Although considerable research has developed exploring effective management of nonprofit boards of directors, there is limited understanding of the motivations of nonprofit board members to serve on ...boards. Using a sample of nearly 700 nonprofit board members, this study examines antecedent conditions and dimensions of public service motivation (PSM) as they apply to nonprofit board members and the differences in levels of PSM between board members who have worked primarily in the nonprofit, public, or private sectors. Board members with primary employment in the public sector show the highest levels of PSM. This study illustrates that nonprofit board members who work in the private sector exhibit fewer values associated with public service motivation. Other variables that predict public service motivation among board members include gender, level of education, and formal volunteering activity, among several others.
This article explores how various dimensions of market structure, often used to measure organizational crowding, affect the fiscal health of nonprofit organizations. Using 2011 National Center for ...Charitable Statistics (NCCS) nonprofit sector data, our findings generally support population ecology’s model of a curvilinear relationship between density and days of spending. However, we also find that single dimensions of market structure do not fully capture the effects of market competition. Increasing density has a negative effect on the fiscal health of organizations in markets in which resources are more evenly distributed among actors, whereas increasing density of organizations has a positive effect on organizational fiscal health in markets in which resources are less evenly distributed among actors. These results are sensitive to different specifications of fiscal health and field of nonprofit activity.
One common fundraising strategy used by nonprofit organizations is providing information to persuade potential donors. We theoretically and empirically analyze how information affects people's ...willingness to donate. Our theory suggests when people have different initial beliefs, new information leads to polarization through their understanding and rationalization of social norms. We provide empirical support using an online experiment, demonstrating that environmental and public health information leads to polarization in deforestation prevention donations. Being exposed to information opposite of individuals' existing beliefs reinforces their current opinions. Our results emphasize that implementing information treatment calls for careful deliberation.
Homeless services are plagued by resource scarcity and fragmentation, making the field a poster child for cross-sector collaboration—a policy trend where nonprofits and government come together to ...address problems that cannot be solved by one sector alone. The continuum of care (CoC) system mandates this—through coordination, regions are thought to be better able to integrate services to improve homeless outcomes. This study uses qualitative data from eighteen CoC networks to investigate (1) the collaborative challenges that CoCs experience and (2) the role that network managers play in addressing those challenges. Findings indicate three primary challenges: lack of capacity, inability to create momentum around innovative practices, and inequities across service populations. Together, these can affect the trajectories of people who are homeless by making the system less efficient and creating service gaps, but leaders can address them by promoting a collective vision and sharing power.
This paper analyzes how professional values and practices influence the character of nonprofit organizations, with data from a random sample of 501(c)(3) operating charities in the San Francisco Bay ...Area collected between 2003 and 2004. Expended professionalism in the nonprofit world involves not only paid, full-time careers and credentialed expertise but also the integration of professional ideals into the everyday world of charitable work. We develop key indicators of professionalism and measure organizational rationalization as expressed in the use of strategic planning, independent financial audits, quantitative program evaluation, and consultants. As hypothesized, charities operated by paid personnel and full-time management show higher levels of rationalization. While traditional professionals (doctors, lawyers, and the clergy) do not differ significantly from executives with no credentialed background in eschewing business-like practices, managerial professionals champion such efforts actively, as do semi-professionals, albeit more modestly. Management training is also an important spur to rationalization. We assess what is gained and lost and the tension that can arise when nonprofits become professionalized and adopt more methodical, bureaucratic procedures.
This article explains the socio-psychological factors that influence public administrators' governance choices when dealing with not-for-profit (NFP) and for-profit (FP) providers. In particular, it ...highlights the use of stereotypes in public administrators' categorization of NFP and FP motives and expected behaviours, and whether they then prioritize the use of trust or control in the governance of the contractual arrangements. The main implication for public sector managers is that the tendency to social categorization and bias can be an issue in creating the proper mechanisms to ensure the delivery of effective services. In contracting out, the use of categorization by public administrators can reduce their propensity to trust those who are perceived as an outgroup, and hence result in them adopting more formal control mechanisms, while for those perceived as an ingroup their inclination to trust will result in the use of less formal control mechanisms.
