Common Agency in Nonprofit Advocacy Organizations

Most theories of nonprofit organizations and nonprofit leadership recognize the multitude of stakeholders—including board members, donors and volunteers, funders, the media, and policy makers—that organizational leaders must contend with in doing their work. For nonprofits engaged in advocacy, demands from stakeholders may be even more challenging to meet. Although stakeholder theory recognizes the effect of various groups on an organization, it does not explain how leaders manage the preferences of their often‐competing stakeholders while they make choices for the organization. This study develops a common agency framework, evaluating the roles of three groups crucial to nonprofit advocacy organizations: the organization's board of directors, elected officials, and donors/members. The common agency framework is then illustrated with interviews with leaders of nonprofit advocacy organizations in California. Findings suggest that the leaders of these groups have a significant amount of discretion in guiding their organizations’ activities and operations.     

Predicting Variation in Funding for International Nongovernmental Organizations Following Three External Events

This article analyzes the impact of a number of external events on major funding streams for U.S.‐based international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) to inform government and organizational policy relevant to INGO managers. The first years of the twenty‐first century saw three events that influenced INGO financing: the 2001 economic downturn, the shift in U.S. foreign policy following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the 2004 East Asian tsunami. Drawing on data from the National Center for Charitable Statistics, this study provides large dataset analysis of the finances of U.S.‐based INGOs during the 2001–05 period. As predicted, the analysis finds that these outside events appeared to affect the different funding streams of INGOs in different ways, with variation seen across type of INGO program and geographic focus. These findings help inform policy for managers, funders, and policymakers in the U.S. international community.     

The Rise of International Nongovernmental Organizations: A Top-Down or Bottom-Up Explanation?

This study examines the conditions that facilitate the growth of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) in 126 countries, from 1982 to 2000. To explain the uneven growth of INGOs around the world, I test two competing theoretical approaches. The “top-down” perspective of growth focuses on the degree of a country’s integration into the world polity and international economy. The “bottom-up” perspective emphasizes the development of democracy and the prosperity of the domestic economy as significant factors in facilitating INGO growth within a given country. An econometric analysis of panel data with ordinary least squares (OLS) suggests that both economic and political factors at the global and national level explain the rise of INGOs, rather than viewing either in an isolated fashion.     

Gendered Dimensions of the HIV Pandemic: A Cross‐National Investigation of Women's International Nongovernmental Organizations,Contraceptive Use,and HIV Prevalence in Less‐Developed Nations

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) pandemic has a profound impact on women as a result of social and biological vulnerabilities to the infection. In this article, we explore the influence of democracy, women's international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), and contraceptive use on female HIV rates, using indirect‐effect modeling techniques to properly test the interrelationships among key variables. Structural equation models reveal that democracy and women's INGOs work to reduce female HIV rates indirectly, by promoting the use of contraceptives among women in less‐developed nations. Despite these promising findings, the analyses also reveal that INGOs are negatively associated with sociohealth dimensions of female empowerment, which thus serves to promote HIV rates. The results suggest that interventions undertaken by INGOs may not be as successful as government programs in addressing inequalities in health and social resources for women in poor nations.     

Organizing for Education: A Cross-National,Longitudinal Study of Civil Society Organizations and Education Outcomes

We address two views from organization theory to consider the expansion and effects of nonprofits in education: first, a functional view emphasizing the direct effect of work of civil society organizations (CSOs) and, second, a phenomenological neoinstitutional view focusing on the cultural meaning of education CSOs as indicators of a rationalized, liberal world society. We use panel regression models with country fixed effects to analyze the cross-national expansion of domestic education CSO sectors in 130 countries from 1970 to 2014. We then examine the association between the size of the domestic education CSO sector and memberships in international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) with education outcomes, including spending, education aid, secondary and tertiary enrollments, and the share of women in secondary and tertiary education. Results show that INGO memberships, an expanded state, and an expanded education system are highly associated with the expansion of a domestic education CSO sector. Both domestic CSOs and INGO memberships tend to have a significant, positive relationship with education outcomes net of other factors. We also find preliminary evidence indicating that the causal forces at play are more complex than a straightforward direct effect of education CSOs doing good work. Specifically, CSOs, at least in part, are indicators of a Western, liberal model of a proper modern society; the underpinning culture, represented by CSOs, accounts for some educational expansion above and beyond the benefit (or harm) caused by any given entity.     

