Other Challenges
The nonprofit sector also is beset with other major challenges' recruiting and retaining employees and keeping up with new technology. In a nearly full-employment economy, it is difficult for nonprofits to retain good staff. A recent study by Paul Light of the Brookings Institution revealed that there was a significant increase in the percentage of graduates of schools of public affairs and public policy who sought and took jobs in the nonprofit sector, but that a large percentage of these employees left after a few years since nonprofit organizations were not competitive with salaries and benefits. Furthermore, nonprofit organizations who seek to recruit technology specialists are competing in a very scarce market with large corporations.22
The creation of now technology and the growth of the Internet poses great management challenges for nonprofits. Websites and communications systems are very expensive and demand technically adept staff in planning, implementing, and training staff in the use of technology. Nonprofit managers need to learn how to manage the uses of technology. While many helpful programs have been developed, the great majority of nonprofits are behind in learning how to use this technology effectively and efficiently.
Conclusions
The nonprofit sector is going through major changes as are other sectors of American society. The sector is facing major changes on many fronts: major changes in welfare policy, new competition from large corporations, increased contracting and accountability at the state and local levels, new expectations by a generation of new wealthy donors; a declining growth in funding from government; difficulty in retaining well-trained employees, and keeping up with new technology. If the past gives much guidance, the sector will survive, but it may take different forms. Part of the sector will be highly professionalized and indistinguishable from the corporate sector while the other part of the sector will try to maintain its mission of service and building civil society.
Notes
1. Depending on individual state policies, welfare is generally limited to a maximum of two years at any one time and five years over an adult's lifetime. Providing the incentive to decrease state welfare rolls, this legislation will cut funds transferred to the states if they do not move half of their caseloads to work by 2002.
2. C.J. De Vita, "Nonprofits and Devolution: What Do We Know?", in Nonprofits and Government: Collaboration and Conflict, ed. E. T. Boris and C. E. Steuerle, (Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 1999), p.214.
3. Ibid., p.216.
4. V. Hodgkinson, C. Ahn, S. Farrell, J. Krehely and K. Nelson, "Assessing the Role of the Nonprofit Sector Following Welfare Reform: What Do We Know? What Do We Need to Know?" Working Paper, (Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Voluntary Organizations and Service, Georgetown University, 2000).
5. V Hodgkinson,. and M. Weitzman, Giving and Volunteering in the United States, (Washington, DC.: Independent Sector, 1996).
6. Ibid.
7. Hodgkinson, et al., "Assessing the Role of the Nonprofit Sector Following Welfare Reform: What Do We Know? What Do We Need to Know?".
