Wrong Way Corrigan and Recent Developments in the Nonprofit Landscape: A Need for New Legal Approaches

This essay argues that some of the assumptions by which we view and regulate the nonprofit sector are traveling, as did Wrong Way Corrigan, in the wrong direction. This is due to faulty assumptions about the nonprofit universe, overreactions to perceived problems, and a reluctance to consider innovative approaches to existing problems. This essay examines some of the erroneous assumptions, discusses recent legislative initiatives, and suggests that there is a need for more than incremental approaches when considering the nonprofit landscape. It argues that regulation of fiduciary behavior should be at the local level, or a combination of local and state regulation, in contrast to federal enforcement. Federal tax law issues are appropriately left to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). This essay also will discuss the recent interest in for-profit social enterprise organizations