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Weekly UpdatesThere's nothing quite like an economic downturn to get the sector moving. During the past year retail outlets started limiting food quantities available for purchase and the price of gasoline is heading toward $5 per gallon. The government reported that more than 60,000 jobs were lost in the economy just during the month of June.
The economic situation in the United States is putting pressure on nonprofits to do more with less--in some case considerably less. The latest fundraising reports showed both revenue and the number of donors declining for the first time since the fall of 2001, when this sort of statistic started being tracked by Target Analysis Group.
Abroad, a weak dollar against other currencies, such as the Euro, is straining the ability to fund projects. Organizations with international operations are either cutting back or dipping into a rainy day fund to keep programs open.
And, it is also clear that a changing of the guard has begun in the sector. The announced retirement of several influential leaders will be bringing a younger generation to the executive suites at charities.
In this 11th annual NPT Power & Influence Top 50, we celebrate some of the sector's top executives and thinkers. These executives were selected for the impact they have now and for the innovative plans they are putting in place to evolve the charitable sector. We also offer a roll call of the executives who have shaped this listing and the sector.
The executives will be honored for their work at The NPT Power & Influence Top 50 Gala next month at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. It will be a night of high level exchange between executives who can move a nation.
Here's The NPT Power & Influence Top 50, Class of 2008.
Diana Aviv
President & Chief Executive Officer
Independent Sector
Washington, D.C.
She took a lot of abuse from some in the sector for trying to work with federal legislators instead of openly fighting with them. There is now no doubt that she was right because most of the threatened federal regulation has been stalled. There is still danger, but it might be under control.
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Gary Bass
Founder & Executive Director
OMB Watch
Washington, D.C.
Bass is an effective advocate for strengthening government transparency and using information technologies to empower citizens and community groups to challenge unchecked institutional power. He loudly has spoken out against the erosion of the public's right to know.
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Elizabeth Boris
Director
Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy, Urban Institute
Washington, D.C.
When Congress needs the sector quantified, she has the numbers and from that mantle she espouses the importance of nonprofit advocacy and civic engagement, its importance to democracy and how it will take more money from foundations to keep things afloat.
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Paul Brest
President
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Menlo Park, Calif.
He's trying to get foundations to provide more information and demand the same from grantees. He believes that most foundations are significantly underinvested in providing the infrastructure for doing evaluation and thus providing data. Better information leads to better philanthropic decisions.
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Kelly Browning
Executive Vice President
American Institute For Cancer Research
Washington, D.C.
Browning makes the list for his work as vice chair of the Direct Marketing Association in battling the do not mail activists. Imagine not being able to send a fundraising letter. There are actually some nonprofits funding the attempts to establish such roadblocks.
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Phil Buchanan
Executive Director
Center For Effective Philanthropy
Cambridge, Mass.
Starting with the belief that there isn't enough good information to inform philanthropic decision-making, Buchanan is advocating for new performance assessment tools and transparency, pushing the idea of providing good information to inform philanthropic decision-making.
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Gavin Clabaugh
Vice President, Information Services
Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
Flint, Mich.
He has spent his professional life making technology accessible to and understood by nonprofits. He has embraced the new technologies (see Gavin's DigitalDiner) and uses his bully pulpit at Mort to emphasize technology within both the grant-making community and the sector.
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Kathy Cloninger
Chief Executive Officer
Girl Scouts of the USA
New York, N.Y.
Talk about changing an organization. Imagine the Girl Scouts without the uniforms. That's shaking up a national organization if there was ever an example. Cloninger has long been a sector leader, starting locally and now internationally.
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Robert Egger
Founder
D.C. Central Kitchen
Washington, D.C.
Some would call him a shameless serf-promoter, others a serial networker. Whichever, he energizes the national conversation. He was a co-convener of the Nonprofit Congress and a founder of the V3 Campaign, which is working to get the voice of the sector recognized in every election in America.
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David Eisner
Chief Executive Officer
Corporation for National and Community Service
Washington, D.C.
Government-sponsored volunteerism is booming in large part because of his leadership. He embodies the belief that volunteering is no longer just nice to do. It is a necessary aspect of meeting the most pressing needs facing the nation: crime, gangs, poverty, disasters, illiteracy, and homelessness.
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Lewis M. Feldstein
President
New Hampshire Charitable Foundation
Concord, N.H.
He is without question the "dean" of the community foundations field. He breathes civic engagement and that has made his organization the most influential in his state and one of the most influential throughout New England. His book Better Together is a must read.
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Israel L. Gaither
National Commander
Salvation Army
Alexandria, Va.
Gaither was quoted in a USA Today article saying, "You can't manufacture integrity." He's running a multi-billion dollar business that just happens to be religious-based and treats it as such. It's mission/purpose first, rather than trying to do everything and getting into trouble.
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Sara K. Gould
President & Chief Executive Officer
Ms. Foundation for Women
New York, N.Y.
She led the Collaborative Fund for Women's Economic Development, which provided more than $10 million to groups creating jobs for low-income women. She has provided thousands of grassroots leaders with the skills and resources to help women achieve greater economic independence.
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John H. Graham IV
President & Chief Executive Officer
ASAE & The Center For Association Leadership
Washington, D.C.
Graham sees opportunity in challenge, and there are few greater than what he did to put ASAE back together. He is committed to creating healthy associations that are committed to social responsibility. ASAE has the muscle to get its members to the right legislators and that wasn't always the case before him.
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Florence Green
Executive Director
California Association of Nonprofit Organizations
Los Angeles, Calif.
California has been in the middle of challenges to the sector, such as a legislative mandate for board composition. Green has been able to navigate the state's nonprofits out of high water and multiple state administrations that have been less than warm to the sector.
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Steve Gunderson
President & Chief Executive Officer
Council on Foundations
Washington, D.C.
There were a lot of snickers (behind his back) when Gunderson started talking about the differences in charity and philanthropy and attempting to redefine philanthropy by foundations. Nobody is chuckling now, as the ideas have begun to take root among the largest foundations.
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Brian Gallagher
President & Chief Executive Officer
United Way of America
Alexandria, Va.
The deathwatch is over for the UWA thanks to Gallagher's refocusing on primary needs of communities and fundraising for those specific needs. He has pushed for consistent metrics and redesigned UWA from a fundraising entity to a community change mission.
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Melinda Gates
Co-Founder
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Seattle, Wash.
With the retirement of long-time CEO Patty Stonesifer. Gates has taken a lead role in defining direction and goals as the new CEO gets his feet wet operationally. It is, after all, just a little family foundation, that just happens to wipe diseases off continents.
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Charles Gould
President
Volunteers of America
Alexandria, Va.
Gould is passionate about VOA's mission but also recognizes that the organization cannot go it alone. He is first among equals in collaborating across the sector to actually get work done, like opening housing units in New Orleans and the Gulf region.
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