Corporate Volunteering: Benefits and Challenges for Nonprofits

In the frame of corporate social responsibility, corporate volunteering is almost exclusively studied from the point of view of companies, while the perspectives of nonprofit organizations are neglected. Hence, this article focuses on the perspective of managers of nonprofit organizations on volunteer partnership projects with for‐profit companies. In the center of this article lie nonprofit managers' strategy and motivation for participating in corporate volunteering, conception of corporate volunteer activities, and the often‐cited win‐win‐win aspect. Key findings suggest that a majority of the questioned nonprofits lack strategic behavior and management tools for undertaking volunteer partnership projects with companies. Nevertheless, corporate volunteering is widely perceived as an opportunity and a promising method of raising donations for nonprofit organizations. This article suggests that the key to successful future cooperation between nonprofits and profit‐oriented organizations lies in the processes of internal evaluation and subsequent strategy development.     

Innovativeness of social economy entities in Poland. An empirical study from the perspective of Positive Organizational Scholarship

The Polish system of tackling social exclusion is based on social economy entities, such as social integration centers and social cooperatives. The aim of the article is to define the essence and conditions of their innovativeness while answering the question to what extent the organizations can make use of management theories created for business entities. The empirical basis for the article are 3 focus group interviews with representatives of social integration centers and social cooperatives operating in Poland. The results suggest that low innovativeness of the entities is, among others, the effect of an authoritarian management style and a lack of care about positive relationships among employees.     

A framework for understanding how nonprofits shape our physical environment: Identifying allies in making spaces

Research exists on the role of nonprofits directly shaping open spaces and preserving elements of the built environment, but the larger landscape of nonprofits that directly and indirectly shape the larger physical environment is less well understood. Although legislation exists to help protect and preserve natural spaces, nonprofits play a crucial role in carrying out work to protect and shape the natural and built components of the physical environment. Furthermore, nonprofit work that shapes public spaces is, by default, an attempt to reshape social environments and values through interventions in the physical environment. This is particularly important as the relationship between the physical environment and societal outcomes related to public health, human behavior, and sustainability is clear. Using past research by the authors, a review of related literature, and a localized case study, we refine a theoretical framework to better describe and understand the breadth of nonprofits that are shaping the physical environment. In doing so, we create a tool to help nonprofit managers identify and better engage allied stakeholders.     

Structures,Challenges, and Successes of Volunteer Programs Co‐managed by Nonprofit and Public Organizations

This article presents a mixed‐methods, multicase study and comparison of volunteer programs in US national parks that have evolved, in response to growth and fiscal pressures, to be co‐managed by national park staff and their nonprofit support partners. Findings detail why and how the expanded partnerships were formed; how they operate; challenges they face; ways in which they adhere to, stretch, and depart from theories of nonprofit management, collaboration, and program institutionalization; and the significant—even exponential—volunteer program growth that resulted in each case. These nonprofit?public volunteer program partnerships—at Acadia, Arches and ­Canyonlands, Cuyahoga Valley, Golden Gate, the National Mall, and Yosemite national park sites—employ many standard forms of interorganizational relations, even though in these cases the nonprofits give money to the government organization instead of the reverse. Their volunteer program and management structures also share similar elements because of coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures. At the same time, each volunteer program partnership is a distinct blend of collaboration and management practices because of the unique natural features, climate, needs, adjacent populations, and personalities of leaders at each site. The cases employ innovative strategies to substantially increase the number of staff who lead volunteer programs. Recommendations are offered for nonprofit management research and practice, and findings are instructive for organizations that utilize volunteers either as a single entity or as part of a collaboration.     

A narrative inquiry into familial and school curriculum making: attending to multiple worlds of Aboriginal youth and families

In this paper we draw upon a narrative inquiry alongside urban Aboriginal youth and their families in western Canada; the overall goal of our inquiry was to understand their educational and schooling experiences. Shifting our focus from schools as the only place where curriculum is made, we draw on the conceptualization of children, youth, and families as also engaged as curriculum makers in homes and in communities and in the in-between places of homes and schools. In this paper we explore the multiple curriculum-making worlds of Lane and Donovan, two Aboriginal youth. As part of understanding the multiple worlds and relationships between, and intersections of, multiple worlds, we draw on Lugones' concept of world traveling. We contemplate the importance of understanding lives over time, in geographic places, and social contexts. We wonder how the worlds youth inhabit are shaped by institutional, social, political, and institutional stories, and how these larger narratives shape the ways in which we attend to the lives of youth.     

