Together Making a Difference: A Configurational Study of Nonprofit Advocacy Effectiveness

Abstract

Existing nonprofit advocacy literature has overwhelmingly focused on explaining what factors affect nonprofit participation in policy advocacy, while paying little attention to examine the effectiveness of such advocacy efforts. This study aims to address this limitation through asking a research question: what brings about effective nonprofit advocacy? Based on a multidimensional framework of effectiveness, this study applies a configurational approach of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) in theory building to identify the causal configurations and their elements leading to effective advocacy. The results of fuzzy set QCA (fsQCA) analysis confirm two propositions: first, the configuration or combination of multiple conditions, including organizational attributes, institutional environment, strategies and tactics, generates effective nonprofit advocacy. Second, there are equifinal multiple causal configurations that result in the same degree of advocacy effectiveness. This study contributes to the literature with a fresh theoretical perspective and a novel methodology to understand nonprofit advocacy effectiveness. It also has significant practical implications for nonprofit leaders to more effectively advocate policy change.