Americans have always been charitable with their money and time. The U.S. tax system was just five years old and included a tax exemption for gifts to charities when the H1N1 pandemic of 1918 struck the world, infecting 500 million people and killing 50 million, including 675,000 in the United States. And, it was just a year earlier when the U.S. federal government extended the language to allow individuals to deduct their tithing.

It took 102 years but the sector is back in pandemic fighting mode. Nonprofit executives are reimagining their organizations while trying to save lives, jobs and the economy. They are finding and providing protective equipment — sometimes even manufacturing it — and delivering direct services despite their organization doors being locked.

If flashing back to 1918 wasn’t chilling enough, the civil unrest of 1968 is being conjured across the globe. The senseless murder of George Floyd at the hands of rogue, now former, members of the Minneapolis police force has fanned the sparks already smoldering into a flame that will not be extinguished this time without meaningful change.

This is the 23rd annual The NonProfit Times’ Power & Influence Top 50. The phrasing normally employed for describing honorees is “celebrating” the work of the best and brightest in the sector. This is no time for reveling. This is going to be a long haul and the sector is in more than capable hands with the executives highlighted on the following pages.

Honorees and guests are usually feted at a September event in the ballroom of The National Press Club in Washington, D.C., during a normal year. The event has been postponed due to the pandemic and this being anything but a conventional time in history.

These are trying times around the globe. The executives on the following pages are blazing the path to getting everyone through this nightmare and ensuring the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t an oncoming train.

Here are the 2020 Power & Influence Top 50 … https://bit.ly/3hNLqrGc1