The Nonprofit Catallaxy: An Austrian Economics Perspective on the Nonprofit Sector

This paper examines the nonprofit sector from the perspective of the Austrian school of economic thought. In contrast to the traditional market failure approach, the Austrian school locates the role of the nonprofit sector in the facilitation of the spontaneous order and the utilization of local dispersed knowledge about the societal needs through a Hayekian “discovery procedure.” Another contribution of the Austrian school is in calling attention to the “calculation challenge” faced by the nonprofit sector, i.e., the reduced role of monetary signals as the informational basis for decision making. The calculation challenge brings up the important issue of societal feedback mechanisms operating in the nonprofit sector. It is shown that, in the nonprofit sector context, this challenge takes the form of the accountability problem.     

The Views of Nonprofit Executives on Educating Nonprofit Managers

Extraordinary nonprofit-sector expansion has produced organizations with complex missions and operations, and the managers responsible for their effectiveness require adequate preparation. Although no single degree program stands out as the clear preference of nonprofit executives, we propose that certain organizational characteristics are associated with the preference for specific degrees.     

Defining the Nonprofit Sector Cross-Nationally

Defining the Nonprofit Sector: A Cross-National Analysis, by Lester M. Salamon and Helmut K. Anheier. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997. 526 pp., $29.95 paperback. The Nonprofit Sector in France, by Edith Archambault. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997. 324 pp., $27.95 paperback. The Nonprofit Sector in Italy, edited by Gian Paolo Barbetta. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997. 309 pp., $59.95. The Nonprofit Sector in Sweden, by Tommy Lundstrom and Filip Wijkstrom. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997. 345 pp., $69.95.     

Investigating the Marketization of the Nonprofit Sector: A Comparative Case Study of Two Nonprofit Organizations

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - It has been well documented in recent years that nonprofits are becoming increasingly marketized. What is less well...     

Nonprofit competition in the grants marketplace

In this study, we test the impact of nonprofit financial health and financial efficiency ratios on the grant amount awarded by foundations using the Georgia grants marketplace as a case. Using hierarchical linear modeling analysis, we can understand the effects of these ratios both within and across foundation grant portfolios. We found statistically significant evidence that grantees with higher debt ratios and higher fundraising ratios receive lower grant amounts. We did not find statistically significant impacts for administrative ratios, revenue diversification, and surplus margin.     

Changing the Face of Nonprofit Management

High‐Performance Nonprofit Organizations: Managing Upstream for Greater Impact, by Christine W. Letts, Allen Grossman, and William P. Ryan. Wiley, 1998. 207 pp. $29.95 cloth. Mission‐Based Management: Leading Your Not‐for‐Profit into the Twenty‐First Century, by Peter C. Brinckerhoff. New York: Wiley, 1998. 258 pp. $51.95 cloth. Financial Empowerment: More Money for More Mission, by Peter C. Brinckerhoff. New York: Wiley, 1998. 238 pp. $51.95 cloth. Mission‐Based Marketing: How Your Not‐for‐Profit Can Succeed in a More Competitive World, by Peter C. Brinckerhoff. New York: Wiley, 1998. 214 pp. $51.95 cloth.     

Executive Compensation in the Nonprofit Sector

An examination of executive compensation in the nonprofit sector indicates that, as in the for-profit sector, the salaries of nonprofit executive directors depend heavily upon the organization's size. Among nonprofits, both ideology and the composition of revenues substantially affect executive compensation levels. The results of this study indicate broad differences across segments of the nonprofit sector and a strong role for ideology in the setting of compensation.     

Nonprofit and Social Marketing

Marketing Social Change: Changing Behavior to Promote Health, Social Development, and the Environment, by Alan R. Andreasen. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995. 367 pp., $30.95 cloth. Marketing Strategies for Nonprofit Organizations, by Siri Espy. Chicago, Ill.: Lyceum Books, 1993. 165 pp., $19.95 paper. Marketing Nonprofit Programs and Services: Proven and Practical Strategies to Get More Customers, Members, and Donors, by Douglas B. Herron. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997. 282 pp., $32.95 cloth.     

