PADP 7210 Chapter Notes - Chapter 17: Social Capital, Participatory Democracy
19 Nov 2020
School
Department
Course
Professor
PADP 7210 Intro to NonProfit
Reading 17: Preserving the Publicness of the Nonprofit Sector: Resources, Roles, & Public
Values
Citation:
Moulton, Stephanie, and Adam Eckerd. “Preserving the Publicness of the Nonprofit Sector.”
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 41, no. 4 (2011): 656–85.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0899764011419517.
Nonprofit Sector: Resources, Roles, & Public Values
I. Introduction/Background
• Because of competing expectations & contingencies of different resource
providers, nonprofits advised to diversify revenue streams & become fiscally
self-sufficient to reduce dependencies & preserve autonomy
• Gap in literature → little known empirically about relationships between
particular resource streams & roles espoused by nonprofit organizations that
define their public value
• Research Question → “To what extent, if at all, are particular resources
critical to the preservation of certain nonprofit roles?” (657)
o Hypothesis: “nonprofit organizations espouse the roles and values that
they are fiscally and institutionally supported to espouse.” (657)
▪ Resource dependence may be critical for value preservation, by
aligning core organizational roles with stakeholders who
embody values underlying organizations
▪ Recommendations to create self-sustaining organizations may
actually undermine important nonprofit roles & subsequent
public values
II. Nonprofit Roles
• Historically, nonprofits as instruments of charity (alleviating poverty, &
addressing social ills) & as instruments of philanthropy & innovation
(providing outlet for donor expression & creative approaches to social
problems)
o Current formal classification systems (NTEE codes & Internal
Classification) unable to capture roles that cut across sectors
o Gordon & Babchuk (1959) expressive & instrumental roles of
nonprofits create need to consider dimensionality of organizational
purpose
▪ Expressive → focus on internal stakeholders
▪ Instrumental → effect external environment
o Frumkin (220) demand-supply dimension + expressive-instrumental
dimension
▪ Demand-oriented activities → evolve to fill unmet societal
needs
▪ Supply-side activities → driven by individuals/entrepreneurs;
matching solutions to opportunities
• Roles of Nonprofits
PADP 7210 Intro to NonProfit
Nonprofit Role
Description
Instrumental-
Expressive
Dimension
Demand-
Supply
Dimension
Service Provision
Providing needed services
not provided (adequately) by
other sectors
Instrumental
Demand
Innovation
Developing new approaches
to existing problems
Instrumental
Supply
Individual
Expression/Specialization
Allowing participants to
express values,
commitments, & faith
Expressive
Supply
Social Capital Creation &
Community Building
Building reciprocal
relationships & community
Expressive
Demand
Political Advocacy
Engaging directly in political
process to influence public
policy outcomes
Expressive &
Instrumental
Demand &
Supply
Citizen Engagement
Facilitating public education
campaigns & participatory
democracy
Instrumental
Demand
• Resources, Publicness, & Nonprofit Roles
o Importance of external environment, in particular resource
environment, for shaping roles played & values supported by nonprofit
organizations in society
▪ Resource dependency theory → resources from environment
must be acquired & maintained & thus is driving force for
organization’s behavior
o Two Recommended Strategies for Nonprofits from Resource
Dependence Perspective:
▪ Revenue Diversification → seek to reduce dependence on any
particular external resource providers through revenue
diversification strategies & generation of earned income
• Nonprofit autonomy becomes end goal
▪ Resource Alignment → seek to align resource dependencies
with core behaviors (roles) & values they seek to espouse
• Attainment of public values as end goal
III. Methodology
• Surveyed organizations participating in the Columbus Foundation’s Power
Philanthropy (PP) initiative (all were 501(c)(3) designated, encompassing
wide array of charitable endeavors)
• Nonprofit Role Index
o To identify various role constellations, index developed based on
review of previous literature
▪ Six roles (see above table)
o Respondents indicated performance on scale of 1 to 5 for each role
• Variables
o Independent Variables:
Document Summary
Reading 17: preserving the publicness of the nonprofit sector: resources, roles, & public. Classification) unable to capture roles that cut across sectors: gordon & babchuk (1959) expressive & instrumental roles of nonprofits create need to consider dimensionality of organizational purpose, expressive focus on internal stakeholders. Instrumental effect external environment: frumkin (220) demand-supply dimension + expressive-instrumental dimension, demand-oriented activities evolve to fill unmet societal needs, supply-side activities driven by individuals/entrepreneurs, roles of nonprofits matching solutions to opportunities. Providing needed services not provided (adequately) by other sectors. Allowing participants to express values, commitments, & faith. Engaging directly in political process to influence public policy outcomes. Facilitating public education campaigns & participatory democracy: resources, publicness, & nonprofit roles. Methodology: surveyed organizations participating in the columbus foundation"s power. Padp 7210 intro to nonprofit: resources proportion of organization"s total revenue from given source, classified as individual donations, foundation or corporation grants, earned income, government grants or fees, & indirect public support.