Inclusive Governance Practices in Nonprofit Organizations and Implications for Practice

An inclusive board seeks information from multiple sources, demonstrates an awareness of the community and constituents that benefit from and contribute to the organization's services, and establishes policies and structures to foster stakeholder contributions. This research investigated the prevalence of inclusive governance practices and its relationship to board composition, diversity attitudes, and recruitment practices. Fifty‐six executive directors and forty‐three board members representing sixty‐two nonprofit organizations returned a mailed survey (29 percent response rate). The study profiled two organizations that represented different styles of inclusive governance. The survey, part of a larger study, contained questions about inclusive practices, board composition, attitudes toward diversity, and recruitment practices. Most organizations indicated that they operate with inclusive governance practices. The organizational profiles provide a picture of boards that used different strategies to accomplish the goal of inclusivity. Boards that use more inclusive practices were not necessarily heterogeneous in board member composition. Inclusive boards were more inclined to be sensitive to diversity issues and used recommended board recruitment practices. The existence of a task force or committee on diversity was also significantly associated with a more inclusive board. Nonprofit organizations must consider their philosophy on stakeholder involvement, recognizing that different strategies lead to different levels of stakeholder involvement.     

Locations of Decision Makers in Membership Organizations

Few studies have theorized and empirically tested variation in location of decision making in NGOs and relationship of decision location choices to accountability dimensions. Using a sample of Lebanese NGOs legally registered as membership organizations, we examine if their budget size and level of member dues, along with dependence on donors interested in democratic governance, predict who participates in their decision‐making process through involvement in preparing and formally approving the annual budget, financial records, and work plan. Our study reveals the reality of shared leadership in these organizations and suggests the value of considering the location of decision making for NGO leaders and the government regulators and funders who wish to encourage democratic processes within membership organizations.     

Trends in the Formation of Environmental Enforcement International Non-Governmental Organizations, 1950–2010

Recent research highlights the importance of non-governmental organizations in environmental enforcement. These studies largely describe the operations of enforcement organizations locally. The present study offers an alternative perspective by considering environmental enforcement by international non-governmental organizations (INGOs). We employ the treadmill of production thesis to investigate the formation of environmental enforcement INGOs between 1950 and 2010. Prais–Winsten estimation techniques are used to investigate whether the formation of environmental enforcement INGOs is correlated with the global ecological footprint, gross world product, and/or organization density. Results confirm that there is no correlation between the ecological footprint and INGO formation. There is, however, considerable evidence of an inverted-U association between density and founding (p?相似文献   

Organizational Wellbeing in CSOs in Morelos (Mexico): Findings from a Qualitative Study

In recent years, civil society organizations (CSOs) have become a significant aspect of Mexican reality given the number of people involved in them and their contribution to the services sector. These entities are organizations where voluntary and paid workers may experience wellbeing conditions that are inherent in empowerment processes, feelings of usefulness, and the satisfaction associated with participating in decision-making. At the same time, contradictory dynamics related to governance, power relations, leadership, and decision-making may be activated in CSOs and create uncertainty and psychosocial malaise. In this research, based on a grounded theory approach, 11 interviews and 89 questionnaires were realized in 14 service-providing CSOs in the Mexican State of Morelos, highlighting the wellbeing/malaise dimensions and psychosocial factors that are relevant for their members.     

The Participation of Civil Society Organizations in Public Policies in Latin America

Throughout Latin America, the relationship between government and civil society organizations (CSOs) has been characterized by opposition, substitution, and submission; and, the incipient path to cooperation is barely noticeable. For their part, participatory public policies make sense within a theory of democratic governance. Democratic governance seeks two propositions: (a) participation from other social actors will give rise to more efficient government action; and (b) citizen support will emerge from the said government action. This paper criticizes the current relationships between the governments and CSOs in this region. In addition, it explores the potential strategies that could be adopted were there a cooperation between these two entities. The paper is supported by theoretical literature as well as by a revision of some cases of participatory public policies that are currently active in the region. The paper proposes that the strategies of opposition to government and government substitution have to be abandoned in this region. The paper focuses on civil organizations (CSOs). It is true that they do not constitute the entirety of civil society; however, they are frequently the most organized compared with other civic actors, such as social movements, families, and individual initiatives. CSOs form only a part of the diversity known as civil society; however, they significantly contribute to the discussion about the public good, and very often they participate in providing such goods. The future of participatory democracy in Latin America is related to our ability to achieve a more complete participation of CSOs in the entire process of participatory public policies—from the formation of public agendas to their design, implementation, and evaluation.     

