Nonprofit Social Service Research Articles

Organizational Change in the Nonprofit Context: A Scoping Review of the Literature

This scoping review takes stock of the landscape of organizational change research in the nonprofit context. Focusing on research published in leading peer-reviewed journals in nonprofit and civil society studies, we extracted 111 published articles from 1973 to 2019. Our findings provide a comprehensive overview of the field capturing how organizations plan for or react to environmental changes in either incremental or comprehensive ways. Findings indicate that most of the research focuses on social service nonprofits with a heavy focus on large-scale comprehensive changes. Based on the identified gaps in the literature, this study discusses implications for future research and implications for practice.

Bridging governmentality and economization: temporality as a financialization device

ABSTRACT Reflecting and reinforcing the financialization of everyday life, non-profit social service organizations, the primary deliverers of benefits and services in the US, are increasingly incorporating financial education and empowerment into their service repertoires. In this article, I examine and compare how financial educators in two organizations that target different populations/problems – women in (economic) transition and chronically/intergenerationally poor people – give financial advice to their clients. I draw a parallel between what Foucault calls the ‘repressive hypothesis’ and claims by personal finance experts and educators that we are silent about money. I suggest that these claims amount to a ‘money repressive hypothesis’ that gives experts what I call an ‘advisor’s benefit’: the appearance of being freed from silence about money and thus able to liberate others from silence and steer them toward financial wellness. I show that financial educators perform this benefit through temporal frames – meaningful ways of intersubjectively organizing experience in reference to time, that invite different levels and forms of attention to the past, present, and future – of their clients’ problems. Bridging literatures on governmentality and economization, I contend that these temporal frames are disciplinary financialization devices that act in connection with sociocultural constructions of populations/problems to assemble financial subjectivities.

Gender employment contradictions in Israeli nonprofit organizations providing social care

PurposeThis article asks how gender, ethnicity and other identities intersect and shape the employment experiences of social workers. During recent decades, governments have contracted social care to for-profit and nonprofit organizations (NPOs) globally as a part of the adaption of the neoliberal approach. Most employees in these organizations are women. However, there is a lack of knowledge about women working in social service NPOs and their unique working environments.Design/methodology/approachThis article explores the experiences of women employed as social workers in social care NPOs in Israel regarding intersectionality. 27 in-depth interviews were conducted with women social workers working in social service NPOs. Participants reflected diversity in ethnicity, religion and full-time and part-time jobs. Thematic analysis was used.FindingsThe findings shed light on: (1) the contradiction social workers experienced between the stated values of the social care NPO and those values’ conduct, (2) intersectional discrimination among social workers from vulnerable populations and (3) the lack of gender-aware policies.Social implicationsThe need to raise awareness of the social care sector and governments to those contradictions and to promote diversity through gender-aware policies and practices.Originality/valueThe article suggests a conceptualization describing gender employment contradictions in social care NPOs, discusses how the angle of intersectionality expands the understanding of the complexities and pressures exerted on social workers from minority groups and emphasizes the need for social care NPOs to acknowledge and deal with these contradictions.

Cross-sectoral collaborations between nonprofit organizations and businesses: implications for organizations providing mental health rehabilitation services

ABSTRACT This article presents a case study of a community garden in Israel, the product of a collaboration between a Social Service Nonprofit Organization (SSNO) providing mental health rehabilitation services and a real-estate business firm. The study examines the inter-organizational dynamics of this collaboration, as well as its benefits and challenges for the SSNO and its service users, based on interviews with key figures, onsite observations, and document analysis. The results indicate that collaboration with business can offer SSNOs benefits in terms of financial resources and volunteers, but at the same time involves difficulties, which are intensified in the context of mental health SSNOs.

Who Provides Resilience to the Community Resilience Providers?

The article focuses on employees of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) as an essential component of community resilience. Forty women, professionals in the helping professions, were interviewed about their work experiences as employees in social service NPOs. The interviews were conducted from 2019 to 2020, mostly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to understand those employees’ perceptions of work conditions, contracting-out of social services, professional community and relationships with co-workers, work–life balance, job satisfaction, and their future plans. The findings present loneliness at work and lacking of a sense of community and a strong sense of mission while facing a challenging environment and work conditions in NPOs. In the discussion, we offer a complementary understanding of solidarity and resilience in NPOs—and we elaborate on the lack of professional “communitiness” and its possible harmful effect on the resilience of wider communities in times of crisis—when resilience is mostly needed. The paper presents NPOs employees as critical actors in producing resilience, hence there exists a need to examine their work environment, job perceptions, and the latter’s contribution to their own resilience.