Explaining Variations in the Nonprofit Founding Process

Although the organizational founding process is subject to various isomorphic pressures, significant variation is still found in the completion, ordering, and timing of founding events. Prior research on entrepreneurship suggests the importance of education and previous experience in determining who is best positioned to recognize entrepreneurial opportunities, which may explain some of the variation in the founding process. In this article the authors present an analysis of an original survey of recently founded religious nonprofits to better understand how founder, organizational, and contextual characteristics influence the founding process in this specific nonprofit context. Overall, the authors’ findings show that founder education and experience particularly affect the founding process as well as organizational characteristics; however, these effects vary across different dimensions of this process.     

Ethnography: Tales of the Nonprofit Field

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Ethnography is a rich research tradition originating from sociocultural anthropology that aims to vividly represent...     

Accountability in Nonprofit Organizations

Accountability, Performance Reporting, Comprehensive Audit: An Integrated Perspective, by Guy LeClerc, W. David Moynagh, Jean-Pierre Boisclair, and Hugh R. Hanson. Ottawa: CCAF-FCVI (Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation- Fondation Canadienne pour la Verification Integral), 1996. 373 pp., $85.00 (Canadian, plus shipping) cloth. Managing for Accountability: Preserving the Public Trust in Public and Nonprofit Organizations, by Kevin P. Kearns. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996. 255 pp., $27.95 cloth.     

The Nonprofit Capacities Instrument

Nonprofits are guided by internal efforts and external mandates to build capacity. However, scholars and grant makers are hampered by varied definitions of the concept, competing but untested models, and the lack of a reliable and valid measure. This research defines nonprofit capacity as the processes, practices, and people that the organization has at its disposal that enable it to produce, perform, or deploy resources to achieve its mission. An inductive‐confirmatory two‐study approach introduces and validates the Nonprofit Capacities Instrument, a 45‐item measure of eight nonprofit capacities derived from existing instruments. The capacities are (1) financial management, (2) adaptive capacity, (3) strategic planning, (4) external communication, (5) board leadership, (6) operational capacity, (7) mission orientation, and (8) staff management. Intriguingly, this research demonstrates that nonprofit capacity is not a singular or second‐order concept, but better described in its plural form, nonprofit capacities.     

Exploring Nonprofit Executive Turnover

Projections of executive turnover loom over the three sectors with aging baby boomers filling many executive‐level positions, and research into causes, outcomes, and processes of turnover are timely inquiries. Yet, scholarly attention into nonprofit executive turnover has been limited to date and has not sufficiently examined actual turnover events. To help address this gap, forty nonprofit organizations that had recently experienced executive turnover were selected from a national random sample, and the current executives participated in an interview. This qualitative data was analyzed to identify factors and dynamics that define nonprofit executive turnover. These findings both confirm practical knowledge and offer new insights relevant to future research and practitioners alike.     

Toward the Importance of Nonprofit Brand Equity

Various brand evaluation approaches assess the value and equity of for‐profit brands; accordant approaches for nonprofit brands, however, have been limited, and there is disagreement on what makes up a strong brand in the nonprofit sector. In response, this article provides insights into the conceptualization and operationalization of stakeholder‐based nonprofit brand equity and derives an initial measurement index. We conceptualize nonprofit brand equity as having three dimensions—nonprofit brand awareness, nonprofit brand trust, and nonprofit brand commitment—thereby empirically investigating trust in nonprofit brand equity building for the first time. The methodological procedure for building the index is based on partial least squares path modeling, and we draw on a sample of forty brands (N = 3,617 brand evaluations) identified as some of the best‐known nonprofit brands in Germany. Applying the index yields some of the strongest German nonprofit brands; for example, German Red Cross has by far the highest value of brand equity, followed by Aktion Mensch and UNICEF. The nonprofit brand equity index provides the basis for nonprofit managers to compare their brands’ performance over time and develop accordant branding strategies; it can be also used by organizations from other countries.     

