Still, some experts worry whether new generations of wealthy Americans will pay enough attention to the needs of the world's poor, especially people in developing nations who are left behind by global business expansion. As charities struggle with the implications of economic globalization, they also will be compelled to deal with powerful economic forces closer to home. The greatest of those pressures, many experts say, will be the need to compete for revenue. Government subsidies for social services are expected to be tight, causing increased need for charities to raise private funds to take care of the needy. As competition heats up, observers say, an increasing number of non-profit groups will seek to supplement their incomes by starting ancillary business ventures, some of them only loosely related, if at all, to the charities' core missions.
Critics say the prospect of more and more commercial activity in the non-profit world is troubling.
Many of those ventures rely largely on consumer spending and other unpredictable economic forces, they note, and a downturn in the economy or the stock market would put a huge dent in charities' bottom lines. Mr. Alford asks. The pressure is going to be huge. Not only that, but critics also argue that commercialization may confuse donors about a charity's true purpose or, worse, induce some non-profit organizations to abdicate their charitable missions for the allure of potential profits. Non-profit assets from such conversions have been shifted to newly formed foundations that have been set up to make grants to charities that serve the poor.