A qualitative study of women care professionals’ experiences in social service non-profit organizations in Israel

ABSTRACT Although women play a significant role in non-profit organizations as employees, volunteers, and clients, there is insufficient knowledge about these women and their unique work experiences in the current era, which is characterized by outsourcing of social services. This study explored work experiences among women in professional care settings of social service non-profit organizations (SSNPOs). Forty in-depth interviews were conducted with women with postsecondary education working as care professionals (such as social workers and occupational therapists) in Israeli SSNPOs. The sample reflected Israel’s geographical, religious, ethnic, and job (full-time and part-time) diversity. Interviewees were asked about their employment experiences, struggles, and challenges. Thematic analysis was used. The findings shed light on how care work in SSNPOs enters the private sphere and is internalized, i.e. boundaries between home and work that are continuously blurred and endanger employees’ well-being. Our study suggests that women working in care professions in contracted SSNPOs are more vulnerable due to their working conditions, despite their postsecondary education and defined professions. Negative psychosocial outcomes are the major challenge for this population.

Collaboration Between Businesses and Social Service Nonprofits as Organized Anarchy: The Insider Perspective

ABSTRACT The literature on the collaboration between businesses and Social Service Nonprofits (SSNs) emphasizes the importance of strategic management, based on joint governance and rational decision-making. This article presents a multiple case study analysis of four cross-sector collaborations, between for-profit business organizations and SSNs. The study examined the dynamics of interorganizational collaborations and their management in different stages of the collaboration. Data were collected from 36 in-depth interviews with key players from both organization types. The findings revealed that collaborations were based mainly on non-systematic decision-making and sporadic oral communication, with high participant turnover. Strategic planning was mostly absent, as were attempts to institutionalize administrative processes and procedures, form a new type of governance, and conclude formal agreements. An “organized anarchy” model is proposed to analyze the relations between the organizations and their operations during the collaboration period. Implications for future business-SSN collaborations and for collaboration management are presented and discussed.

Grounding responsibilization: Women in the care professions in contracted social services nonprofits

This article examines how women working as care professionals in contracted social services position themselves in the neoliberal, marketized era. This case study examined the renowned notion of “responsibilization”—in brief, the transformation of the state's responsibility to the individual. In the 1980s, many countries, including Israel, implemented privatization processes and contracted social services to for-profit and nonprofit social services organizations. The literature so far has shown the negative repercussions on service recipients and employees; however, scarce research exists on the unique working environment and conditions of care professionals with postsecondary education in nonprofit social services organizations. Based on the lacuna and overrepresentation of women in the field, this paper explores the work experiences of female employees in nonprofit social services organizations, including the attitudes and meanings they express in various structural contexts. Forty in-depth interviews with women care professionals in Israeli nonprofit social services organizations were conducted. Participants included Israeli and Palestinian women who reflected diversity in ethnicity, religion, and full-time or part-time jobs. The interviews dealt with employment experiences, work environment, and professional aspirations. Thematic analysis was used. The findings shed light on (a) poor working conditions and violation of workers' rights, (b) the employees' adaptation to the current situation, (c) striving for constant professionalism, and (d) aspiring to initiate a private clinic. Based on the concept of responsibilization, we discuss how the neoliberal realm becomes embedded in the employees' experiences and actions. We also contribute to the theory on responsibilization, suggesting that the nonprofit sector serves as a splitter that decentralizes social problems into local or “private” ones.

Competitive champions versus cooperative advocates

Abstract
 Background: Evaluation offers non-profit organizations an opportunity to improve their services, demonstrate achievements, and be accountable. The extant literature identifies individuals who can enhance the uptake of evaluation as evaluation champions. However, a paucity of detail is available regarding how to identify them and the support they require.
 Purpose: This research investigated the characteristics and motivations of evaluation champions and examined how they promoted and embedded evaluation in an organizational system.
 Setting: Australian human and social service non-profit organizations.
 Research design: Drawing upon the literature and social interdependence theory, the research took an interpretivist perspective to collaboratively generate knowledge about evaluation champions. The aim was to understand and develop a reconstruction of the characteristics of individuals. This article constitutes a component of a larger research project.
 Data Collection and Analysis: This research used purposive sampling to recruit champions working in Australian non-profit organizations, who were identified via descriptive criteria gleaned from a literature review. The research involved interviewing 17 champions, four of whom also participated in organizational case studies. Analysis of the semi-structured interviews and case studies generated information about the activities, strategies, motivations, and attributes of individuals who championed and advocated for evaluation.
 Findings: This article argues that evaluation advocates is a preferable descriptor when attempting to embed evaluation by cultivating mutually beneficial interactions and cooperative working relationships. This research defines evaluation advocates as individuals who motivate others and provide energy, interest, and enthusiasm by connecting evaluation with colleagues’ personal aspirations and the organizational goals to make judgements about effectiveness. This article includes a field guide to facilitate evaluation advocates’ identification, recruitment, support, and development.

