A recent Philantopic blog by long-time nonprofit activist and scholar Mark Rosenman entitled, Do We Really Need 12 Million New Nonprofits? grabbed my attention yesterday. Rosenman quoted a Civic Ventures Study that showed 12 million baby boomers are interested in starting their own social venture or nonprofit over the next 5 to 10 years. Setting aside the fact that survey results are next to useless when it comes to asking people about hypothetical future behavior, what the study does show is an increasing interest in social entrepreneurship of all stripes.

Rosenman believes that this entrepreneurship will hurt the sector.

“Why do I find this aspiration so distressing? I worry that the addition of millions of new nonprofit and social enterprises — on top of the million or so incorporated charities and foundations already registered with the IRS — will make it more rather than less likely that we continue to view and treat critical societal issues as if they were fragmented and unrelated. And that means less effort to bring about the broad-based changes needed in our social, political, and economic institutions.”

While I too believe that we have way too many nonprofits in America and that there should be a pretty large scale re-structuring, I don’t think a lack of entrepreneurship is the answer. We need innovative and inspiring ideas and we need them to grow and spread. I agree with Rosenman in that we don’t need every Tom, Dick, and Harry starting a nonprofit because they feel like it, but we do need existing nonprofits to tap into this entrepreneurial spirit.

There is no question that we are becoming an increasingly entrepreneurial nation. More and more people are starting their own businesses, entering the “creative class“, and viewing themselves as a product that they sell to various organizations. These people want to move quickly, lead with autonomy, and tackle problems in innovative ways. It’s what makes them entrepreneurs. But not all entrepreneurs need to start their own organizations, they just need to find existing ones that let them loose and tap into their entrepreneurial spirit.

The nonprofit sector however, is notoriously anti-entrepreneurial. When every decision needs board approval, the entrepreneurs will leave in frustration. When movement and momentum are constantly being slowed by organizational processes, the entrepreneur won’t stay. Of course not all nonprofits have these overly-structured systems, but many do.

It will be vital to addressing our current challenges for the bureaucratic systems often found in the social sector to be left behind. It is exciting that 12 million people want to direct their entrepreneurial passions towards social problems and as a sector, we must be ready to welcome them with open arms.