Gary Snyder is the managing director and CEO of Nonprofit Imperative, a national forum for nonprofit information. NI’s central mission is the strengthening of the charitable world.

Gary brings a unique perspective to the voluntary sector. He has spent more than four decades toiling in nonprofits as a staff and board member, regulator, lecturer, author, and consultant.

Gary comes to the nonprofit advocacy world with in-depth knowledge. He was the CEO of a hospital/healthcare system; owned a seat on the Chicago Board of Trade; staff at an urban coalition; staff to a project that got national attention and ultimately became a Harvard University case study on the closure of hospitals; a consultant to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (formerly DHEW); a consultant to many nonprofit organizations. He has worked on both federal and state legislation, public policy and regulations concerning the betterment of our society.

As a noted expert on the issues facing philanthropy, he has been a guest lecturer at numerous universities and conferences. He has spoken on ethics, financial and governance reform in the sector.

He has been frequently consulted by Congress and has been cited in over 100 various media including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Newsweek.com, and more.

Gary has authored Nonprofits: On the Brink.

Reviewed by Alice D. for Readers' Favorite

Author Gary Snyder knows exactly what he writes about in this expose, "Silence: The Impending Threat to the Charitable Sector". He has held many positions in the non-profit sector and has served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. What he writes about here are facts that everyone should know: he tells of famous non-profits like United Way and lays out for the reader the ridiculously high salaries of men at the top of these charitable organizations, the corruption, the fraud, and the stealing that has gone on in some charitable organizations for years. Author Snyder gives the names of people who have misappropriated funds and tells specifically how much has been lost. He gives the reader list after list of people who have served the non-profit sector poorly. The reader with a conscience will be upset, to say the least, when reading each chapter. Congress and other watch-dog agencies have tried to curb the embezzlement, the fraud, the forgeries and outright theft but to little avail. This book should be read by everyone. It will send a shiver down the reader's spine to think that people with little money to spare have given generously to the American Red Cross, to United Way, even to the Smithsonian, only to have their dollars stolen, used to take lavish vacations, or spent on luxury housing.

"Silence" is a brilliant piece of "muck-raking" literature and deserves its place in the sun. Gary Snyder's writing is clear and understandable, but he needs to put his biography either at the book's beginning or the very end. The table of contents is good, but needs to be expanded to include more of the information in the pages of "Silence". A bibliography of sources cited would help the reader who wants to know more. Hopefully, the "Wall Street Journal" will run a chapter a week of this entire work. The man on the street probably is somewhat aware of what non-profits have gotten away with, but more people should know the facts contained within the pages of "Silence: The Impending Threat to the Charitable Sector".