Nonprofit Sector Research Articles

Public Employment Policy in Conditions of Uncertainty and Digital Changes

The scientific study analyzed the state of employment of the population in Ukraine under martial law. Established that the problems of employment of the population as a result of military operations include: forced mass migration of the population, reduction of the economically active population, an increase in the level of unemployment, deterioration of working conditions, a decrease in the practical demand for highly qualified workers and a simultaneous increase in the need for low-skilled labor, etc. Substantiated that the public policy of employment in conditions of uncertainty should have an anti-crisis character and be aimed at creating an opportunity to restore the economic activity of the population in new living and working conditions. Also, attention was focused on the fact that public employment policy in conditions of uncertainty should prepare the ground for the formation of digital competencies and practices of labor market participants, in particular, highly qualified employees of the service sector, knowledge-intensive and technological business activities. Two directions of public employment policy in conditions of uncertainty are considered, namely, anti-crisis, which includes the government program of relocation of enterprises, state support to employers by providing them with preferential lending under the program "Affordable loans 5-7-9%", creation of new jobs, application targeted measures to support employment, development and implementation of programs to ensure employee mobility and retraining, etc.; and digital – the government grant program eRobota, which provides grants to Ukrainians through digital interaction tools for starting a business, developing entrepreneurship and training. Proven that in conditions of crisis and uncertainty in the economy, effective means of public employment policy are: the provision of state orders for goods and works in connection with the creation of new (temporary) jobs and organizational and resource support for entrepreneurship and self-employment of the population in rural areas. Attention was focused on the importance of forming up-to-date digital competences of employees. Proposed to create a Center for the formation of digital competences within the State Employment Service of Ukraine, to carry out work on the organization of training digital competences of persons who hold managerial positions in the private, public, and non-profit sectors of the economy, with the aim of improving their qualifications, conducting thematic trainings.

Subjective Well-Being Across the Sectors: Examining Differences in Workers’ Life Satisfaction and Daily Experiential Well-Being

Research on cross-sector differences has long demonstrated that workers in public and nonprofit sectors are more prosocially and intrinsically motivated, which in turn shapes their work behavior and outcomes, but little evidence exists on how public service employment is associated with workers’ life quality outside of the organizational context. Using cross-sectional data pooled from the Well-being Module of the American Time Use Survey, we investigate whether sectors of employment can predict workers’ subjective well-being (SWB) beyond the work domain. The results suggest public servants across all levels of government as well as nonprofit organizations experience higher life satisfaction than their for-profit counterparts. However, there are different patterns in daily experiential well-being across levels of government. Further analyses by work and non-work days demonstrate that work itself is likely to be a key factor affecting workers’ daily experience across sectors. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Nonprofit Programs in Business Schools: A Win-Win Across Sector

Nonprofit educational programs have been housed in a multitude of departments or schools, including Schools of Management or Business, Public Administration, and Humanities, and incorporated a variety of approaches, including course offerings and types of degrees awarded. In this paper, we delve into the history of nonprofit educational programs, we make a case for locating nonprofit programs in Schools of Management or Business, provide a detailed example of the evolution of a premier undergraduate nonprofit minor in a business school, and present a framework for pro-gram success. We anticipate that this will assist in developing, or re-envisioning exist-ing programs, in order to best prepare students for a career in the nonprofit sector

Homeless Services during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Revisiting Salamon’s Voluntary Failure Theory

Abstract This paper examines government and nonprofit relations in the context of federal homeless policy with specific attention to Continuum of Care (CoC) homeless networks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Applying Salamon’s voluntary failure theory, we conduct a qualitative study answering the following question: How, during the COVID-19 pandemic, did government address the voluntary failures of the nonprofit sector? Results expand Salamon’s work by offering a more robust picture of what happens after federal funds are allocated to support the failures of the nonprofit sector. Government funds both help and generate their own limitations, which are further alleviated by nonprofit solutions.

