Book Delves into the Complex Relationship between Nonprofits and Government

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 11, 2006—As the nonprofit sector's role providing services and programs grows, the relationship between tax-exempt organizations and government becomes more complex. At times adversarial and at times symbiotic, the dual forces of government oversight and nonprofit pressure can have wide-ranging implications for public policy.

Nonprofits and Government: Collaboration and Conflict, 2nd edition, edited by Elizabeth T. Boris and C. Eugene Steuerle, offers a framework to assess the influences on the nonprofit sector and its relations with government.

"Nonprofits and government interactions are multifaceted in a civil society," writes Boris, director of the Institute's Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy. "Simplistic assumptions about what nonprofit organizations can do and how they affect society may lead to public policies that are ineffective or have unintended consequences both for the organizations and for society."

The nonprofit sector includes a wide range of charities, from religious congregations, environmental groups, and community development organizations to universities, hospitals, and art museums. The sector has assets of approximately $3 trillion and employs almost 10 percent of the country's labor force. In 2004, there were approximately 1.8 million tax-exempt groups, 500,000 more than 15 years earlier.

"The past quarter century has been a period of significant policy change," writes Steuerle, an Urban Institute senior fellow," though the impact of these changes on nonprofit organizations has often been overlooked."

Assessing the relationship

Nonprofits and Government: Collaboration and Conflict, from the Urban Institute Press, showcases the research and analysis of 18 leading experts, offering a comprehensive overview of the key aspects of the nonprofit-government relationship.

• Elizabeth Boris describes the vital function of nonprofits in civil society, reviewing their primary roles and activities, their resources and capacity, and their regional variation.
• Dennis R. Young analyzes three types of nonprofit-government relationships: complementary, supplementary, and adversarial.
• Eugene Steuerle and Virginia A. Hodgkinson use data on size, capacity, and employment to examine how nonprofits and government address social needs.
• Alan J. Abramson, Lester M. Salamon, and Steuerle assess the effects of government spending and tax decisions on the activities of nonprofits.
• Evelyn Brody and Joseph J. Cordes analyze and estimate the effects of the many tax benefits from which the nonprofit sector benefits.
• Woods Bowman and Marion R. Fremont-Smith unpack the relationship between the sector and state and local governments.
• Steven Rathgeb Smith examines the development, diversification, and impacts of government financing of nonprofits.
• Carol J. De Vita and Eric C. Twombly explain the devolution of governmental decision-making during the 1990s and its affects on nonprofits.
• John H. Goddeeris and Burton A. Weisbrod describe why and how nonprofits convert to for-profit organizations and consider when this transformation is socially desirable.
• Robert Wuthnow describes controversies involving the National Endowment for the Arts and federal funding of faith-based groups and observes how controversies may reinforce values and renew commitments to core values.
• Elizabeth J. Reid investigates the advocacy role that nonprofits play in American democracy, focusing on how regulatory change during the past decade.
• Janelle Kerlin explores the world of U.S.-based international nonprofits and how they interact with the U.S. government.
• Salamon closes the volume with a look at how the nonprofit-government relationship in other countries works.

"For anyone who wishes to understand the role of nonprofit organizations in carrying out and influencing public policy today, this collection of essays is essential reading," wrote Leslie Lenkowsky, professor of philanthropy and public policy at Indiana University, of the book's first edition. The book has been adopted by universities around the country for courses on the nonprofit sector.

Nonprofits and Government: Collaboration and Conflict, edited by Elizabeth T. Boris and C. Eugene Steuerle, is available from the Urban Institute Press for $29.50 (466 pages, ISBN 0-87766-732-2). Order online at www.uipress.org, call 202-261-5687, or dial 1-877-847-7377 toll-free.

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