, and without forming a new entity of any kind.

For too long people have assumed that non-profits are the best and only way to create change in the private sector. I agree with the author. More consolidation and efficiency in the non-profit space would be beneficial.

There are many other ways to get things done these days, and “another non-profit” is not necessarily the best competition to an existing one.

If you’ve ever sat on the board of a non-profit and watched people jockeying for power or position, you know first hand how much time that can waste.

We should be on the lookout for new imaginative, and nimble ways to get things done at the grassroots.

As someone who worked for an arts non-profit I felt the competition of other arts non-profits when yet another one came into being; We were competing for the same limited dollars. As someone whose organization provided services to other orgs. I had the opportunity to see both effective and ineffective programming all over the Baltimore area. I mostly observed effective programming.

As for established non-profits that provided child care, I noticed that, as Lee points out, they tended to be less innovative and risk taking. The other small non-profits were a welcome complement.

The validity and viability of new non-profits is a reasonable question when there have been 1200 NEW non -profits established in one year. I often felt that there were too many of us competing for the same dollars. It was also very difficult to not be able to use any of these funds for administrative costs.

It is an absolute fact the non-profits are run much better than government entities. The people in non-profits are passionate, informed, and run their organizations within budgets; something gov’t programs don’t

This writer’s argument is flawed. So in tough times, the government should be able to levy taxes on churches?

It comes as no surprise to me at all that non-profits are skyrocketing now at a time when taxpayer money is being doled out hand over fist and we have a political party in power that relies on community organization that pretends to be non-partisan.

Perhaps I should have said that there should be far fewer new nonprofits in 2010 than no nonprofits at all. I will admit that from time to time I am blown away by a truly original, extraordinary effective brand-new organization. As I look through the list of 1,200 new groups, I see too many vanity plate nonprofits started to reflect one person’s narrow interests. There will be a couple of winners on the 2009 list but there will be a lot of losers. I just hate seeing resources going to waste on organizations that have a slim chance of success. I don’t think investments should be made in nonprofits that return little in the way of program.

Not every group needs to be a nonprofit. If people want to get together and sing, that’s terrific – you don’t need to be a formal 501(c)(3) to make beautiful music. Programs don’t need to be stand alone in the beginning – they can find a incubator in a group like Fusion Partnerships or in a larger established nonprofit. We need to re-direct the efforts going to create new nonprofits to creating new systems to make existing nonprofits and a very few new groups more effective.

I believe the growing number of non profits is also a result of the growing interest in public service work, both by young people fresh out of school as well as by more experienced workers seeking a new challenge after work in the private sector. Many of these people are very talented and have elite backgrounds.
Non-profits offer the opportunity to serve the public while avoiding the perceived red tape/bureaucracy of government. I’m glad you finally shed some light on the waste that takes place in non-profits by virtue of how many of them exist.
I made the choice to pursue a government/non-profit job after college largely because it was the only way I knew to make a positive impact on the cause(s) I hold dear. This belief is pretty pervasive on college campuses. I wish that the concept of working in the private sector, creating jobs for others that don’t rely on taxes or donations, and donating money or time was given more respect and credibility at my university and in our society and media today; if it had been, I might have chosen a different path. At my college, one was either going into I-Banking/Consulting or Non-profit/Government. Each group thought the other was evil (a bit of an exaggeration but not by much). I think that led a lot of people on the fence to pursue government or non-profit work.
Now that I’ve seen a lot of the waste and lack of accountability that takes place in government and a lot of non-profits (even in those that are well-respected) and am worrying about how my generation will pay for an ever-growing federal budget, if I were able to do it over again, I might rethink my career path and instead take that private sector job to avoid being a drain on our economy, donate my money and time to worthy non-profits, rather than contributing to part of the problem which you’ve touched on–too many people with a lot of self-interest in the success or failure of a given non-profit or government entity. This self-interest, over time, can cause people to advocate for and make less than efficient or fiscally responsible decisions which only harms the cause for which they exist. As you so astutely point out, that money could be spent better elsewhere!