Strategic Responses to Resource Dependence Among Transnational NGOs Registered in the United States

Many of the world’s largest and most impactful transnational NGOs are registered in the United States where they engage in significant fundraising activities to support their global operations. Their reliance on the external environment for financial support exposes them to resource dependence and the possibility of external control. However, as civil society organizations organized as firms, transnational NGOs attempt to maintain operational independence from the donors upon which they rely for funding. This article contributes to resource dependence theory by identifying the strategies that transnational NGOs employ in response to resource dependence, explaining the emergence of strategic response, and exploring the conditions under which NGOs are capacitated to preserve organizational autonomy. The responses transnational NGOs employ include alignment, subcontracting, perseverance, diversification, commercialization, funding liberation, geostrategic arbitrage, specialization, selectivity, donor education, and compromise. Elements of this strategic repertoire empower NGOs to resist external control, even circumventing and influencing donor preferences. Findings are based on in-depth, face-to-face interviews with top organizational leaders from a diverse sample of transnational NGOs registered in the United States.