Is philanthropy really “under attack”?

Posted by Tara Greco

Yesterday was National Philanthropy Day®, a day set to recognize and pay tribute to the great contributions that philanthropy – and those people active in the philanthropic community – have made. In light of this holiday, I wanted to give you some food for thought…

Phil Buchanan, President of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, wrote a provocative post last week suggesting that the American nonprofit sector is “under attack” as evidenced by increasing interest in books like  Philanthrocapitalism and Uncharitable.

His interpretation is that these authors believe that nonprofits have much to learn from business, and that nonprofits would be more successful if they more closely mirrored corporations.

When it comes to the management and administration of the organization, nonprofits can certainly benefit from the knowledge and expertise in the corporate sector.  And nonprofits recognize this – they are asking for corporate executives to engage in strategic planning, training and leadership development – corporate sector mainstays that for nonprofits is too often seen as an indulgence.  They are also clamoring for pro bono support in core functions like HR management, IT solutions and financial management.

But, as Buchanan notes, if nonprofits become too “bottom line focused,” they risk losing sight of their mission. And that would be a loss for society as a whole, because many significant innovations have come from the social change driven by the nonprofit sector.

This piece generated some interesting chatter on the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Give & Take blog…what do you think?