Nonprofit Activities Research Articles

Are You Being Served? Toward a Typology of Nonprofit Infrastructure Organizations and a Framework for Their Assessment

Nonprofit infrastructure organizations provide multiple functions to the nonprofit sector: strengthening individual and organizational capacities, mobilizing material resources, providing information and intellectual resources, building alliances for mutual support, bridging the research and practice divide, and connecting nonprofits to the other sectors. Although researchers have described a variety of organizations that support nonprofit activity, they have done little to distinguish them or to explain their primary purposes. In this article, we develop a typology to classify these nonprofit infrastructure organizations, which offers new insight into their various objectives and functions. Based on a review of the relevant literature and interviews with stakeholders, we then construct a necessary framework for the assessment of the infrastructure organizations we have identified. The result is a better understanding of not only the types of nonprofit infrastructure organizations but also the appropriate dimensions for their assessment.

Complementary or Supplementary? The Relationship Between Government Size and Nonprofit Sector Size

Do government activities discourage or leverage nonprofit activities? The extant literature has proposed competing lines of arguments, making the net effect ambiguous. The present study conducts a meta-analysis to synthesize extant studies concerning the relationship between the level of government activities and the level of nonprofit activities within a locality and explore potential moderating effects. Through systematically reviewing 30 extant studies, the study finds a mostly positive association between the level of government activities and the level of nonprofit activities, but this relationship is generally weak and sometimes statistically insignificant. In addition, the moderator analysis concludes that data structure, unit of analysis, and field of activity significantly moderate effect size estimates across extant studies. Overall, the net relationship between the level of government activities and the level of nonprofit activities within a locality ranges from null to slight positive. Government activities generally seem not to discourage nonprofit activities, but may slightly leverage them.

A Field Too Crowded? How Measures of Market Structure Shape Nonprofit Fiscal Health

This article explores how various dimensions of market structure, often used to measure organizational crowding, affect the fiscal health of nonprofit organizations. Using 2011 National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) nonprofit sector data, our findings generally support population ecology’s model of a curvilinear relationship between density and days of spending. However, we also find that single dimensions of market structure do not fully capture the effects of market competition. Increasing density has a negative effect on the fiscal health of organizations in markets in which resources are more evenly distributed among actors, whereas increasing density of organizations has a positive effect on organizational fiscal health in markets in which resources are less evenly distributed among actors. These results are sensitive to different specifications of fiscal health and field of nonprofit activity.

Pantries and Policy Implementation: Using Nonprofit Priorities to Understand Variation in Emergency Food Assistance

Public and nonprofit actors have long partnered to carry out emergency food assistance, particularly through the use of nonprofit food pantries. Although nonprofit pantries fulfill an important function in policy implementation, they differ with respect to specific mission and organizational priorities. To what extent do organizational priorities explain variation in emergency food? Our analyses examine this question using survey data from 95 nonprofit food pantries associated with a Midwestern Foodbank, administrative records, and census tract-level data. Findings indicate that the priorities of nonprofit pantries help explain variation in food assistance provided by pantries, even after taking into consideration measures of need, accessibility, capacity, and processes. Our results imply that policymakers may be better equipped to meet community food needs by knowing more about the organizational priorities of nonprofit service providers.

Managing amidst mosaic: Integrating values and rationalization in the nonprofit arts

This ethnographic study of visionary art environment Philadelphia's Magic Gardens (PMG) draws on theories of rationalization in nonprofits to explore factors that influence the impact of this process on organizations. Responding to theories that rationalization attenuates expressive drivers of nonprofit activity, an analysis of PMG is used to explore and contextualize a literature‐derived theoretical framework that suggests variables that may influence the outcome of rationalization processes in organizations. The PMG case supports and adds nuance to a notion that the strength of expressive and rationalizing impulses and the convergence or divergence of intra‐organizational values influence whether growing nonprofits are able to integrate instrumental structures and expressive motivations.