Moving Out of the Dark Ages: An Argument for the Use of Digital Video in social Work Research

ABSTRACT

The fields of anthropology and sociology are the origins of qualitative research. Early qualitative researchers documented findings through the use of copious notes. The invention of portable audio recorders lead to qualitative researchers taping their findings. The use of recording devices as the primary source of data documentation has been embraced by social work researchers. Though, in the last twenty years several advances in visual recording devices have been made which offer a significant potential for advancement in the data collection and analysis. Social Work continues to rely on the technology of the 1960s. The use of digital video presents many advantages over audio. Video gives depth, can be easily analyzed using a PC, and offers diversity in presentation of findings. This article discusses the history of qualitative research; the use of technology in data collection; the emergence of visual methods; the emergence of social work in the field; and a call for social work researchers to use video technology in their research.     

Sampling Richness and Qualitative Integrity: Challenges for Research With Families

Sampling is one of the most difficult and contentious aspects of qualitative research design. There are few guidelines for sampling decisions or for understanding saturation in qualitative family research. The authors frame the problematic of data quality in the selection of units of analysis and observation and consider how to enhance sample richness. They outline considerations for data quantity and sample size as well as case‐ and variable‐based approaches. With multiple examples from recent and classic studies to illustrate the consequences of sampling decisions, they explore links between saturation and validity. Finally, they encourage researchers to craft a coherent statement on qualitative integrity to demonstrate how their sampling decisions are rooted in epistemology, theory, and richness and quality of data.     

Stability and Change in Nonprofit Organizations: The Volunteer Contribution

This paper reports on a study of the microprocesses of stability and change in a nonprofit welfare organization in Australia. We position volunteering and voluntarism as core constitutive phenomena in and of nonprofit organizations and the nonprofit sector more generally, and examine volunteer agency in action. Developing a model drawn from neoinstitutional theory and adopting an ethnographic approach, the paper illustrates theoretically and empirically how volunteers create and revise institutional orders operative within organizations in ways hitherto poorly articulated and understood.     

Running on Empty: The Operating Reserves of U.S. Nonprofit Organizations

Operating reserves allow nonprofit organizations to smooth out imbalances between revenues and expenses, helping to maintain program output in the presence of fiscal shocks. We know surprisingly little about why nonprofits might save operating reserves and what factors explain variation between organizations' savings behavior. Findings suggest that operating reserves are reduced in the presence of concentrated public funds, access to debt, fixed assets, and endowment. However, size is not an important predictor, indicating that the lack of reserves is not limited to small nonprofit organizations but is instead a sectorwide issue. Significant numbers of nonprofits maintain no operating reserves at all. One potential explanation is that organizations discount the benefits of reserves because they are evaluated on spending, focusing instead on the “benefits of costs.” This preference for spending over reserving may also help explain the general lack of liquidity in the sector beyond operating reserves alone.     

An unseen lens: The relationship between philanthropists’ developmental meaning making and philanthropic activity

To solve complex problems such as poverty, nonprofit leaders must think in increasingly complex ways. Research on philanthropy has not yet explored the complexity of philanthropists’ thinking while making philanthropy‐related decisions. Developmental psychology indicates that adults develop an increasingly complex mental map over the course of a lifetime and that this map emerges as a series of successive stages. This study asked: How, if at all, does this mental map inform philanthropy? This four‐phase mixed‐methods multi‐case study (n = 11) used constructive developmental theory to empirically assess philanthropists’ developmental levels and, then, compare identified levels with data about the donor's philanthropic activities such as donations and board memberships. The contributions of the study are twofold: (a) the findings suggest philanthropists’ developmental levels are related to their thinking processes about charitable giving and the rationales they employ to make decisions about their philanthropic activities (specifically, how they form ideas about the problem and how they engage in empathy), and (b) this study makes a methodological contribution by demonstrating a novel (and apparently useful) approach to researching philanthropic giving. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Stories of strangers: Writing donor acquisition letters in the human services

