Suchergebnisse

This study examines the relationship between community ethnic-racial diversity and contributions to donor-advised funds (DAFs) held by community foundations. Unlike general contributions, DAFs allow donors to retain advisory control over their fund distribution based on individual preferences. In contrast to prior research that generally finds that diversity dampens private provision of public goods, we show that greater ethnic-racial diversity is significantly associated with higher levels of contributions to DAFs at community foundations but not with general contributions. The findings contribute to the literature on diversity and public goods provision and have practical implications for the policy role of private philanthropy.

ObjectiveThis article explores the complex relationships between the energy boom, community economic and demographic conditions, and local philanthropy. This study aims to find direct effects of the energy boom and indirect effects of multiple mediators—community economic conditions, population change, racial diversity, and income inequality—on local philanthropy.MethodsDrawing upon data from U.S. counties, a series of mediation analyses are tested by following Baron and Kenney's (1986, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51(6):1173) causal‐steps procedures.ResultsThe energy boom always has negative direct effects on local philanthropy. Although indirect effects of mediators are not always significant, total effects, as the sum of direct and indirect effects, reveal that income, population growth, and racial diversity positively mediate negative effects of the energy boom on local philanthropy. The energy boom increases levels of income inequality; however, increased income inequality paradoxically is positively associated with local philanthropy.ConclusionThe relationship among the energy boom, community economic and demographic conditions, and local philanthropy is complex. Although direct effects of the energy boom are negative, key findings of positive indirect effects suggest implications for policymakers, nonprofit practitioners, and community leaders when dealing with grand societal challenges caused by natural resource development at the community level.

AbstractThis article explores how local economic structure directly and indirectly affects community philanthropy. Drawing on campaign data for local United Way (UW) affiliates at three points in time (1990, 2000, and 2010), the article tests the degree to which the relationship between economic structure and community philanthropy is mediated through local stocks of human resources and social capital. The results suggest that retail employment and industrial concentration negatively affect local UW campaigns, while nonlocal ownership positively affects UW campaign size. These measures of economic structure also indirectly influence local UW fund‐raising activities by affecting the levels of human resources and social capital. In the midst of global efforts to increase community‐based philanthropy, these findings have important policy implications for efforts to promote community solutions to social issues in changing economies.

Despite growing evidence about prosocial motivations and their effects on employee behavior, how can new public service motivation research translate into more effective management practices—which, so far, regrettably remain underdeveloped? Increasingly, public service motivation studies have moved from understanding what motivates public servants to exploring how public service motives influence performance. Similarly, greater attention is now paid to the practices of transformational leadership. Drawing on concepts from transformational leadership, this essay explores how managers can harness the positive aspects of public service motivation to enhance employee and organizational performance and outlines strategies that can help managers incorporate public service motivation values across management systems.

Americans have long formed nonprofits to voluntarily coproduce public services. However, demand perspectives on the development of the nonprofit sector and supply perspectives on the activation of civic engagement suggest potentially contradictory explanations of collective coproduction. Using the case of nonprofit support for public k-12 education, the authors explore the community- and school-level determinants of nonprofit coproduction of public education. Their findings suggest that nonprofit coproduction is influenced by unmet demand for public services and the supply of human and financial resources necessary to engage in collective action. Although the formation of a nonprofit to support a public school may be related to the demand generated by heterogeneous preferences of service beneficiaries and the human capital to self-organize, the ability to generate a significant level of financial resources to support coproduction is related to the resources of the service beneficiaries and their integration into the larger community.

In response to ongoing changes in local economic and philanthropic structures, the United Way of America has encouraged local affiliates to adopt a new philanthropic model—Community Impact. Despite efforts to rebrand the system, significant variation exists in local implementation of the new initiative. Drawing on case studies in 6 communities, we explore how local contexts shape local practices. Consistent with a growing body of research that describes the impact of local institutions on organizational practice, we find that local United Way practices are shaped by local institutions and the field level pressures to adopt Community Impact often conflict with local performance logics. These local logics are influenced by historical stocks of philanthropic and civic capital that both constrain and offer alternatives for local strategies.