Promoting Social Entrepreneurship among Entrepreneur with Disabilities in Contribution for Community

Looking forward of the uniqueness social entrepreneurship (SE) new phenomena born from entrepreneurships felid. Because of that it is a new step point for the entrepreneur with disabilities (EWD) to be part of social entrepreneurship environments. Where SE, link the positive impact for society creating by entrepreneur that understand that social problem give a big opportunities for profit or nonprofit activity that can be solve creatively. This give a lot of advantage of EWD to contributes to community in the term of “social impact”. This conceptual paper maps SE and EWD in contribution to community with the important role play by stakeholder in promoting SE. This conceptualization enhances understanding of EWD in SE and clear picture of role play by stakeholder give chances for EWD contributes to community.

On Localism and the Persistent Power of the State

On June 1, 2017, President Trump declared that the United States would “cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris Accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country.” The United States’ de facto withdrawal from the Paris Agreement represented an important inflection point for conceptualizing the role of nonstate actors in addressing climate change. President Trump's announcement was met with an outpouring of resistance and widespread and concerted efforts to mobilize substate, nonprofit, and private actors to step into the void created by his announcement and to help keep the United States on track to pursue domestic and international commitments to address climate change despite federal recalcitrance. Within the leadership void created by the Trump Administration and amidst the increasingly extensive body of sub- and nonstate climate efforts, it is tempting to decenter the role of the state or to underestimate the persistent power of the state to shape the approach and effectiveness of nonstate actions. Failing to recognize that the state retains significant power in this field undermines efforts to understand the realities within which nonstate actors operate. This creates a set of heightened expectations for these actors that defies the reality of the political, economic, and social resources available to them and masks the challenges inherent in relying upon a fragmented, shifting, and differently accountable set of actors to effect pervasive change.

Modern Issues of Administrative and Disciplinary Proceedings

The article examines the peculiarities of administrative and disciplinary proceedings in the administrative process. Attention is drawn to a number of current trends that influence the development of administrative and disciplinary proceedings, and new types of branches that form the part of the system of administrative and disciplinary proceedings. An attempt was made to distinguish two adjacent legal institutions: administrative and disciplinary proceedings in the administrative process and disciplinary proceedings in the labor law, as well as to analyze the features of procedural legal relations arising in the administrative and disciplinary proceedings in cases involving administrative and disciplinary misconduct of lawyers, notaries, members of self-regulatory organizations. It is noted that, depending on the type of a administrative and disciplinary offense, the law-maker establishes different procedural reasoning for bringing to disciplinary responsibility. At the same time, a number of functions implemented by self-regulating organizations are of a public nature, this also applies to disciplinary proceedings. It is concluded that administrative and disciplinary proceedings are carried out not only by state authorities, but also by civil society institutions in the form of the activities of non-profit organizations exercising public-law functions.

ANALYSIS OF ACTIVITIES OF NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS: METHODOLOGICAL ASPECT

Introduction. The peculiarities of the functioning of non-profit organizations in Ukraine are identified. The accounting and information support of the analysis of the activity of public sector entities is considered. It is established that the reformation of accounting of public sector entities related to the introduction of the NP (C) BODS from January 1, 2017 requires a comprehensive analysis of the activities of budgetary institutions. It is noted that the analysis of the activity of a budgetary institution will provide full information about the real economic situation of the organization, reveal unused agricultural reserves for further development and ensure more efficient use of targeted state allocations. The object of research is the Main Department of Statistics in the Dnipropetrovsk region. The priori analysis of dynamic changes in cash inflows by type of income is carried out. It is proven that the use of only absolute indicators to estimate the dynamics of revenues is inappropriate. It is noted that the increase in the dynamics of cash inflows to a budgetary institution can testify only to the impact of inflationary processes. It is proposed to analyse the results of the organization's activities in a phased manner: analysis of dynamics and structure; analysis of the actual expenditures of the organization; assessment of the financial performance and determination of the size of the deficit or cash surplus. The algorithm of the complex analysis of the receipts of funds, incomes and expenditures of the budgetary institution is developed. It is established that the analysis of incomes and expenditures and financial results of a budget institution's activity is a necessary component of effective management of a public sector entity. Purpose. The article aims to evaluate the accounting and information support of the analysis of the activities of the public sector entities and to develop the stages of the analysis of the activity of the budget institution of the Main Department of Statistics in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Method (methodology). Method of system analysis, methods of causal analysis, table and graphical methods, dynamic series have been used in this research. Results. The theoretical synthesis and practical recommendations on the methodological aspects of the activities of non-profit organizations through the analysis of dynamics and the structure of cash flow; actual expenses of the organization; assessment of financial performance and determination of the size of the deficit or cash surplus have become the result of the research.