Managerialism and Beyond: Discourses of Civil Society Organization and Their Governance Implications

Different disciplinary, theoretical, and empirical lenses have contributed to a kaleidoscopic picture of the governance of civil society organizations (CSOs). Most of the time, CSO governance is contrasted with corporate governance in business organizations; only rarely is the broad variety of CSOs taken into account. To widen this perspective, we develop an empirically grounded typology of five discourses of organization in CSOs: managerialist, domestic, professionalist, grassroots, and civic discourse. We argue that each of these discourses gives specific answers to the three core questions of governance: To whom is the CSO accountable, i.e., who are the key actors who need to be protected by governance mechanisms? For what kind of performance is the CSO accountable? And which structures and processes are appropriate to ensure accountability? The way in which different discourses answer these questions provides us with a deeper understanding of the reasons behind the manifold notions of governance in CSOs.     

Latino Faces,Corporate Ties: Latino Advocacy Organizations and Their Board Membership

Although they have increased exponentially since the 1960s, social scientists know little about ethnic advocacy organizations. These nonprofits are important bridges between underresourced communities and mainstream funding organizations and their directors are established ethnic leaders. Sociologists study interlocking directorates—or shared board membership—to understand how organizations fit together within broader social networks. Network concepts, particularly the theory of institutional isomorphism, suggest that organizations are likely to be similar to the extent they are connected and operate within a common organizational field. We apply this logic to Latino advocacy organizations to examine the underlying source of cohesion across this ethnic field. We ask whether the organizations are tied by interlocking directorates of ethnic elites who sit on their boards of directors or if board members' common affiliation with other elite institutions creates the structural conditions that facilitate potential ideological or behavioral similarity. A social network analysis of five prominent Latino advocacy organizations reveals support for both hypotheses: Latino board members are both embedded in ethnic‐based networks and entrenched within elite organizational webs. This suggests that ethnic elites who sit on the boards of Latino advocacy organizations are also corporate elites, selected for the social capital they bring to these nonprofits.     

Agency Problems between Managers and Employees in Nonprofit Organizations: A Discrete Choice Experiment

Most principal–agent literature of nonprofit organizations has focused on the relationship between board members and managers. However, in addition to the role as an agent of the board, the manager also performs a role as principal with respect to the nonprofit employees. By using a discrete choice experiment, we identify the objectives of managers and employees in nonprofit organizations and assess the presence of agency problems in this relationship. Our sample consists of 76 headmasters, 161 teachers, and 39 administrative employees in 74 secondary nonprofit schools in Belgium. We find that the six objectives set out in the experiment play an important role for both headmasters and subordinate staff. However, the results also indicate that some of these objectives are significantly more important for the headmasters. In sum, our results suggest that agency theory and stewardship theory are not necessarily in conflict with each other but can be combined into a more general governance framework for nonprofit organizations. Consequently, we argue that incentive structures that incorporate different types of objectives can facilitate the recruitment and retention of employees in nonprofit organizations.     

Contracting and Patterns of Nonprofit Governance

Executive staff and board members in nonprofit organizations that operate with government grants and contracts often work together to perform important governance functions. This shared responsibility can be predicted by strong executive leadership of the board, a board with highly regarded members, and affiliation with an influential statewide or regional association. The results of our research suggest that the distribution of governance responsibility in nonprofit organizations with government revenues should command the attention of researchers and activists.     

Civic Agency in Governance: The Role of Legitimacy with Citizens vs. Donors

Civil society strengthening programs aim to foster democratic governance by supporting civil society organization (CSO) engagement in advocacy. However, critics claim that these programs foster apolitical and professional organizations that have weak political effects because they do not mobilize citizen participation. This literature focuses on how donor programs lead to low legitimacy of CSOs with citizens, limiting the means to develop agency toward the state. Here I investigate the influence of CSO legitimacy with donors and citizens on civic agency. Empirical research was conducted in Bosnia–Herzegovina on CSOs considered legitimate by donors, citizens, and both. I found that different forms of legitimacy were associated with different strategies and agency. CSOs with both forms of legitimacy, which have not received much attention until now, turned out to be of particular interest. These CSOs demonstrated agency as intermediaries between donors, government, and citizens, which enabled greater agency and broader outcomes.     

