Nonprofit Nongovernmental Organizations Research Articles

Financial controlling in non-profit organizations. The case of Slovak Republic

The aim of financial controlling is to secure liquidity and financial stability of an organization. It is very important especially for NPOs. They are not founded primarily for the purpose of making profit, so their financial policy gives priority to continuously provide liquidity. The paper presents partial results of a pilot primary research of utilization of financial controlling tools in governmental and nongovernmental non-profit organizations in the conditions of Slovak Republic. Primary data were obtained by the sociological method of a structured questionnaire. The analysis was carried out by adequate mathematical and statistical methods for processing qualitative data and ordinal variables. The presented paper provides a new insight into the studied problem while generating a primary information basis for further scientific study and research work in this field.

Public and Nonprofit Funding for Research on Mental Disorders in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States

To document the investments made in research on mental disorders by both government and nonprofit nongovernmental organizations in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. An exhaustive survey was conducted of primary sources of public and nonprofit organization funding for mental health research for the year 2007 in France and the United Kingdom and for fiscal year 2007-2008 in the United States, augmented with an examination of relevant Web sites and publications. In France, all universities and research institutions were identified using the Public Finance Act. In the United Kingdom, we scrutinized Web sites and hand searched annual reports and grant lists for the public sector and nonprofit charitable medical research awarding bodies. In the United States, we included the following sources: the National Institutes of Health, other administrative entities within the Department of Health and Human Services (eg, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the Department of Education, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, and the National Science Foundation and, for nonprofit funding, The Foundation Center. We included research on all mental disorders and substance-related disorders using the same keywords. We excluded research on mental retardation and dementia and on the promotion of mental well-being. We used the same algorithm in each country to obtain data for only mental health funding in situations in which funding had a broader scope. France spent $27.6 million (2%) of its health research budget on mental disorders, the United Kingdom spent $172.6 million (7%), and the United States spent $5.2 billion (16%). Nongovernmental funding ranged from 1% of total funding for mental health research in France and the United States to 14% in the United Kingdom. Funding for research on mental disorders accounts for low proportions of research budgets compared with funding levels for research on other major health problems, whereas the expected return on investment is potentially high.

High stakes: U.S. nonprofit organizations and the U.S. standing abroad

This research sought to explain the agency of U.S.-based nonprofit nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the U.S. standing abroad, and explore the NGO role in the U.S. public diplomacy. A multiple-case study method was used to look at five 501(c)(3) organizations that receive predominantly private funding and operate globally. The data gathered from in-person interviews and corporate documentation were compared between cases, and synthesized across cases using the theory-building technique. While U.S. standing affects American NGOs’ practices and discourses, American NGOs’ behavior might have a bearing on the attitudes, perceptions, and opinions of international publics about the United States. Both the NGO-owned state identities and American NGOs’ reputation for autonomy and freedom of expression enhance the U.S. public diplomacy efforts.

The development of peer support in the Netherlands, Brazil, and Israel.

My recent communication and travels related to peer support efforts in The Netherlands, Brazil, and Israel provide a glimpse of the integration of peer support into existing mental health services in these three countries. Country by country, peer support is evolving in unique ways specific to each culture. Based on my communication with peers and colleagues, peer support is fairly well established in The Netherlands, but has not gained as strong a foothold in countries like Brazil and Israel, where governments and mental health authorities have yet to fully embrace the concepts and practice of peer support. Also volunteerism, so essential in the start-up of peer support and self-help groups in the United States in the early 1970s, does not yet exist in Brazil or Israel where there are not as well established nongovernmental (nonprofit) organizations. After speaking with informed advocates of peer support in these three countries, the question, for me, remains whether peer support will take root in countries other than English-speaking countries. Can these voluntary, grass roots, democratic associations have a viable future in countries like the Netherlands, Brazil, and Israel? The hope is that once mental health officials see the success of peer support programs and gain confidence in peer leaders, they will provide the funding and support necessary for peer support programs to grow and thrive.

