Creating New Nonprofit Organizations as Response to Social Change: HIV/AIDS Organizations in New York City

This article offers a critique of Alexis DeTocqueville's observation that Americans have a tendency to “constantly form associations” and suggests that the process is considerably more complex. Portraits of newly created New York City nonprofit organizations developed in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic suggest that the pace of forming organizations might be particularly high during periods of cultural and social change and that the nonprofit sector responds to social change by creating new organizations.