First Post

My name is Marc Rogers and this is my introductory post for the PPPM 280- Non Profit Sector blog. The purpose of this blog is for me to put forth my input and feelings on the material that we will be reading throughout the course. Before I discuss the first readings I will share a few things about myself. I am 21 years old and a junior at U of O. I am majoring in Geography and minoring in both Business and pppm. The minor in pppm lead me into taking this course. I was more interested in other aspects of the minor so I really don't know anything about the non-profit sector, but I am definitely interested to learn. I'm really into sports so hopefully I will be able to learn about the involvement of non profit organizations in athletics.

Going in to this class I knew very little about the nonprofit sector. I had heard of it, but had no idea of the size and significance that it entailed. The first 2 chapters of Non-Profit Nation really opened up my eyes to this. I was extremely surprised to see how far the Non Profit Sector’s reach extends, as it touches just about every aspect of society. It seems as if no matter what you are interested or what is important to you, there is a non-profit organization that relates to it. I had never thought of things such as fraternities and clubs as being considered non-profit organizations. The one that really jumped out to me was the professional football league npo’s. I am an avid sports fan so this immediately caught my interest. What was really surprising was that only professional football associations were listed and other professional sports were not. The number of nonprofit organizations was also fairly astounding to me, as 1.5 million are registered within the U.S and this does not even count the many more that are unregistered. I wasn’t surprised to learn that religious organizations make up the largest percentage of nonprofit organizations because the tremendous role and influence of religion in our society is quite evident; as you see churches just about everywhere you go.

What I found to be really interesting was the impact of historical events on the non-profit sector. Things such as social and political movements and wars have really shaped the sector into what it is today. For example, after world war 2 the American Economy boomed as a result of diminished competition from Germany and Japan (there countries were obliterated), which resulted in higher disposable incomes for Americans, thus allowing them to give more money to charitable organizations . It is also interesting that rate of charitable contributions has increased with younger and older people, yet decreased with the middle aged working class adults. This, obviously, is most likely a result of the poor state of the economy.

Another interesting point is how activities that are known to be performed within the nonprofit sector were not always this way. In earlier centuries governments and businesses would provide charitable services and how the roles that these sectors play today were different at different points in time. For example, government builds roads but in the past this was voluntary or done by a private business. It will be interesting to see how these roles shift going forward. I was also surprised to see just how much voluntary and donation related activity there is in this country. The statistic that said that 90 percent of Americans donate money to charity really jumped out at me. I had no idea so many households did this as it really doesn’t seem that like this is true to me. I wouldn’t mind doing a small study and asking various households if and how much they donate.

The theories that relate different social science fields to the nonprofit sector were also very interesting to me as I enjoy social science related topics. It helped me relate to the topic more easily. So far the Non Profit sector has sparked my interest and I am eager to learn more.