I am part of a non-profit organization called Teens Against Poverty (TAP) and I was a co-founder of the group. TAP is active in communities around our city. Public awareness of the TAP is rapidly increasing, though surprisingly little is known about the underlying purposes and values that animate nonprofit and voluntary action or the vehicles through which those values and purposes are channeled. In part, this is because nonprofits' activities at once reflect a confusing agglomeration of strongly held private values and a set of complex public purposes. The sector can thus be conceived of as a tent ...