Rapport du groupe de réflexion sur la gestion des urgences 7 juin 2023

Emergency management is a complex, ever-evolving profession. Emergency management practitioners and stakeholders from the public, private, and non-profit sectors have a unique professional obligation and moral responsibility to both set and stay well ahead of emerging trends. In recognition of this responsibility and the evolving post-pandemic landscape, The Canadian Journal of Emergency Management (CJEM), Public Safety Canada, and Emergency Management Logistics Canada (EMLC) hosted a Think Tank under Chatham House rules on June 7th, 2023 with participants from coast to coast and across the private sector, academia, the Government of Canada, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The purpose of this Think Tank was to bring together individuals with diverse experiences and points of view to discuss and explore the future of emergency management (EM) in the Canadian context. CJEM and EMLC’s 2023 Think Tank was conducted in a conference space provided by Public Safety Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, and fostered an environment of open and candid discussions.

Another fraud case highlights benefits of routine, independent audits

Yet another case of fraud in the nonprofit sector has made headlines recently, this time in Florida, highlighting the importance of regularly scheduled third‐party audits in detecting and deterring financial misfeasance.

Experts cite increased cybersecurity threats for nonprofit sector

Cyberattacks against businesses and institutions of all types seem to be increasing, as news stories from around the world make headlines and serve as a reminder of the risks involved. On this front, nonprofits are not immune, experts say—in fact, the need for effective cybersecurity has never been greater, according to experts at digital marketing and fundraising company Nonprofit Tech for Good.

Building on firm foundations: Organizations and growth in urban arts communities

ABSTRACT This paper examines changes in the size of the nonprofit arts sector in mid-sized U.S. cities over the period from 2012 to 2019. Asking why some cities have more robust arts organizations than other cities, and why some see more organizational growth over time than others, the paper analyzes data collected on 223 mid-sized municipalities. I find that organizational capacities both within and beyond the arts sector strongly predict the size and growth of a city’s arts organization. Those capacities are measured by the presence of Fortune 500 firms, local arts councils, and successful applications for NEA grants. The findings also suggest that cities with greater income inequality have larger nonprofit arts sectors.

PROPELLERS OF ORGANISATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY IN HOSPICES IN SOUTH AFRICA

Hospices operating in the non-profit sector are experiencing organisational sustainability pressures, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, while the population of patients who are terminally ill and requiring palliative care is increasing, the resources required to render this noble service are depleting, so much so that some hospices have closed. The situation raises profound organisational sustainability concerns, and this serves as the motivation for this generic qualitative study to investigate the propellers of organisational sustainability in South African-based hospices operating in the non-profit sector. Data was collected through interviews with twelve senior managers from different hospice organisations. The data was then analysed using Thematic Content Analysis (TCA). Subsequent results reveal that a cocktail of factors, including transparent communication, visionary leadership, a strategic disposition, improved service quality, a strong corporate culture, a diversified revenue base and committed staff, propel organisational sustainability among hospices. Conversely, the COVID-19 pandemicenforced lockdowns and the rampant emergence of many NPOs impede the sustainability prospects of the hospices. With these insights, this study contributes to the organisational sustainability discourse from a uniquely South African perspective, given the dearth of research in this area, particularly in the context of developing economies.

Doing Good Work in a Crisis: Views of Pay and the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Public, Nonprofit, and For-Profit Sectors

The critical efforts of essential workers during the COVID-19 crisis might have important implications for how individuals view government, nonprofit, and for-profit sector workers and their pay. This article explores views of employees’ pay considering three rationales (anticipated judgment, motivation for work, and competency in that work) that might lead to a lower valuation of work in the public and nonprofit sectors (i.e., lower pay rationales), particularly among those who work in the for-profit sector. However, highlighting a concrete way that public and non-profit employees serve the public, such as providing services during COVID-19, might mitigate this negative effect by showing their commitment to public service in an intuitive way. Our survey experiment provides evidence that activating the competency or motivation rationales lowers the likelihood that nonprofit employees are viewed as underpaid among those who work in the for-profit sector when a concrete example of public service is not provided. However, we also find some evidence that an example of public service can help to counteract these effects.

