The nonprofit glass–half full or half empty? According to a recent Donors Forum of Chicago report, “A Portrait of the Nonprofit Sector in Illinois,” in 1990 in Illinois there were 6,287 nonprofit organizations–hospitals, colleges, universities, service providers. By 2000 there were 9,767, a 55 percent increase. (These figures don’t include small nonprofits, just those that were registered as 501(c)(3) organizations and filed form 990 with the IRS.) Nonprofit revenues rose 85 percent in the decade, from $19.5 billion to $36.1 billion, most of that money coming not from grants but from fees nonprofits charge. These figures sound good, but they’re actually below the national average; nationwide the number of nonprofits grew 77 percent over the same period, and revenues rose 93 percent.
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Strong medicine for greens and libertarians to swallow. From a June 4 speech by U.S. representative Jan Schakowsky, published on alternet.org: “Like it or not, either George W. Bush or the Democratic nominee, whoever he may be, will be our next president….We are going to have to dedicate ourselves to electing the Democrat. To do otherwise is a luxury we cannot afford. I look forward to our campaign for a universal health care plan or a real education bill or labor law reform. We cannot even have that conversation now.”
Keep God in her place. “Apatheism”–not caring all that much about one’s own religion or anyone else’s–is “a major civilizational advance,” according to Jonathan Rauch (Atlantic Monthly, May). “Best of all would be a world generously leavened with apatheists: people who feel at ease with religion even if they are irreligious; people who may themselves be members of religious communities, but who are neither controlled by godly passions nor concerned about the (nonviolent, noncoercive) religious beliefs of others.”
