Captains of Charity (original) (raw)

2017, University of New Hampshire Press

As unemployment surged and the stock market plunged during Amer i ca's recession of [2007][2008][2009], the nonprofi t sector demonstrated stunning resilience. In a study of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics spanning the fi rst de cade of the twenty-fi rst century, researchers from Johns Hopkins University found that as the for-profi t sector lost jobs at an annual rate of 0.6 percent, the nonprofi t sector actually gained jobs during a de cade of economic instability. And the worse the economy performed, the more pronounced the gains in the nonprofi t space became. "Somewhat surprisingly," the researchers write, "the data reveal that nonprofi t employment actually grew by 2.6 percent during the fi rst year of the recession, and 1.2 percent during the second year of the recession." In contrast, for-profi t employment decreased at an annual average of 3.7 percent during the same years. 1 Over the fi rst de cade of this century, the nonprofi t sector employed more Americans than the nation's utilities, mining, agriculture, real estate, and transportation industries combined. The nonprofi t share of private employment was highest in the New England and Middle Atlantic regions, and during the recession it grew by the widest margin in the South Atlantic region. Most nonprofi t workers found employment in education, social assistance, health care, and the arts. Even Americans employed in for-profi t fi elds felt a strong benevolent impulse in the wake of the Great Recession and continuing to the pres ent moment: according to the World Giving Index 2013, "proportionally more Americans gave in some way than in any other country." 2 So, in sum: in times of fi nancial distress, American workers turn to the nonprofi t space as a viable employment alternative, particularly in the fi elds of education, social work, health care, and the arts, and especially along the Eastern Seaboard-and many Americans feel inclined to donate to charitable causes. This con temporary phenomenon suggests a profound symbiosis among nonprofi t and for-profi t sectors and their coastal geographies, and gestures toward the unexamined history that has intertwined them. Indeed,