Promising or Predatory? Online Education in Non-Profit and For-Profit Universities

Abstract Online education is a rapidly growing segment of the postsecondary system, and recent growth is concentrated at non-profit universities. Research shows that Black and low-income students are disproportionately represented in online programs; however, research on the outcomes of exclusively online education, especially at four-year non-profit universities, has been limited. Two narratives have emerged about the consequences of the access that online education provides: one describing it as promising and the other describing it as predatory. We harness both institution-level data and individual-level data to intervene in this debate. We show that online education is related to worse educational outcomes in non-profit and for-profit sectors, including lower retention and graduation rates. A sensitivity analysis suggests that selection into online education is unlikely to explain these results. Attending online is also related to some less desirable student loan repayment outcomes across sectors. Our results suggest that online education is a form of “predatory inclusion,” in that access is coupled with increased risks for students relative to comparable peers attending in-person. In light of our findings, we propose that the provision of online education by for-profit entities—even in the non-profit sector—may play a central role in producing poor student outcomes.

Managing government commissioning and philanthropic expectations: earnings management in Australian nonprofit disability service providers

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence of earnings management in the Australian not-for-profit (NFP) disability service providers sector, as well as to understand the motivations for and implications of such practices. This research is important for stakeholders, such as members and funders, as well as the broader Australian community, considering the significant financial resources allocated to these organizations from the public purse.Design/methodology/approachThe authors employ a longitudinal dataset containing financial data from 154 Australian NFP disability service providers, collected over a two-year period (2015–2016). Through the analysis of detailed balance sheets and income statements, the authors seek to uncover evidence of earnings management practices in this sector. The study’s results provide valuable insights into the behaviour of the charitable human services sector.FindingsThe findings reveal that Australian NFP disability service providers engage in earnings management practices, primarily aimed at reducing reported profits to meet the normative financial expectations of stakeholders, such as public sector funders and philanthropists. The executives of these organizations strive to report profits close to zero, being cautious not to report a loss, which might raise concerns about their sustainability.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to the existing literature on earnings management in the NFP sector by focussing on Australian disability service providers, an area that has been under-researched due to a lack of suitable data. The results offer insights into the incentives and implications of earnings management practices in this sector and highlight the need for a revaluation of accounting standards, reporting requirements and audit arrangements applicable to the NFP sector.

The digital world and atypical work: Perceptions and difficulties of teleworking in Hungary and Romania

IT solutions have been transforming the world of work, albeit with varying intensity, for decades. They affect, among other things, the organisation of work, work structures, employment patterns and working time. Solutions such as artificial intelligence (AI), business intelligence (BI), robotic process automation (RPA), workflow, process mining, etc. are now a daily reality in the corporate sector, be it physical or mental work. However, the spread of digital solutions across organisations, spaces and sectors is uneven. Can the impact of this uneven spread be observed in employment, especially in atypical forms of employment? In our questionnaire research, we seek to establish how employees with tertiary education in two pairs of sectors (Hungarian and Romanian non-profit sectors and Hungarian non-profit and for-profit sectors) in two countries perceive some demographic characteristics of teleworking. In our research, we analysed the responses of Hungarian and Romanian working-age citizens with tertiary education who had been working in telework for at least one year at the time of completing the questionnaire. In addition to the deterioration of work relationships and the lack of personal contacts already shown by many studies, it is observed that the work-life balance is upset for single people and those without children, while the number of children does not influence opinions on teleworking. The differences observed and presented in the study are typically not gender-specific but largely based on globalised perspectives.

Beyond “Psychic Income”: An Exploration of Interventions to Address Work-Life Imbalances, Burnout, and Precarity in Contemporary Nonprofit Work

Abstract Nonprofit scholars and practitioners alike adhere to a long-held assumption that nonprofit work is, and will remain, inherently meaningful work. The long-term marketization of the nonprofit sector coupled with the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic has undercut this narrative. Our research on meaningful nonprofit work indicates that while many nonprofit workers do find their work meaningful, pay, flexibility, and work/life balance are increasingly important to them. This commentary suggests that nonprofit leaders can no longer presume that workers motivated by prosocial values will seek out and stay with nonprofit work, satisfied with the “psychic income” that comes from doing good work. Nonprofits must be managed and led differently such that they center workers’ contemporary needs and desires. Organizational and public policy initiatives around pay equity and flexible work can support such a transition for the nonprofit sector.

