The Nonprofit Research Collaborative released its first report today, a survey of 2,349 charities, 163 foundations, and 386 grant makers on fundraising so far in 2010 compared to 2009. The NonProfitTrends blog has a good summary of the findings, but the punch lines seems to be this: like many other parts of the economy, fundraising in the nonprofit sector seems to have bottomed out and is starting its presumably long climb back up. We are a long way from the even four or five years ago but the trends generally point in the right direction. That’s great news, of course, but it’s not clear just how much rethinking – community engagement, governance, business models – the sector has done in the past few years, and I wonder if a steady diet of good (if incremental) news will diminish the opportunity and motivation to probe deep and ask hard questions about improving the capacity and effectiveness of the social sector.