We are constantly confronted by the problems of modern society: homelessness, violence, underfunded schools, environmental pollution, and the list goes on.
Many people who want to address these urgent issues figure that working at a nonprofit or nongovernmental organization is a great way to make a difference, and get paid for doing it.
And it seems like the number of jobs available at nonprofits keeps growing. As politicians hack away at government programs, social service agencies and other safety-net programs that provide crucial supports for poor and working-class people, service nonprofits often fill the gaps.
While “nonprofit” can refer to any institution with that business status, the phrase “service nonprofit” is more specific, referring to nonprofits that engage directly in providing services to people, such as beds for homeless people, or advocating for services, like Planned Parenthood’s Action Fund.
Service nonprofits are part of what some progressives and leftists sometimes refer to as the “nonprofit-industrial complex.” The US nonprofit sector today accounts for more than $1 trillion in annual economic activity, making it on its own one of the world’s largest economies.
The anthology The Revolution Will Not Be Funded defines the nonprofit-industrial complex as “a set of symbiotic relationships that link political and financial technologies of state and owning-class control with surveillance over public political ideology, including and especially emergent progressive and leftist social movements.”
So what are the limits of nonprofits in the fight against injustice in the here and now, and against capitalism in the long term?
For folks who have worked at nonprofits, one of the most obvious problems is the professionalization of nonprofit work, including the growing numbers of people seeking advanced degrees in nonprofit management…