Global Feminism from Page to Stage: Teaching <em>Half the Sky</em> and <em>Seven</em>

Imagine a dark stage with, one by one, seven women stepping forward to declare their name and country of origin. They then sit and interweave seven monologues of their individual struggles for gender justice in Cambodia, Northern Ireland, Russia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Guatemala. “What can I do?” asks Farida, an Afghani woman who feels powerless; “Maybe I can help the women of my country,” Mukhtar Mai from Pakistan realizes later in the play (Cizmar et al. 14, 27). These voices intersect, themes overlapping from speaker to speaker even as the seven stories belong to different places and times. Each woman begins by telling her story directly to the audience; but by the end, the actresses include each other in their gazes and respond to each other’s words, a symbol of their joint suffering, shared strength, and the solidarity necessary for lasting change. At the play’s conclusion, Guatemalan Congresswoman Anabella De Leon’s declaration “No more silence!” is a call to the entire audience (37). Women’s voices are heard, individually and collectively, throwing a spotlight on global gender issues and women’s crucial role in social change. What I have briefly described is the documentary play Seven, the collaboration of seven female playwrights with seven women activists connected in 2006 by the Vital Voices Global Partnership, a nonprofit nongovernmental organization supporting the development of female leaders (Vital).1 The stated mission of Vital Voices, to “identify, invest in and bring visibility to extraordinary women around the world by unleashing their leadership potential to transform lives and accelerate peace and prosperity in their communities,” is well served by the creative drama Seven (Vital). Like the more well-known Vagina Monologues, Seven is an ensemble piece of documentary theatre based on interviews. Also like Vagina Monologues, the play has minimal staging—usually just seven women, scripts in hand, on a stage devoid of props or sets. Anna Deavere Smith, an actress and writer known for her “journalism-based theatre” (Pressley), interviewed Nigerian activist Hafsat Abiola, and is perhaps the best known of the playwrights attached to the project, who also include Paula Cizmar, Catherine Filloux, Gail Kriegel, Carol K. Mack, Ruth Margraff, and Susan Yankowitz. Each playwright interviewed

Barriers to conducting clinical research in reproductive medicine: India

Research in India is evolving at a rapid pace. Ergo, we need faster approval processes and review timelines. Improvement in the quality of institutional review boards would also contribute to good research practices. Clinical research should be included as a part of the undergraduate medical and pharmacy curriculum, and leading hospitals and practitioners should openly endorse research.

DEWEY'S THEORY OF THE DEMOCRATIC PUBLIC AND THE PUBLIC CHARACTER OF CHARTER SCHOOLS

In this essay, Leonard Waks reconsiders the issue of the public character of charter schools, that is, schools funded through public taxation but operated by non‐state organizations such as nonprofit and for‐profit educational corporations and nongovernmental public interest organizations. Using John Dewey's conception of a democratic public as a framework, Waks examines the following questions: (1) Are schools chartered and funded by government, but operated by nonprofit nongovernmental organizations, ever appropriate instruments of a democratic public? (2) If so, what criteria might distinguish those that are appropriate from those that are not? (3) How might public education be re‐institutionalized so as to include the charter schools that are appropriate? Waks concludes that Dewey's theory of democratic publics can play a useful role in thinking about how to balance the democratic benefits of charter schools for the various subcommunities of our society with the democratic requirement of broad public discourse and intergroup education.

A Study of the Roles of NGOs for North Korean Refugees’ Human Rights

Even though the U.S. government passed a bill supporting North Korean refugees’ human rights, security and other issues create some difficulties in implementing this support. To overcome information and basic knowledge limitations, the U.S. government should cooperate with nonprofit organizations or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other governments in the world. This research is composed of four case studies based on media coverage and literature reviews, as well as semistructured interviews with NGOs’ officials, seeking to provide feasible and useful suggestions why NGOs are important for improving refugee policies and why the U.S. and other countries’ governments need to cooperate with such NGOs.

Rapid Medical Relief — Project Medishare and the Haitian Earthquake

On the evening of January 12, 2010, a few hours after the Haitian earthquake, the leaders of Project Medishare in Miami began contacting Haitian associates, faculty and staff of the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami, and owners of small private jets in southern Florida. Project Medishare is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization created in 1995. Given our geographic proximity to Haiti and our 15-year relationship with Haitian physicians through Project Medishare, we were able to offer emergency medical relief and provide medical staff within 20 hours after the earthquake. A five-person team of medical relief workers arrived . . .

Corporate-NGO Collaboration: Co-creating New Business Models for Developing Markets

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) face a range of challenges when entering developing countries, including the need to adapt their business models to local markets' cultural, economic, institutional and geographic features. Where they lack the tangible resources or intangible knowledge needed to address these challenges, MNEs may consider collaborating with non-profit nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to help facilitate new modes of value creation. In such cross-sector partnerships, parties contribute complementary capabilities along each stage of the value chain to develop products or services that neither could produce alone, creating and delivering value in novel ways while minimizing costs and risks. Our conceptualization broadens the business model concept to incorporate cross-sector collaborations, arguing such partnerships can create and deliver both social and economic value, which can be mutually reinforcing. We highlight, in particular, the competencies and resources NGOs can bring to such partnerships, including market expertise, legitimacy with clients/customers, civil society players and governments, and access to local expertise and sourcing and distribution systems. Beyond contributing to particular value chain activities, NGOs and companies can offer missing capabilities to complete each other's business models, or even co-create new and innovative multi-organizational business models. We stress four strategic imperatives for the success of corporate-NGO developing market partnerships – innovative combinations of firm and NGO resources and skills; the importance of trust-building, and of fit between the two organizations' goals; and supporting and understanding the local business infrastructure and environment.