There is a robust literature examining financial vulnerability and demise of nonprofit organizations, particularly in the United States. However, much of this knowledge stems from inconsistent ...definitions of nonprofit demise. Using eight comparative case studies, this study revisits traditional definitions of nonprofit life and death to better reflect actual organizational operating status. Following this reclassification, findings from this study show that certain internal and external characteristics are more important in determining a nonprofit’s operational status. In particular, nonprofits whose missions involve a particular regulation are more likely to close due to mission completion or obsolescence; however, these nonprofits also tend to either reincarnate or expand scope if other factors are favorable. The findings also appear to show that the existence of conflict or competition with an outside entity boosts nonprofit cohesion. Internal tensions, however, are particularly harmful.
•Getting Ahead in the Race for a Cure: How Nonprofits are Financing Biomedical R&D.•Disease-related nonprofits contribute to biomedical R&D through grantmaking and lobbying.•Firms in less competitive ...geographic markets are more likely to lobby and less likely to be grantmaking.•Conditional on undertaking a joint lobbying-grantmaking strategy, market concentration is positively associated with levels of grantmaking funding.•There are significant discrepancies between charitable and federal funding levels across disease.
In recent years, nonprofit firms focused on specific diseases have increased their grantmaking efforts in the search of a cure. They have become more aggressive in directly funding research and lobbying for public support, even if their cause affects a small number of people. This paper contributes to the literatures on R&D financing by developing the first production function for disease and medical research nonprofits, a growing funder of biomedical R&D. Using IRS data, the model estimates the role of market competition and firm demographics on the adoption of grantmaking and lobbying strategies. Most notably, results provide evidence that firms in more geographically concentrated (less competitive markets) are more likely to adopt a lobbying strategy and less likely to be grantmaking on the extensive margin. Descriptive cases also illustrate funding discrepancies between charitable and government support across disease prevalence.
This paper investigates the process through which firms and non-profit organizations (NPOs) reconcile divergent worldviews in the development of firm–NPO partnerships. Drawing on data from two ...long-lived firm–NPO partnerships, this study suggests that the dynamics of reconciliation in situations of institutional complexity can be better understood by examining how firms and NPOs manage the interplay of both market and social logics in an inter-organizational context. We have found that during the initial stages of collaboration, partners manage differences by engaging in joint pilot projects and by demonstrating management’s commitment to the partnerships. Subsequently, after firms and NPOs sign a formal partnership agreement, they seek to maintain a sustainable mode of interaction by adopting three distinct mechanisms for managing tensions arising from the partnership: negotiating activity scope, monitoring and learning, and modifying organizational practices. Our research findings contribute to the literature on cross-sector partnership and institutional complexity by highlighting the means by which organizations reduce tensions associated with divergent institutional logics and maintain successful partnerships.
Philanthropic Foundation Responses to COVID-19 Finchum-Mason, Emily; Husted, Kelly; Suárez, David
Nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly,
12/2020, Volume:
49, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Philanthropic foundations are critical actors in the nonprofit sector—funding the programs of social and human service charities, fostering innovation, and serving as patrons of the arts. However, ...the dramatic growth of foundations and their endowments in recent decades has intensified charges of plutocracy—the claim that foundations are more interested in protecting their power and privilege than in contributing to the public good. The COVID-19 crisis has brought this critique into sharp focus, leading to the question, “How are large foundations acting to stem COVID-19’s impact and help in the process of recovery?” Our descriptive study leverages data from a nationwide survey of the 500 largest philanthropic foundations (by total assets) in the United States to characterize foundations’ (a) changes to internal strategy or giving, (b) shifts in relationships with grantee organizations, (c) prioritization of communities most affected by the COVID-19 crisis, and (d) collaboration across organizations and sectors.
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