Marking our 10th year, CNP's events featured a panel—Challenges for Public Policy: The Future of Nonprofit Financing—in December 2006 that explored what policymakers need to know about nonprofit finances to develop realistic policies. Our work over the past 10 years renders nonprofits much more transparent to observers. A 2006 report, Inquiry and Impact, summarizes our achievements.

Photo: Jasmin Rouse

Other events included a roundtable in October to discuss policy implications of new findings from the first national study of nonprofit governance, and a First Tuesday featuring the new edition of Nonprofits and Government: Collaboration and Conflict (UI Press, 2006), which looked at how the two sectors intersect, not only through financing and regulation, but in other areas such as advocacy, religion, and the arts.

For a conference co-sponsored by the Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations and the Urban Institute held in November 2006, Translating Research into Action: Nonprofits and the Renaissance of New Orleans, we prepared a new research bibliography that identifies issues important to rebuilding the region and clarifying the role of nonprofits addressing them.

Our National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) issued the latest snapshot of the facts and figures on nonprofits, Nonprofit Sector in Brief, which provided data to a record number of researchers throughout the country and enhanced nonprofit transparency by providing software for electronic filing of Forms 990 to increasing numbers of nonprofits.

Using NCCS data, two research projects zeroed in the activities and dimensions of specific types of nonprofits. Across the United States, for instance, cultural heritage organizations help people remember and concentrate their shared experiences, traditions, identities, struggles, and aspirations. International nonprofits play a vital role here and abroad, whether arranging international student exchanges or assisting victims of foreign disasters.

In addition, work on the financial contributions of nonprofits to particular regions using NCCS data continued in 2006 with a profile of Erie County, Pennsylvania, that described the size, scope, and financial health of the nonprofit sector there. This was the first comprehensive report on a smaller county encompassing an extensive rural area.

A report released in February 2006 provided the first comprehensive look at expense and compensation patterns of the 10,000 largest independent, corporate, and community foundations and documented how major differences in foundations' operating characteristics influenced their expense levels. Conducted in collaboration with the Foundation Center and GuideStar, the study shed light on which forces drive administrative and operating expenses.

Our survey of 9/11-affected clients served by American Red Cross-sponsored programs found that residual grief still plagues the lives of many people involved. In September 2006, researchers launched a new study on the role of faith-based and community organizations in relief efforts in the Gulf Coast region.

We convened our 16th Emerging Issues in Philanthropy seminar on the Personal Use of Charities by Politicians in collaboration with the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University.

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