BRAC: Anatomy of a “poverty enterprise”

AbstractManagement of the poverty alleviation process has created a new form of poverty enterprise. This enterprise provides poverty‐production‐market linkages, and in the process, it combines three features: a nonprofit nongovernmental organization, a for‐profit nongovernmental organization that has established an internal market, and a profit‐making industrial and business concern. This article explains how BRAC (Building Resources Across Community) in Bangladesh has used poverty to transform itself from a tiny relief distribution organization into the world's largest poverty enterprise. This enterprise is characterized by contradictions between its public claims and actual practices.

Physically active lifestyles for all Americans: A call to action for non-profit organizations

Many nonprofit organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are strategically poised to encourage and facilitate healthier lifestyles. Non-profit organizations can play leadership roles in improving physical levels among all Americans.

Non-state ambassadors: NGOs' contribution to America's public diplomacy

This qualitative research paper explores how American non-state actors de facto contribute to US public diplomacy efforts while preserving their freedom of disagreement with government policies. In-depth interviews with 14 representatives of 12 US nonprofit nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) were conducted to look at their institutional and individual experiences of communicating with various foreign publics. NGOs' good standing in host countries depends on their ability to build relationships with and empower their local partners. The government could capitalise on NGOs' successes by highlighting their achievements in providing development assistance, as well as their autonomy, diversity and right to dissent. The study provides a baseline for further research on the unrealised capabilities of US civil society in strengthening America's reputation worldwide.

The Influence of Ownership on Accounting Information Expenditures*

This paper analyzes the association between ownership, top management incentives, and expenditures on accounting information. We argue that organizations with privately appointed boards of directors such as for-profit and non-governmental nonprofit organizations use incentive pay practices which encourage managers to use accounting information to improve performance. In contrast, government organizations are publicly governed and are constrained in their compensation practices because hospital CEOs are administrators of government provided services. However, these hospitals must prove their efficiency to continue to receive adequate budgetary funding. Therefore government hospitals are more likely to use accounting information to gain legitimacy with stakeholders and regulators. Accordingly, we predict a positive relationship between expenditures on accounting information and contracting intensity in privately governed organizations, whereas we expect no such association for publicly governed organizations. We analyze data from California hospitals to determine differences in these roles across ownership types. We find a positive association between contracting intensity and expenditures on accounting information in privately governed hospitals, but no relation in publicly governed hospitals. Finally, we find differences in the use of accounting information within the privately governed hospitals, based on ownership. While for-profit hospitals expend resources on accounting information that helps improve their revenue positions, nonprofit hospitals expend resources on accounting information that facilitates decision-making related to operating efficiency and cost containment.

Internet reporting in microfinance institutions

PurposeThis paper aims to present research on how and why microfinance institutions (MFIs) disclose financial and social information on the internet. Legitimacy theory provides the theoretical framework.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical study analysed factors influencing MFIs to publish financial and social information on the internet. The model was tested using regression analysis. The sample consisted of publicly available data from the web sites of 273 MFIs.FindingsThe study found that MFIs' internet presence overall is scarce and that greater levels of disclosure are needed. It was found that large MFIs with a high degree of public exposure on the internet disclose greater amounts of information on their web sites than smaller MFIs with a low degree of public exposure. It was also found that for‐profit MFIs disclose more financial information on their web sites, while non‐profit non‐governmental organisations (NGOs) reveal more social information.Practical implicationsMFIs should be proud to tell the world what they are doing. MFI managers need to remember that transparency increases funds from donors. Donors are mostly based in developed countries, so the internet plays a key role in disclosure and attracting potential donors. Thus, managers of MFIs are encouraged to increase disclosure levels – especially on the internet.Originality/valueAcademic research into the factors that influence MFIs' internet disclosure is still scarce. This is an important area of study because full disclosure offers enormous benefits. Since MFIs have a social mission, they are legitimated in the eyes of their donors by disclosing social information. Since they are also financial institutions, they have to show that they use the funds they receive efficiently.