Advances to the CROSERF protocol to improve oil spill response decision making

The Chemical Response to Oil Spills: Ecological Effects Research Forum (CROSERF) created a standardized protocol for comparing the toxicity of physically dispersed oil versus chemically dispersed oil to address environmental concerns related to the proposed use of dispersants in the early 2000s. Since then, many revisions have been made to the original protocol to diversify the intended use of the data generated, incorporate emerging technologies, and to examine a wider range of oil types including non-conventional oils and fuels. Under the Multi-Partner Research Initiative (MPRI) for oil spill research under Canada's Oceans Protection Plan (OPP), a network of 45 participants from seven countries representing government, industry, non-profit, private, and academic sectors was established to identify the current state of the science and formulate a series of recommendations to modernize the oil toxicity testing framework. The participants formed a series of working groups, targeting specific aspects of oil toxicity testing, including: experimental conduct; media preparation; phototoxicity; analytical chemistry; reporting and communicating results; interpreting toxicity data; and appropriate integration of toxicity data to improve oil spill effects models. The network participants reached a consensus that a modernized protocol to assess the aquatic toxicity of oil should be sufficiently flexible to address a broad range of research questions in a ‘fit-for-purpose’ manner, where methods and approaches are driven by the need to generate scientifically-defensible data to address specific study objectives. Considering the many needs and varied objectives of aquatic toxicity tests currently being conducted to support and inform oil spill response decision making, it was also concluded that the development of a one size fits all approach would not be feasible.

Climate Change and the Voluntary Sector: An Introduction

The voluntary and civil society sector plays important roles in climate policy, mitigation and adaptation, especially given the pervasive government and market failures in this policy domain. Does the quality and quantity of scholarship published in nonprofit-focused journals reflect the topic’s importance? This article reviews voluntary sector scholarship on climate issues and serves to introduce Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly’s first organized collection of research on the voluntary sector and climate change. We begin by summarizing and commenting on the findings of a modified systematic literature review of past research on this subject. We then introduce the other five articles published in this symposium, place them in the context of past literature, and discuss their potential contributions to helping researchers expand the conversation and the knowledge on this topic in future work. Finally, we outline ideas and issues for future research.

Sedating Democracy’s Watchdogs: Critical Reflections on Canada’s Proposed Online News Act

In April 2022, the Government of Canada introduced Bill C-18 (the Online News Act). This Bill is one of the recent attempts by governments in several countries to address a perceived crisis-level disruption to newspapers’ finances by requiring internet platform operators to pay for newspapers’ content displayed on their platforms. As of the writing of these comments, the Bill has passed the third reading at the House of Commons and is now awaiting review and voting by the Senate.
 The stated purpose of Bill C-18 is “to regulate digital news intermediaries with a view to enhancing fairness in the Canadian digital news marketplace and contributing to its sustainability, including the sustainability of news businesses in Canada, in both the non-profit and for-profits sectors, including independent local ones.” It seeks to accomplish this goal by “establish[ing] a framework through which digital news intermediary operators and news businesses may enter into agreements respecting news content that is made available by digital news intermediaries.”
 The key element of Bill C-18 is empowering an “eligible news business” or “group of eligible news businesses” to initiate a regulated bargaining process (either individually or collectively) with an “operator” of a “digital news intermediary” and imposing a corresponding duty on such operator to participate in the process, coupled with a duty on all participants to bargain in good faith. The bargaining process consists of three steps. It begins with bargaining sessions. If the parties are unable within a reasonable period to reach an agreement in the bargaining sessions, they enter mediation sessions, and if the mediation sessions do not result in an agreement within a reasonable period, then either party may initiate final offer arbitration.
 The underlying assumption behind the proposed legislation is that fundamental unfairness exists in the relationships between news publishers and internet platforms. Essentially, the Bill’s animating narrative draws a connection between newspapers’ declining revenue (both from advertising and from readers’ subscriptions), the growth of digital advertising and of Google’s and Facebook’s dominance thereof, and the fact that newspapers’ content can be accessed freely via Google News or Facebook users’ postings. The logic runs as follows: By providing links to newspapers’ stories, Google and Facebook freeride on that content to attract readers to their platforms (and away from newspapers). As readers have migrated, so have advertisers. Faced with dwindling advertising revenue and confronting platforms with unmatched bargaining power, newspapers have no choice but to acquiesce to the sharing of their stories through these platforms because without readers’ traffic to their websites, they would lose even more advertisers. Hence not only the need to force platforms into a negotiation process that could result in payment obligations imposed on them through mandatory arbitration but also the need to allow newspaper publishers to bargain collectively.
 In the following comments, I wish first to question the logic behind the proposed legislation and then to highlight and discuss three noteworthy elements of Bill C-18: (1) how it relates to and departs from copyright (and how it contemplates payments for actions and in circumstances that exceed news publishers’ entitlements under the Copyright Act); (2) the difference between collective administration of copyright and the Bill C-18’s collective bargaining model; and (3) the sweeping immunity from scrutiny under the Competition Act afforded to such collective bargaining. Finally, I will share my biggest concern about Bill C-18’s proposed solution: its sedating impact on the watchdog role of the press.

