The Chronicle of Philanthropy addresses how the Wall Street crisis will impact the nonprofit workforce:

The crisis on Wall Street – and the likelihood that billions in federal money will be spent soothing it – portend an era when government will need to turn more eagerly than ever to nonprofit organizations to serve social needs, said experts speaking Monday at a conference here on the state of the nonprofit work force.

The federal government is “going to have to find more efficient ways to do more,” said Paul Schmitz, president of Public Allies, a group with headquarters in Milwaukee that prepares young people for nonprofit jobs.

Lawmakers need to be educated about the role the nonprofit world can play in furthering their goals for society, he said. “This is a place when they can move things quickly, get them on the ground working.”

Charities also need government as much as government needs them, said another speaker, Lester M. Salamon, director of the Center for Civil Society Studies at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies, in Baltimore.

“The primary fiscal relationship in the sector is with government,” Mr. Salamon said. “The idea that you can run this sector purely on philanthropy is a myth.”