Precarity in the Nonprofit Employment Services Sector

Drawing on interview and focus group data, this article explores research undertaken as part of a larger research project exploring precarity in the nonprofit employment services sector in a mid‐sized Canadian city. We critically survey major legislative changes to Canadian employment and income security policies and programs, including the restructuring of work and labor relations, growth of performance‐based contracting‐out, erosion of intergovernmental transfers, worker stress, and emotional tolls. Our study's results demonstrate how employment precarity in the nonprofit employment services sector is amplified by top‐down and centralized relationships with funding partners and policymaking divorced from the employment experiences of frontline staff. We make the case that it is important to work against rising workplace precarity to strengthen organizational and workplace conditions, as well as build environments more supportive of optimal employment support services. En se fondant sur des entretiens et des données découlant de groupes témoins, cet article présente des explorations entreprises dans une recherche plus large étudiant la précarité dans le secteur des emplois de service dans une ville canadienne de taille moyenne. Nous faisons une revue critique de changements importants intervenus dans la législation portant sur l'emploi au Canada et les politiques et programmes de la sécurité du revenu, incluant la restructuration du travail et des relations de travail, l'augmentation de la privatisation se fondant sur la performance, la diminution des transferts intergouvernementaux, le stress au travail et les conséquences émotionnelles. Les résultats de notre recherche démontrent comment la précarité de l'emploi dans les secteurs des services à but non lucratif est amplifiée par des relations allant du haut vers le bas et centralisée avec des partenaires et des politiques séparés de l'expérience des travailleurs sur le terrain. Nous démontrons qu'il est important de travailler contre la précarisation en renforçant les conditions organisationnelles et de travail, tout en construisant des environnements favorisant une offre de services de l'emploi optimaux.     

Program Evaluation Practice in the Nonprofit Sector

Nonprofit organizations are increasingly being asked to demonstrate the effectiveness of their programs and services. Faced with this challenge, agencies that decide to engage in program evaluation must choose among various approaches and methods. This article provides a window into why and how nonprofit organizations are conducting program evaluations, and it reveals the factors nonprofit agencies identify as contributing to a useful and credible evaluation. In addition, the article addresses the role of stakeholder participation in program evaluation.     

The Organization of Nonprofit Activities

This paper investigates the repertoire of organizational forms in Western societies in order to assess the nonprofit sector's distinctiveness. A repertoire of six different ideal type constructs is presented adding to and reformulating existing theories, which have primarily focused on the market and the firm. This new extended theoretical platform builds both on theories discussing market, organization, and governmental failures and on approaches where homo economicus is replaced by homo complexicus and transactions by interactions. This effort aims at making the nonprofit (or voluntary) sector in society both more visible and theoretically substantiated. At the end of this paper, the theoretical framework is applied by analyzing empirical nonprofit organizations.     

Decomposing the Effect of Commercialization on Nonprofit Donations

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Whether commercialization crowds out nonprofit donations has been a concern for nonprofit professionals and scholars. If...     

Outcomes Assessment and the Paradox of Nonprofit Accountability

Leaders of nonprofit organizations face a particular bind in responding to the demands for results‐based accountability. If they focus only on the project‐level outcomes over which they have the most control or for which indicators are readily available, they risk default on the larger question of accountability to publicly valued goals. On the other hand, if they try to demonstrate the impact of their particular projects on communitywide outcomes, they risk taking credit inappropriately or shouldering the blame for indicators beyond their control. Here, I present findings from a research project, conducted in collaboration with economic development organizations on the north coast of California, that explored the practical demands and dynamics associated with this paradox. The key challenges are more civic and political than technical.