Understanding Location and Density: A Spatial Analysis of Cuyahoga County Ohio’s Nonprofit Sector

Theories of density dependence emphasize the role of competition and legitimation in organizational life. However, agglomerative configurations and ecological processes vary substantially over space, resulting in heterogeneous sub-populations which organizations select into by choosing locations. Using geostatistical data constructed from form-990 submissions and the American Community Survey, this article studies the role of location and density in the operations of nonprofits using generalized additive models. After controlling for organizational and neighborhood features, the results show substantial variation in the effect of location on total and contributed revenue. Nonprofit density is positively associated with the location effects across a range of distances. The results suggest organizations benefit greatly from locating in high-density regions and may be most sensitive to variation in density in their immediate proximity. The study emphasizes location dependence through the importance of location and the intra-county distribution of nonprofits.

States, Markets, and Foreign Aid by Simone Dietrich

Developing countries face multiple challenges. Beyond lacking resources, their governments may be corrupt or of low capacity. This poses risks for donor states, whose financial aid might not help those who need it most. However, donors do not handle the risk identically: some continue to funnel much aid through those governments, others redirect large portions to nonstate actors. When facing similar risks, why would donor states deliver foreign aid differently? According to Simone Dietrich's book States, Markets, and Foreign Aid, the answer is donors’ ideological differences, long enshrined in their aid institutions. Some donors are ideologically more “statist,” others are more “neoliberal.” Statist donors tend to have an active public sector themselves, and when distributing aid internationally they favor public-sector partners. Neoliberal donors tend to have active nonprofit and private sectors, and when distributing aid internationally they favor nonstate partners. Moreover, whereas neoliberal donors emphasize shorter-term poverty relief, statist donors aim for longer-term state capacity. Over time, these diverging ideologies have shaped domestic institutions, with donors’ aid systems becoming more incentivized toward particular delivery modes. Institutionalized incentive structures constrain current aid officials: even when a recipient government has corruption or capacity problems, individuals working in a statist system cannot easily bypass it. Similarly, even when breaking poverty's vicious cycle would require building state capacity, individuals working in a neoliberal system cannot easily redirect resources that are usually channeled through nonstate partners.

Nonprofit Planning and Impact with Regard to the 2018 Tax Law

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) is considered the largest tax overhaul since 1986 and was anticipated to produce declining charitable donations for nonprofits and was expected to create disruption across the nonprofit sector in 2018. This study tests whether small nonprofits (under $250,000 in revenues) or large nonprofits (over $250,000 in revenues) planned differently due to the law and secondly, how they were affected by the law. Utilizing survey data from 50 nonprofits, this research offers qualitative data on both large and small nonprofit organizational awareness as it relates to the rollout of the law.