This study explores the choices fundraisers make in crafting letters to acquire new donors for a human services organization, and whether the type of client served affects those choices. We use an experiment to control for organizational differences, and code the resulting letters written for elements identified in theory and practice, then perform an exploratory factor analysis to find patterns of co‐occurring variables. Writers tended to focus either on the quality of the organization or the unmet need in the community, but not both. Two of the factors, Universalism and Security, describe distinct personal value constructs that may reflect the preferences of the writer or the presumed preferences of the reader. Compared to participants writing for an older adult client base, participants writing for clients with mental illness were less likely to use a negative frame, more likely to use statistical evidence, and used lower expectations in describing successful client outcomes. Within letters, clients were described using three patterns: by describing a stranger who is worth helping because of intrinsic attributes; by describing a stranger who is worth helping because of their relationships within the social order; by describing the client group using facts and statistics, rather than an emotionally compelling story narrative.     

Identity and integration: The roles of relationship and retention in nonprofit mergers

Prior research suggests that nonprofits are flexible and possess multiple identities, although we know less about how transformative changes, such as mergers, shape nonprofit identity. This qualitative study draws upon in‐depth interviews from 13 nonprofit merger cases to explore factors that influence postmerger identity and integration. In particular, we focus on the roles of organizational similarity and relationships, program and personnel retention, and rebranding. Ultimately, we derive a typology of postmerger integration in nonprofits and suggest that postmerger identity may be classified in terms of absorption, preservation, or creation. Implications for nonprofit leaders are discussed.     

Living Apart Together and Money: New Partnerships,Traditional Gender Roles

Drawing on qualitative interview data from a sample of 54 men and women engaged in living apart together (LAT) partnerships in Belgium (Flanders), this study explored the organization and exchange of money in LAT arrangements. The data showed that the heterogeneity of LAT partnerships is reflected in couples' monetary behavior, with couples who foresee cohabitation (transitional LATs) showing more marriage‐like exchanges of financial support than those who perceive living apart together as a more permanent arrangement (permanent LATs). The economic position of the partners and the importance attached to economic independence and breadwinning mediate the impact of future expectations on the financial practices of LAT couples. The data also showed that traditional notions of gender and coupledom continue to be strongly influential, even in nontraditional types of partnerships.     

Strategizing for social change in nonprofit contexts: A typology of communication approaches in public communication campaigns

Public communication campaigns aim to create social change by influencing audiences’ behaviors and thus help nonprofit organizations fulfill their mission. These campaigns, however, often fail to deliver their anticipated impact. Using public relations research as a theoretical lens, this paper's contribution is twofold: first, we develop a typology that classifies the different communication approaches used in public communication campaigns. Based on one of the most prominent public relations theories, the Four Models of Public Relations, we differentiate communication approaches along the dimensions of communication purpose and communication style. Combining these two dimensions in a typology, we identify the following communication approaches: directing, platforming, mobilizing, and involving. We provide numerous real‐life examples of public campaigns for each one. Second, we formulate propositions about these communication approaches’ effectiveness relying on a key concept of public relations research: namely, audience segmentation. Using the transtheoretical model, we show that audiences can be segmented along five “stages of readiness to adopt a promoted behavior.” Conceptualizing behavior change as an iterative, dynamic process that entails stage progresses as well as backdrops, we derive how audiences’ “stage of readiness” relates to the effectiveness of the identified communication approaches.     

Construction of organizational identity claim and understanding in nonprofits: Evidence from Pakistan's voluntary organizations

There is a substantial research literature on nonprofits identity claim and identity understanding but much less on how these identities are constructed in the first place. This article explores how identity claim and identity understanding are constructed in the nonprofits and reasons for such constructions. Exploratory multiple case study analysis was conducted with two voluntary organizations. The results showed that three factors play a significant role in construction of identity claim; founders, funding, and power of stakeholders. The construction of identity understanding is influenced by the claim and is often in sync until the funding source changes leading to a dissimilar identity understanding. The members, however, showed reluctance to embrace the new identity due to the power of stakeholders and fear of mission drift. The unsynchronized claim and understanding caused confusions among the members as they juggled between adopting the new identity understanding and keeping a dissimilar claim. This confusion hinders the nonprofits growth and they struggle to answer what they want to be in future.     

