With the introduction of the first edition of his landmark book The Third America, Michael O'Neill created a much-needed resource for analyzing and understanding the "invisible sector"-the thousands of nonprofit organizations that have a significant impact on society but have less than significant visibility.

The nonprofit sector is no longer invisible. It is a high-profile, high-impact community that affects the lives of people throughout the country and the world. Understanding the nonprofit sector is essential--both to the professionals and volunteers within the sector and to concerned citizens and community leaders who work with the nonprofits that influence our society.

In Nonprofit Nation, the new edition of his classic work, O'Neill takes a fresh look at the nonprofit sector and the power it has to use its growing visibility and strength. Like the first edition, this new book is an up-to-date, comprehensive guide to understanding the nonprofit sector. Identifying and examining the major nonprofit subsectors-health care, arts, social service, and religious organizations, for example-and detailing their particular concerns and impact enable O'Neill to explore their influence on business, government and society. The new edition also features:

• Expanded sections on scope and impact
• Updated and enlarged statistical information
• New insights on the development of the nonprofit sector
• A new section on theories of the nonprofit sector

In addition, O'Neill addresses the direction, growth, and role of the nonprofit sector for the next twenty-five years, and his insights are sure to prove helpful to nonprofits wanting to sustain and increase their impact on society.

O'Neill (nonprofit management, U. of San Francisco) describes the recent growth and current extent of the nonprofit sector in the US, its impact on society, key challenges facing nonprofits, and possible future directions. This account differs from his 1989 The Third America by focusing on the years 1950-2000, and including more extensive statistics. His expected readers are students of nonprofits and philanthropy, managers and other participants in nonprofits, and historians.
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"An invaluable compendium: accurate, detailed, and up-to-date facts embedded in an incisive commentary on the history, impact, and prospects of the nonprofit sector. The marriage of information and understanding at its very best."

--Paul G. Schervish, director, Social Welfare Research Institute and professor, Department of Sociology, Boston College

"Written by an outstanding scholar and leader in the nonprofit research field and rich with information, this masterful overview of the voluntary, nonprofit sector in America successfully balances accuracy of presentation, comprehensiveness, and careful judgements with a high degree of readability. This is one book that everyone concerned with American nonprofits and philanthropy should read to understand the nonprofit sector as a whole."

--David Horton Smith, founder, Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action

"The most comprehensive guidebook to America's magnificent but still largely uncharted third, nonprofit, voluntary, independent sector, written by the person most qualified to guide us."

--Brian O'Connell, founding president, INDEPENDENT SECTOR

"Michael O'Neill has written a Baedeker for the nonprofit world. No traveler should leave home without having read it."

--Leslie Lenkowsky, professor, Center on Philanthropy, Indiana University

Includes bibliographical references (p. 271-292) and index.

Michael O'Neill is professor of nonprofit management in the College of Professional Studies at the University of San Francisco. He is the founder and former director of the Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management at the University of San Francisco. O'Neill is the author or coauthor of numerous books, including The Third America and Women and Power in the Nonprofit Sector, both from Jossey-Bass.

Tables.

Preface.

The Author.

1. Nonprofit Nation.

2. Theories.

3. Religion.

4. Social Service.

5. Health Care.

6. Education and Research.

7. Advocacy.

8. Arts and Culture.

9. International.

10. Funders.

11. Mutual Benefit.

12. Prospects.

Appendix.

References.

Index.