Critical Perspectives on the History and Development of the Nonprofit Sector in the United States

• In Event: Reframing Nonprofit Organizations: Democracy, Inclusion and Social Change

Abstract

This paper provides a critical perspective on the history of the American nonprofit sector. Informed by postmodernist philosopher and historian Michel Foucault, this chapter asserts that all powerful, authoritative narratives have concrete consequences and should be examined with a critical eye. This includes prevailing understandings of the development of the nonprofit sector and the assumptions mainstream histories hold regarding the nature of nonprofit work, the place voluntary and nonprofit organizations hold in communities, and the role the sector plays in American society. Accordingly, this chapter uses Foucault’s genealogical method to present and juxtapose mainstream histories of the sector with a more critical perspective so that students may begin telling more “effective histories” of the nonprofit sector. The paper concludes by discussing: What can we learn about contemporary nonprofit and voluntary organization management and leadership through a critical examination of the history and development of the American nonprofit sector?

This paper begins with an implicit assumption that if we changed the method by which we analyze the nature of events, then we might be afforded the opportunity to change what is possible to say about those events. Not only this, but also to create an opportunity to change “what is possible to do, to think, or to be” in relation to those events (Cruikshank 1999, 21). To that end, this paper uses a critical frame to examine the prevailing narrative that constitutes our understanding of the history and development of the American nonprofit sector. In doing so, lays bare some of the historical and political forces that have worked to transform our understanding of voluntary action through nonprofit and voluntary organizations over time. As a result, this paper also stimulated understanding of how professionalized, philanthropic, and “business-like” forms of voluntary action and nonprofit organizations have become normalized and taken for granted as the “right” way to manage and lead the nonprofit sector.

On a more fundamental level, this paper demonstrates that understandings of what we consider to be “right” voluntary action nonprofit management is changeable. Over the course of several centuries, our understanding of these concepts transformed from charity to philanthropy, and from philanthropy to “acting like a business.” Each of these modes of voluntary action and organizational management has in turn been deemed the “right” way to care for others and to serve society. Collectively, what these transformations demonstrate is that our understanding of what it means to care for others and to serve society is not “natural” and “self-evident,” nor is it “indispensable” (Foucault 1991, 75). Thus, the manner in which we engage in voluntary action and in managing nonprofit and voluntary organizations is not predetermined.

Author

• Billie Sandberg, Portland State University