The Relationship between Provision of Membership Benefits and Fulfillment of Representational Roles in Nonprofit Advocacy Membership Organizations

This article explores the ways nonprofit advocacy membership organizations can manage their resource dependence on members and fulfill the organizations' representational roles, focusing on the provision of membership benefits. Membership organizations rely on financial or other resources from members and thus are constrained by them. For a nonprofit that aims to primarily speak for members, constraints by members may help to focus organizational attention on members' interests. Contrarily, for a nonprofit that aims to mainly represent broader constituents, members' constraints may hamper an organization's ability to advocate for broader constituents because members do not necessarily share the same policy goals with broader constituents. The provision of membership benefits can be a useful strategy for organizations to fulfill their representational roles and to satisfy and engage members, because people often join an organization to enjoy certain membership benefits. For an empirical analysis, this study collected a large‐scale data set through web and mail surveys of nonprofit advocacy organizations across the United States. The mixed‐mode surveys achieved a 57.5 percent response rate (729 responses). The survey and regression analysis results show that member‐serving nonprofits providing members with opportunities to participate in advocacy work are more likely to represent members' interests directly. Although broader constituency‐serving nonprofits tend to prioritize members' opinions, these organizations are more likely to adhere to the mandates of broader constituents when providing selective material membership benefits. However, when providing purposive membership benefits, these nonprofits are more likely to represent members' opinions.     

Power in and around nonprofit boards: A neglected dimension of governance

In this article we propose five patterns of board governance based on the distribution of power in and around boards of nonprofit organizations. The typology proposed grew out of our findings in in-depth case studies in which the dispersion of power became the critical variable for making sense of the patterns of governance observed. These governance patterns were then incorporated into a survey of boards in the voluntary sector. We present the results of this latter phase of the research by focusing on the associations between the five patterns and the background characteristics of board members, organizational and environmental variables, and board and organizational effectiveness. The results of the study suggest that power is an important while largely neglected aspect of board governance in the not-for-profit sector.     

The Effectiveness of Environmental Civil Society Organizations: An Integrated Analysis of Organizational Characteristics and Contextual Factors

A push to reverse unsustainable trends has come from environmental civil society, but its track record is somewhat inconsistent. Why are some environmental organizations able to enhance the environmental cause, while others fail to create a substantial impact in the move toward environmental sustainability? This paper considers related but disparate clusters of literature and identifies factors that have an impact on the effectiveness of civil society. It also addresses the ambiguity that is attached to civil society—a concept with considerable historical baggage and contextual differentiation. Given that each conceptualization of civil society has its own body of literature and that these do not necessarily speak to each other, we propose an analytical framework that integrates a variety of dimensions relevant to the analysis of environmental civil society organizations (CSOs): the degree of institutionalization, the mode of interaction with the state, sources of funding, the locus of mobilization, the choice of issue(s), and the degree of politicization. Using these organizational characteristics, our framework further integrates contextual factors, constructing a multidimensional space where there are opportunities and constraints for environmental CSOs. This framework allows us to examine diverse paths shaped by context-dependent strategic choices of environmental CSOs which may either limit or enhance their capacity to make an impact. These strategic choices are tracked by selecting entry points inspired by fieldwork conducted in Turkey—specifically, institutionalization, the choice of issue(s), and politicization.     

Civil Society Organizations and the Enduring Role of Religion in Promoting Democratic Engagement

As Tocqueville observed the emergence of democracy in the USA, he noted the central role religion played in undergirding democratic life. Nearly 200 years later, it is unclear whether religion continues to possess sufficient capacity to promote democratic engagement. This study links organizational theory with research on the structural and cultural characteristics of civil society organizations (CSOs) to assess the current impact of religion on democracy. It analyzes original data from a national study of politically oriented CSOs to determine whether drawing on structural characteristics of religious congregations and cultural elements of religion helps the organizations promote democratic engagement. The analysis finds a positive relationship between organizations that incorporate structural and cultural forms of religion and their organizing capacity, political access, and mobilizing capacity. These findings suggest that religion, mediated by congregations and religious culture, retains sufficient civic vitality to help politically oriented CSOs foster democratic engagement.