Producing Literacy and Civil Society: The Case of Senegal

Donor and financial institutions, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and others, often promote market-based solutions for the delivery of public services in developing countries. This article examines the use of such market approaches by the World Bank to hire for-profit and nonprofit nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to implement a Women’s Literacy Project (WLP) in Senegal. This particular project has been touted as one of the “best” of the large literacy projects in Senegal, and it has been extended as a model by the World Bank in other West African countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Niger, and The Gambia. Several recent studies have argued favorably for strong international support to set up local educational policies and economic frameworks (e.g., Resnik 2006). By examining the WLP, I seek to inform the debate on the role of international organizations, as well as for-profit and nonprofit nongovernmental organizations, as producers of women’s literacy and builders of civil society. Prior to presenting the case study, I summarize the discourses related to the neoliberal economic rationale, the role of civil society organizations, and gender and literacy.

NGOs, Social Venturing, and Community Citizenship Behavior

Growing concerns about corporations’ business and accounting practices have contributed to increased scrutiny and the adoption of new laws to govern corporate behavior. Nonprofit nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have also come under investigation for their activities, especially when engaging in social venturing. Because NGOs are largely supported by taxpayer dollars and private donations, their existence is strongly based on fulfilling their social purpose mission. In this study, NGOs reported on this increased scrutiny and how it was especially important for them to act as good corporate citizens, which, in corporate citizenship theory, means being economically responsible, abiding by the law, engaging in ethical and moral management, and ensuring the philanthropy of the social venture. The authors find that these components are key to the sustainability of the ventures and the organizations themselves. Based on study findings, the authors propose “community citizenship behavior” as a broader model for application in social ventures.

Oil for health in sub-Saharan Africa: health systems in a 'resource curse' environment

BackgroundIn a restricted sense, the resource curse is a theory that explains the inverse relationship classically seen between dependence on natural resources and economic growth. It defines a peculiar economic and political environment, epitomised by oil extraction in sub-Saharan Africa.MethodsBased on secondary research and illustrations from four oil-rich geographical areas (the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, Angola, southern Chad, Southern Sudan), I propose a framework for analysing the effects of the resource curse on the structure of health systems at sub-national levels. Qualitative attributes are emphasised. The role of the corporate sector, the influence of conflicts, and the value of classical mitigation measures (such as health impact assessments) are further examined.ResultsHealth systems in a resource curse environment are classically fractured into tripartite components, including governmental health agencies, non-profit non-governmental organisations, and the corporate extractive sector. The three components entertain a range of contractual relationships generally based on operational considerations which are withdrawn from social or community values. Characterisation of agencies in this system should also include: values, operating principles, legitimacy and operational spaces. From this approach, it appears that community health is at the same time marginalised and instrumentalised toward economic and corporate interests in resource curse settings.ConclusionFrom a public health point of view, the resource curse represents a fundamental failure of dominant development theories, rather than a delay in creating the proper economy and governance environment for social progress. The scope of research on the resource curse should be broadened to include more accurate or comprehensive indicators of destitution (including health components) and more open perspectives on causal mechanisms.

The Importance of the State: Political Dimensions of a Nonprofit Network in Oaxaca, Mexico

This article examines a network of nonprofit nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), government agencies, and other social and political actors in Oaxaca, Mexico. Analyses indicate that NGOs are more connected to government authorities than to any type of nonstate organization. Results also suggest that NGOs located in municipalities where support was the highest and lowest in the 1994 to 2001 elections for the long-ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional were best connected to the government. The size of Indigenous populations located around the NGOs also appears to have had an impact on NGO connectedness to the government. These results offer support for social origins theory, which acknowledges the impact of social—political environments on the development of NGO sectors.

Midwifery and the Development of Nursing Capacity in the Dominican Republic: Caring, Clinical Competence, and Case Management

The contribution of midwifery care to positive health outcomes has been acknowledged both nationally and internationally, yet currently there are insufficient numbers of midwives and nurses to meet the maternal-infant health needs around the globe. Project ADAMES, (ADelante, Asegurando Madres E Infantes Sanos; in English: Onward! Assuring Healthy Mothers and Babies), is a non-profit nongovernmental organization created as a collaborative, community-based partnership between the maternity nurses in a hospital in the Dominican Republic and a group of certified nurse-midwives from the United States. After attending a series of educational conferences in midwifery over the course of 3 years, a subset of motivated Dominican nurses and auxiliaries (the Comité) have trained hospital volunteers to be doulas, to provide the caring and supportive role to laboring women they do not have the time to provide themselves. The Comité also proposed to initiate a postpartum assessment flow sheet and precept nursing student volunteers from Project ADAMES to demonstrate the performance of routine assessments among postpartum women. The Comité desires to train nurses in other neighboring hospitals. As the nurses and midwives implement improvements in quality of care, they strive to develop a sustainable, transferable program that could be available to other sites where nurses similarly manage vaginal deliveries.