And nonprofits themselves seek out commercial opportunities to pull in extra cash. These days they sell everything from auto insurance to research patents. The upshot is that nonprofits face a self-imposed crisis of legitimacy. Americans are committed to voluntarism and charity, but nonprofit leaders believe they don't understand what nonprofits have become or want to be. But in the meantime, universities, hospitals, and church groups strike business deals, negotiate government contracts, and purchase political influence.
Light knows the history of ideas about management reform.
Last year, he was named vice president for governmental studies at the Brookings Institution and director of its Center for Public Service. Before that he was a grantmaker at the Pew Charitable Trusts. These are the overlapping and conflicting types of advice nonprofits are encouraged to accept if they want to be full-fledged agencies of modern social change. But Light warns nonprofit leaders against falling under the sway of one or another school of thought. All may have some benefit, but none can prove its claims.