The leaders of Montana's nonprofit organizations can't overlook the contributions of the thousands of volunteers who help the groups complete their work, a national nonprofit sector leader said Tuesday.

Speaking at the seventh annual convention of the Montana Nonprofit Association, Jan Masaoka of San Francisco -- regularly named one of the "50 Most Influential People" in the country's nonprofit sector -- said nonprofits down-play the contributions of volunteers at their peril.

Rather than saying a nonprofit has "a staff of five and 40 volunteers," Masaoka said a more true measure of the same group would be that "we have a staff of 45, five of whom are paid and 40 who volunteer."

Brian Magee, executive director of the MNA, said the message isn't lost on his member groups. Founded in 2001, the MNA currently boasts some 530 member organizations across the state.

He noted that Montanans regularly rank at or near the top of national surveys of citizen volunteer rates.

"For the vast majority of our organizations, volunteering service is the lifeblood," he said. "We recognize that looking at ways to strengthen and maintain the volunteer sector in Montana is absolutely vital."

The association's two-day conference has brought more than 300 people from all walks of the nonprofit sector to town. In addition to workshops on fundamentals like fundraising, developing an effective board of directors and grooming the next generation of leaders, attendees were scheduled to hear from major party candidates for attorney general Tuesday night and for governor Wednesday morning.

After 14 years in charge of CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, a Bay Area consulting and training firm, Masaoka left recently to become director and editor of an online nonprofit magazine called Blue Avocado.

Elaborating on the conference's theme of "generations," Masaoka noted that the nonprofit world exploded in the 1960s when a confluence of federal money (as part of the war on poverty) and the baby boomer generation brought to bear a broad new sector of nonprofit groups.

"The people who were founding and leading this new generation of organizations came from the belief that they could change the world," she said.

As the sector matured and the nonprofits became more professional in nature, Masaoka said some lost their original focus, becoming management-heavy and helping create a "philanthropic industrial complex."

Having a well-run organization isn't a bad thing, she said, but it shouldn't come at the expense of the group's original mission.

"The thing we've forgotten is the idea that professionalism, management and impact have to be addressed separately, on separate tracks," she said. "Working on the down sides of professionalism is one of the challenges the new generation of leaders needs to address."

With a humorous nod to the deepening credit crisis engulfing Wall Street -- "Haven't you gotten sick of people telling you nonprofits should be run more like businesses? Isn't this a particularly interesting month to hear that?" she asked with a smile -- Masaoka said she doesn't think the possibility of a recession will cripple the sector. She did note, though, that in a down economy, groups may need to develop strategies for reaching their goals that are not necessarily growth-oriented.

"Some community theaters are not going to make it," she said. "But am I worried about community theater in America? No. This is a sector that grows out of community needs."

Reporter John Harrington: 447-4080 or john.harrington@helenair.com