Are We All in This Together? Examining Nonprofits’ Perceptions of Governmental Actors in the Management of the U.S. Refugee Crisis

Abstract

Abstract U.S. federal policy has created, at best, a gap and, at worst, a hostile environment for nonprofits serving refugees. We rely on frameworks of nonprofit-government relationships (institutional voids, structural holes, instrumental/expressive support) to explore government-nonprofit interactions in the refugee domain, and their impact on 34 refugee-serving nonprofits in the U.S. Findings indicate limited expressive and instrumental support for nonprofits and suggest nonprofits must navigate complex, multilevel, environments. Contributions include the suggestion of “intentional” rather than institutional voids, and a new typology of forms (zero, unclaimed, symbolic, or comprehensive) of government support for nonprofits in a problem domain based on whether government’s instrumental and expressive support for nonprofits is high or low.