This is a report on the history of nonprofit acute-care hospitals converting to for-profit status in California from 1993 to 1998. Three years ago, Consumers Union, nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, began the Community Health Assets Project, a partnership with Community Catalyst of Boston. The project seeks to protect nonprofit charitable assets and to ensure that any potential adverse health impacts that may result from these transactions are mitigated. This was the expansion of work started by Consumers Union in the mid 1980’s to preserve the assets of converting nonprofit California HMO’s.