Prospects of development of state regulation of activities of non-profit organizations in the provision of socially important services to the population

Prospects of development of state regulation of activities of non-profit organizations in the provision of socially important services to the population

A Field Too Crowded? How Measures of Market Structure Shape Nonprofit Fiscal Health

This paper explores how various dimensions of market structure, often used to measure organizational crowding, affect the fiscal health of nonprofit organizations. Using 2011 NCCS nonprofit sector data, our findings generally support population ecology’s model of a curvilinear relationship between density and days of spending. However, we also find that single dimensions of market structure do not fully capture the effects of market competition. While increasing density has a negative effect on the fiscal health of organizations in markets in which resources are more evenly distributed among actors, in markets in which resources are less evenly distributed among actors, increasing density of organizations has a positive effect on organizational fiscal health. These results are sensitive to different specifications of fiscal health and field of nonprofit activity.

Governing Without Government: Nonprofit Governance in Detroit and Flint

Scholars across the social sciences have shown how economic, social, and political changes are weakening local governments and contributing to rising nonprofit activity in urban politics. But these trends, largely studied in isolation, could now add up to a new form of decision-making in some American cities. The convergence of public sector austerity and a burgeoning philanthropic and nonprofit sector have created space for what we call “nonprofit governance.” In some cities, nonprofit leaders can work as insiders to guide urban policy, often with limited input from elected officials or citizens. First, we assess trends in public sector capacity, based on local government employment in Midwestern U.S. cities. Next, we apply insights from studies in comparative politics to demonstrate how nonprofit leadership and governing can expand, particularly in the context of a weak state. We closely examine Detroit and Flint due to dramatic declines in local government capacity in both cities, focusing on the role of nonprofits in each. These leading-edge cases allow us to trace the development of nonprofit governance and explore different forms of nonprofit and local government relationships.

THE PROBLEM OF UNPROFITABLE ACTIVITY OF ENTERPRISES IN UKRAINE

The subject of the study. A successful economy does not allow the loss of its main component: enterprises in modern conditions. If the companies of the country do not receive anticipated financial results, the entire financial system becomes vulnerable. This article is focused on research of the problem of loss-making enterprises in Ukraine. It should be noted that the negative trend of a significant number of loss-making companies can be traced over a long period of time. The main reasons for Ukrainian producing companies’ unsatisfactory financial results are described in this article. A hierarchy of factors that determine the financial security of enterprises is constructed. Research of dependence operating profitability of businesses from inflation is done on the basis of statistical data. The tendency in the production of industrial output is shown. Methods. The methods used by authors include correlation analysis, comparative analysis, a method of description, interpretation of statistical data, a method of observation. Scope. The main task of the research remains the demonstration of the problem of non-profit activity of Ukrainian enterprises and the allocation of key factors for the containment of economic growth. For this purpose, a study was made of the dynamics of financial results of subjects of entrepreneurial activity. The dependence of profit on operating activities of the economic sector and the rates of inflation of the national economy of Ukraine is presented. Conclusions. National business adapts to the transformation of the economy and, at the same time, overcomes the diversity of threats. Performed analysis showed that enterprises in Ukraine are strongly influenced by internal independent administrative measures factors. The shortage of financial resources and the complexity of attracting additional funds impede the further development of enterprises. However, the size of revenues and costs, and thus the final financial results will depend on the professionalism of company’s management. The problem of increasing insolvency among Ukrainian companies is disclosed in this paper. Profit formation is possible only if one takes into account the role of the state, changes in external and internal demand and maintaining competitiveness. Key directions of financial stabilization and further business development in Ukraine depend on the ability of entities to maintain an acceptable level of their own financial security.

