Suchergebnisse

AbstractIn 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.

Foundations' capacity‐building grant programs strive to bolster performance and outcomes for their nonprofit grantees. Yet with few outcome evaluations of such programs, we have limited understanding of whether these capacity‐building efforts achieve their intended result. This study evaluates fifteen years of data for one foundation's capacity‐building grant program to understand whether targeted capacity building for financial management and development contributes to nonprofit financial growth. The authors examine the management–performance link in this context and inform sector leaders who dedicate resources to capacity‐building programs about the outcomes of these efforts.

The Tax Reform Act of 1969 remains the core governing policy for the U.S. foundation sector, primarily for its qualifying distributions mandate, which ensures a baseline spending of foundation assets toward charitable purposes. However, implementation of this policy required additional foundation administrative resources and contributed to significant professionalization of the foundation sector. This article focuses on the payout requirement's potential paradox of accountability, as administrative expenses can be counted toward fulfilling foundations' qualifying distributions. Using a 14‐year panel of grantmaking foundations, the analysis seeks to understand whether professionalization, measured by operating and administrative expenses, contributes to or crowds out grantmaking. Findings indicate that professionalization of the foundation sector has a small yet practically and statistically significant positive association with foundation grantmaking. From a policy perspective, the current structure of the qualifying distributions mandate does not appear to lead to a crowding out of grant allocations as administrative expenses grow.

AbstractThis study investigates the impacts of negative and positive signals on public-serving organizations' reputations. We draw on sociocognitive perspectives to test how organizations' breaches of stakeholders' trust are repairable over time as well as the moderating effect of organizational mission valence on this forgiveness process. Multilevel data from two slope-shift experiments (n = 304; n = 582) show that mission valence, or individuals' affinity with an organization's mission, intensifies the effects of both negative and positive signals in organizations' reputation building processes. Negative signals have stronger negative effects on intentions to support the organization for individuals with high mission valence. However, the effect of successive positive signals is also stronger for individuals with high mission valence, suggesting greater forgiveness following a stronger breach of trust among these stakeholders.

AbstractIn this research note, we examine the relationship between organizational capacity and entrepreneurial behavior in a global sample of 165 nonprofit organizations operating in a single, rapidly growing field of nonprofit activity. Our findings show a strong relationship between organizations' entrepreneurial behavior and levels of organizational capacity. We discuss our results relative to the importance of both organizational capacity and entrepreneurial behavior in a rapidly growing nonprofit subsector. The results contribute to the continued development and refinement of theoretical and empirical work on the causal links between organizational capacity and entrepreneurial behavior more generally.

AbstractThis study uses an online survey experiment to test whether the pairing of profit‐seeking with mission‐related programs in the social sector attracts or deters donations from individual donors. We test individuals' response to three types of profit incentives allowed under current U.S. public policy: (1) non‐distributed profit to an organization, which is allowed for nonprofit entities; (2) profit to the organization's equity investors and owners, which is allowed under for‐profit social enterprise governance charters; and (3) profit to lending investors, which is introduced by social impact bonds, a pay‐for‐success policy tool. We test trust theory, under which profit incentives deter donors against entrepreneurial orientation (EO) theory, which suggests that donors are attracted to organizations that use innovative, market‐driven programs. Findings indicate support for both theories, but the support depends on how the specific profit incentive is structured. Donors support organizations that use profit‐generating social enterprise programs—but only when the profits are non‐distributable; donors' support is significantly lower for social enterprises in which owners and equity investors may profit. Importantly however, this negative effect is not found for pay‐for‐success policy tools where lending investors, rather than equity investors and owners, receive profits.

This analysis tests fundamental nonprofit theory using individual-level demand-side data, which complements existing studies that have relied on organizational- and community-level variables alone. We use survey and administrative data to test the relationship between individuals' perceptions and use of local government services and their reported use of nonprofit services, controlling for the density of organizations around respondents' addresses. Individuals who report being better served by government services are significantly more likely to report using nonprofit services—while individuals who report being unserved by government are also less likely to report access to nonprofits, despite the actual density of organizations around them. These findings support theories of interdependence between government and nonprofit sectors. However, income-based disparities in perceived access to nonprofit services highlight persistent gaps in serving all individuals on the local level.

Although pay differences between men and women with comparable characteristics are generally smaller in the nonprofit than in the for-profit sector, gender pay gaps in the nonprofit sector vary widely across industries. In some industries, gender pay gaps are as large as in the for-profit sector, but in others, women make more than comparably qualified men. Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling on the combined 2001-2006 American Community Surveys, we test nonprofit labor motivation theories against a gendered-job hypothesis to explain this variation. We find that gender pay gaps in the nonprofit sector are smaller in industries where nonprofits outnumber for-profits and where higher proportions of female-dominated occupations exist.