Knowledge Management and the Non-Profit Sector

Research and practice over the last twenty some years has increasingly formalized knowledge management (hereafter “KM”) as both an accepted business operating protocol and an academic discipline in its own right (Wiig, 2003; Schwartz, 2005; Cohen, 2006). But, except for the occasional enlightened organization, KM inquiry and practice has not been found among non-profit enterprises; as one indicator, several recent tracts on strategic and effective management aimed at non-profit audiences lack any mention of knowledge management per se (Collins, 2005; Herman & Associates, 2005; Edwards & Yankey, 2006; Crutchfield & McLeod Grant, 2008). Rather, most of the knowledge management research and practice (like that of information and communications technology, or hereafter “ICT”) has been centered in commercial enterprises, fueled by for-profit willingness to pursue new organizational approaches leading to enhanced performance and leverage the ever-more-sophisticated applications of computing and network technology. The historical gulf between KM-savvy commercial enterprises and KM-agnostic non-profits, however, is beginning to shrink, for reasons this essay will discuss. And though some of the interest and adoption of KM practice by non-profit organizations is not necessarily tied to any strictures of the charitable and “do-good” world, some dimensions of its emerging practice in that sector are indeed more particular to its character and form. What follows also discusses this, and looks ahead to some of the emerging practice of KM in non-profit organizations.