In June 2018, Independent Sector and Stanford Social Innovation Review launched Civil Society for the 21st Century, an article series featuring some of today’s leading thinkers and practitioners exploring current issues in civil society.
In the sixth installment, Jan Masaoka, CEO of the California Association of Nonprofits, discusses our sector’s important role in strengthening democracy.
She argues that our sector has become too separated from the movements that effect social change. We find ourselves self-identified as paid “experts and professionals” when instead we ought to be operating in service to these democratic movements.
In fact, she thinks there’s a forgotten identity that should replace the very notion of a “nonprofit sector.”