Making the Nonprofit Sector in the United States

Unique among nations, America conducts almost all of its formally organized religious activity, and many cultural, arts, human service, educational, and research activities through private nonprofit organizations. This reader explores their history by presenting some of the classic documents in the development of the nonprofit sector along with important interpretations and critiques by recent scholars. Each selection has been chosen to define or illuminate important questions in the development of the nonprofit sector in the United States, beginning with early 17th-century documents and ending with a 1991 Supreme Court decision.