Grant(ing) Democracy: Governing through Community and Nonprofit Capital

Abstract

How might one explain the growth of nonprofit organizations in a capitalist society? What kinds of social subjects are produced in this nonprofit sector, which is expected to complement (and, sometimes, counter) state and market actors? In this article, I develop an analytical framework for understanding the making of the nonprofit sector and its governance, based on my ethnographic and archival research in California. My focus is on the Satna Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health (SCCOSH), where I conducted my fieldwork: I show how it continually made changes to the characterization of its constituency in response to shifts in the configuration of funding sources and the larger transformations in the nonprofit sector. In so doing, I present three related arguments. First, the circulation of nonprofit funds, often in the form of grants, enables the creation of nonprofit networks in which common agendas are developed. Second, the growth of the nonprofit/nongovernmental sector is closely related to the expansion of government through community. Finally, grant making is also subject making; I illustrate this point through a discussion of how the identities of SCCOSH members changed from unorganized workers to injured workers who face the threat of poverty and then to “at risk” immigrant workers. I end the article with questions that need to be explored in further studies of nonprofit capital.