The Nonprofit Challenge

Book excerpt: Nonprofit organizations hold a special place in society as the nation’s ethical sector. They promote service, goodwill and kindness and serve to better humanity. Like any business, however, they can also experience ethical indiscretions. The group of organizations whose sole purpose in this world is to be good and to spread that good has yet to fully form an operational code of ethics—a code that promotes humanity as only the nonprofit sector can. Describing the challenges facing today’s charities, Doug White explains how nonprofits must reassess their commitment to their role in society. This corrective journey can serve as a role model for all the for-profit businesses as well as the government sector. By reexamining the business of philanthropy with a new and ethics-based mindset, nonprofits can push themselves to be their very best and continue to make the world a better place.