Reinventing the Nonprofit Sector – A Corona POV Series

 

A look back over the past 15 years shows how the nonprofit sector has been reinventing itself.  I’ve coined the term sector transformer to refer to the dynamics at play within the nonprofit arena.  Macro disruptors have also been reshaping the sector from the outside.  Each of the following examples in this series illustrates internal transformation and external disruption.

You don’t have to be a 501c3 to “do good”

For decades, the nonprofit sector was recognized as the distinct path to “doing good.”  If someone wanted to “do good,” they gave money, volunteered, worked for or otherwise supported their local charity, church, hospital or school.  That’s not the case anymore.  In 2012, more than 32,000 people were moved to donate over $700,000 in less than two months for Karen Klein, the bus monitor bullied by school children.  She has since set up a nonprofit that fights bullying.  Many locally-based nonprofits struggle to raise six figures from private donors over the course of a year.  While this was an episodic event, it is one of many to capture heart- and mind-share at scale.   The number of indirect and substitute competitors to your nonprofit just increased.

What’s #2 on our list of transformers and disruptors?  The rise of the social entrepreneur.

View each part of this Corona POV Series:

Reinventing the Nonprofit Sector

#2 Nonprofit Sector Transformer and Macro Disruptor- The rise of the social entrepreneur.

#3 Nonprofit Sector Transformer and Macro Disruptor- Use of social enterprise practices.

#4 Nonprofit Sector Transformer and Macro Disruptor – Shifting donor expectations.