Społeczna nieodpowiedzialność biznesu a niszczenie wizerunku przedsiębiorstwa

W literaturze i dyskursie publicznym pojęcie społecznej nieodpowiedzialności biznesu pojawia się stosunkowo rzadko. Przedsiębiorstwa zdecydowanie częściej informują o pozytywnych aspektach swojej działalności pozabiznesowej (działaniach na rzecz pracowników, społeczności lokalnych, ochrony środowiska) niż o kwestiach pogarszających ich wizerunek i reputację w oczach opinii publicznej. Mówienie o negatywnych stronach działalności pozabiznesowej wydaje się jednak istotne, gdyż eliminowanie patologii (społecznej nieodpowiedzialności biznesu) zwiększa społeczne zaufanie do działań w ramach społecznej odpowiedzialności biznesu.

РОЛЬ НЕКОММЕРЧЕСКИХ ОРГАНИЗАЦИЙ В ПОВЫШЕНИИ КАЧЕСТВА ЖИЗНИ НАСЕЛЕНИЯ

The second decade of the XXI century has seen major changes concerning the activities of non-profit organizations. First, the status of non-profit organizations (NPOs) as a subject of social policy has significantly improved, aided by some changes in the socioeconomic structure of various states after the global crisis. This trend is characteristic of most developed countries in the world. Secondly, the NPOs have become more popular among the population: as a result, both the number of NPO members and their professionalism have increased. Thirdly, government agencies are responding to modern challenges and become actively engaged in the development and implementation of mechanisms supporting and enabling socially oriented NPOs. All these factors show that the activity of non-profit organizations is becoming an integral part of socio-economic processes that improve the quality of life of the population. A list of public utility services provided by NPOs covers the main range of indicators of quality of life of the population. About 60 percent of the more than 223 thousand NPOs registered in the country have received the status of socially oriented nonprofit organizations (SONPOs), which allows them to rely on state support. To further enhance the effectiveness of socially oriented non-profit organizations one should: improve the regulatory framework, including preferential loans and banking services for socially oriented NGOs; develop the supportive infrastructure for socially oriented NPOs; share experience, e.g. through the establishment of advisory centers and implementation of mentoring in the field SONPOs; include SONPOs in assessing the effectiveness of the authorities in the field of social policy; inform citizens about the possibilities to receive services from the SONPOs and their activities in general.

Health impact assessments in hospital community benefit: A multiple case study of the use of HIAs at Children’s Hospital Colorado

<p><strong>Objective:</strong> To explore the use of Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) within non-profit hospital community benefit activities.</p><p><strong>Methods:</strong> We constructed case studies of three HIAs that were conducted in collaboration with Children’s Hospital Colorado as part of the hospital’s community benefit portfolio. These HIAs were part of a pilot that was funded by the Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts.</p><p><strong>Results:</strong> HIAs provided Children’s Hospital Colorado with a transparent and systematic process for generating evidence-based recommendations with community and stakeholder feedback within the hospital’s community benefit activities. HIAs were used to generate recommendations to inform community benefit planning activities and to generate public policy recommendations to enhance child health. The case studies highlighted several issues that need to be addressed in order to further advance the use of HIA within hospital community benefit activities including: use of HIA on explicit health issues, hospital capacity for HIA, potentially broadening the scope of HIA recommendations, and the use of HIA to generate recommendations from broad priority areas.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>HIAs can help meet the need for established, evidence-based, and stakeholder responsive tools and processes to be used within non-profit hospital community benefit activities. In meeting this need, the non-profit hospital community benefit area can potentially serve as a major institutional home for the practice of HIA. There is a need for additional research and practice innovation to further explore and refine the use of HIA within non-profit hospital community benefit activities. </p>

A history of conservation politics in Madagascar

In this article, I argue that reconciling conservation and livelihoods in Madagascar requires an examination of the historical processes and political-economic systems through which the strong foreign influence on conservation has formed. I begin by documenting how a group of scientists and policy-makers came together in the 1970s and 1980s to mobilize global attention to the importance of protecting Madagascar’s flora and fauna. I illustrate how their influence materialized not only through formal political negotiations and bureaucratic practice but also via informal collaborations across multiple geographic and institutional sites. Then, I examine how the critical historical conjuncture of the mid-1980s—with its emphasis on biodiversity, sustainable development and neoliberalism—prompted a reconfiguration in power relations among public, private, and nonprofit actors. This reconfiguration provided the political-economic context for the transformation of a scientific campaign into a well-funded foreign aid agenda, encompassed in the Madagascar National Environmental Action Plan. I illustrate how, although numerous actors advocated for integrated conservation and development approaches throughout Madagascar’s environmental history, the political, scientific, and financial strength behind the international conservation lobby often overpowered the push for more comprehensive or integrated development approaches. Finally, I conclude by arguing that effective and equitable conservation in Madagascar will require transforming the power relations that have both created Madagascar’s environmental crisis and efforts to redress it.