Protective supervision: An inquiry into the relationship between child welfare and the court system

Protective Supervision, in most states, is defined in statute as an option in which the child is allowed to remain in the home of high-risk parents under the authority of the court, with supervision provided by the child protection system. Protective Supervision provides states an option to fulfill the federal mandate, as expressed in its guidance on the Child and Family Services Review, to assure that children are safely maintained in their homes whenever possible and appropriate. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of published work on this option. Further, the relationship between child protection and the judicial system, implicit in Protective Supervision, is rarely examined. In response to this dearth of information, an exploratory study was undertaken in Minnesota, funded by the Minnesota Department of Human Services. Data were derived from focus groups in every region of the state, with both child protection and judicial system participants. This study offers insights into the complicated nature of the partnership between two complex systems — child welfare and the court system. Currently, there is wide variation in how Protective Supervision is understood and practiced. However, where there is mutual respect between child welfare and the courts, Protective Supervision offers a useful tool.     

Racialising emotional labour and emotionalising racialised labour: Anger,fear and shame in social welfare

This paper brings together the empirical work of Yasmin Gunaratnam with hospice social workers and that of Gail Lewis with local authority social workers. It uses a conceptually expanded notion of 'emotional labour' to explore and theorise links between different forms of emotion management and racialised subject positions and practices in social care for both those categorised as 'ethnic minorities' and as 'white'. The analytic framework draws upon the political scholarship of Audre Lorde and Thandeka and the psychoanalytic work of Melanie Klein to explore talk about the production of anger, fear and shame. A common focus in the writing of these different authors is the self/other relation and the attention given to personal, interpersonal, inter-group and intra-group dynamics. The paper argues that the irrational and unconscious aspects of racial dynamics cannot simply be countered by appeals to the rational. There is a need to recognise and integrate rather than 'split' positive and negative emotions about the self and 'others'. Such integration is seen as a source of internal strength and psychic health making for the possibility of caring and constructive relationships in social care organisations through which the complexities of difference can be recognised and valued.     

The role of technology in reconfiguring volunteer management in nonprofits in Hong Kong: Benefits and discontents

There is plenty of evidence demonstrating that volunteering generates benefits for individuals and society at large. However, the role of technology used in recruiting, managing, and retaining volunteers in nonprofits is underexplored in East Asia. Drawing from in‐depth interviews with representatives of eight nonprofits, we examine how technology reconfigured volunteer management in nonprofits, identify its limitations and shortcomings, and discuss strategies in which technology can be utilized to enhance the effectiveness of volunteer management. We found, through this study, that the use of technology reconfigured key aspects of volunteer management: improving recruitment by enlarging and diversifying the volunteer pool; enhancing precision and speed of volunteer matching; improving nonprofits’ ability to recruit professionals; and reducing overall administrative burden of volunteer management within these nonprofits. However, challenges in volunteer management resulting from technology uptake were also observed, including resistance among frontline staff to adopt technology, and volunteer accountability and quality assurance. Specifically, it was found through this study that the extent to which nonprofits are able to effectively utilize technology in volunteer management is contingent on how well volunteer managers are able to actualize the notion of capacity optimization, create a friendly volunteer environment, and build rapport with volunteers. Implications for enhancing organizational capacity in volunteer management vis‐à‐vis the role of technology in the third sector are further discussed.     

Managing amidst mosaic: Integrating values and rationalization in the nonprofit arts

This ethnographic study of visionary art environment Philadelphia's Magic Gardens (PMG) draws on theories of rationalization in nonprofits to explore factors that influence the impact of this process on organizations. Responding to theories that rationalization attenuates expressive drivers of nonprofit activity, an analysis of PMG is used to explore and contextualize a literature‐derived theoretical framework that suggests variables that may influence the outcome of rationalization processes in organizations. The PMG case supports and adds nuance to a notion that the strength of expressive and rationalizing impulses and the convergence or divergence of intra‐organizational values influence whether growing nonprofits are able to integrate instrumental structures and expressive motivations.