Социальный контроль и противодействие коррупции

The article contains main theses of the author’s speech at the VI Eurasian Anti-Corruption Forum “Social control as a key factor of anti-corruption” which took place in Moscow, 26—27 April 2017 within the frame of implementation of point 19 of National Anticorruption Plan 2016—2017.
 On the basis of analysis of international legal norms, provisions of national and foreign legislation, including open government institute’s regulation the concept of social control is formed, its place and role in modern anti-corruption politics are determined. The danger of distancing of state from the institutions of civil society is underlined, because it causes weakening of the whole state, provokes the intervention of external forces into internal affairs of the country.
 In the article the tendency is analyzed which consists in changing of the goal-setting of social control in the process of its legal consolidation and implementation by individual entities that invest in it a sense close to law enforcement, although it is exclusively a state function.
 Risks of deformed understanding of essence of social control are examined and new legal solutions of improving legislation in this area are proposed, in particular, conduction of complex evaluation of adaptive possibilities of international legal norms and determination of difficulties, related to assumption of obligations; the development of interstate implementation mechanisms; expansion of the circle of subjects of public control and activation of departmental monitoring of the activities of non-profit organizations.
 The author comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to form an international standard of anti-corruption social control, taking into account international legal acts and scientific research. At the same time, the concept of such a standard must be based on an understanding of its creative nature, the potential of cooperation between various social structures for the common good.

DZIAŁALNOŚĆ GOSPODARCZA ORGANIZACJI POŻYTKU PUBLICZNEGO

Commercial Activity of Nonprofit OrganizationsSummaryThe issue of the economic activity of nonprofit organizations is highly controversial in Poland. Some scholars argue that this sort o f activity should not be opened for the third sector organizations at all because in practice it often dom inates over the statutory activity, constitutes the fields of abuses and casts shadow on the good reputation of the sector. The others believe that the non governmental organizations should have the possibility to engage in business activities subject to certain conditions. The second position has been accepted by the Polish legislator in the recent law on the public utility activity and voluntarism from June 23th, 2003.The law provides for a relatively detailed and interesting regulation of the economic activity of so called public utility organizations, that is the organizations which - because of their public utility character - are treated in a very favorable manner by the legislator (e.g. from the perspective of tax law). The legislator distinguishes between business activity, paid and free public utility activity (art. 6-10). The difference between a business activity and a paid public utility activity depends on the level of the fee charged for the goods or services. If the fee is not intended to generate net income but only to cover the direct costs of the goods or services provided by the organization, then in principle it is „a paid public utility activity”. This activity may constitute the statutory activity of a public utility organization. However the legislator has also decided, that „a paid public utility activity” constitutes a business activity in a case where the payment of the natural persons employed by the organization exceeds 150% of the average payment. As to the business activity, the legislator has decided that the business activity of the public utility organization has to serve its statutory goals (art. 20 p. 4). It means that this activity may only have a subsidiary character and may not constitute a main statutory activity of the organization.

Main and Economic Activity of Non-Profit Organizations from the Point of Individual Legal Forms

The article focuses on data, gathered from non‑governmental non‑profit organizations (NGOs) seated on the territory of the Czech Republic. Data collected from NGOs defined also by their legal form (association, subsidiary association, public benefit corporation, church legal entity) helped to monitor the structure of main and economic activity of organizations. In the article, the mutual differences in the main and economic activity of NGOs are analysed. The link between legal form and selected categories of main activities according to the classification COPNI has been verified by the Fisher’s exact test with p‑values computed by Monte Carlo simulations using 2,000 replications. Furthermore, this test has been used to prove statistically significant dependency between the individual categories of main and economic activities. On the basis of a conclusive statistical survey at the level 5 %, the dependency between legal form of non‑governmental non‑profit organization and its main activity has been verified as well as the correlation between main and economic activities of associations.