Exploring the Implementation of Workplace-Focused Primary Prevention Efforts to Reduce Family Violence in a Regional City: The Need for Clarity, Capacity, and Communication.

In response to the high burden of family and domestic violence (FDV), The Australian National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children has established that primary prevention measures are necessary to reduce FDV's harmful impacts on health. The Community, Respect, and Equality (CRE) project is a primary prevention initiative aimed towards changing harmful social norms and practices that enable FDV in Geraldton, Western Australia. Organizations affiliated with the CRE are required to promote gender equality and a respectful work environment. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding the impact and effectiveness of such interventions, especially in rural/regional areas. As such, this study served to evaluate the project's effectiveness in a CRE-certified workspace, a local non-profit social services provider. Investigators conducted interviews to learn how the organization had implemented the CRE, and whether the CRE had had an impact on social norms and practices within the work environment. Findings indicated that the project had largely failed to permeate workplace culture due to a lack of effective promotion, low perceived benefits, and low resources. Future interventions must take persuasive measures, even for organizations perceived to be receptive to change.

Engaging Citizens in Government Contracting: A Theoretical Approach for the Role of Social Service Nonprofits

AbstractOutsourcing may lead public administrators to regard service recipients as customers to be satisfied rather than as citizens demanding access and empowerment. This research investigates the extent to which social service nonprofits might bridge the gap between citizenship and customer service to advance shared values and reinforce public institutions. Due to unique institutional and organizational features, such as value-driven commitments, restrictions to financial distribution, and special knowledge of under-represented groups, social service nonprofit contractors may offer distinct advantages over for-profit firms in contract management. We begin by analyzing the conflicting and complementary aspects of citizenship and customer service in democracy and identify the advantages of nonprofit contractors. Then, using the lenses of transaction cost economics and agency theory, we explore how nonprofits can mitigate contract risks while bolstering citizenship. We present several suggestions to guide public agencies and future scholarship on reasserting the importance of public values in modern governance.

Individual-based and interactional resilience mechanisms in social and healthcare service NPOs during the COVID-19 pandemic: Handling a disruptive extreme context in Austria.

While Austrian social and healthcare service nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are key performers in the COVID-19 pandemic, we also notice their vulnerability in terms of struggling with this disruptive extreme context. The particularity of disruptive extreme contexts is that organizations commonly can neither anticipate them, nor prepare specific countermeasures or specialized resources for fighting against them. Thus, we regard organizational resilience based on non-specialized resources as an appropriate approach for dealing with (the struggles of) disruptive extreme contexts. Organizational resilience refers to an organization's ability to resist disruptive extreme contexts while maintaining and adapting functionality and ultimately learning from these extreme contexts by mobilizing and accessing the required resources, behaviors and capabilities. Based on 33 expert interviews with NPO top and middle managers we aim to explore individual-based and interactional resilience mechanisms of NPOs in the pandemic. The qualitative content analysis yielded to following results: Individual personality traits (e.g., pragmatisms, flexibility) and attitudes (serenity and optimism) constitute individual-based resilience mechanisms. Moreover, a shared (crisis) understanding (e.g., common sense of direction), social connectedness (e.g., team cohesion) and managerial staff orientation (e.g., a caring attitude) as interactional resilience mechanisms helped to maintain and adapt NPOs' functioning. Overall, this study reinforces the multilevel nature of resilience in terms of the crucial combination of individual and interactional resilience mechanisms for facing adversity. Moreover, it emphasizes the evolving nature of resilience in terms of the required time for, e.g., building trust.

Roles of Nonprofits in Disaster Response and Recovery: Adaptations to Shifting Disaster Patterns in the Context of Climate Change

Nonprofit social service organizations play key roles in disaster response and recovery efforts targeting socially vulnerable populations, particularly in the United States. Increasingly frequent and intense disasters associated with climate change may raise new challenges for nonprofits. Yet little research has explored how changing disaster patterns may impact the roles of nonprofits. With this in mind, we examine the case of Tallahassee, Florida, which experienced a 3-year surge in tropical storm activity from 2016 to 2018. Based on interviews with nonprofit staff, supplemented by document analysis and participant observation, we explore how nonprofits experienced and adapted to this intensification of storm activity. We find that nonprofits that had formerly been peripheral to disaster work—such as homeless shelters and case management agencies—took on new responsibilities during this period but struggled to gain recognition as key actors. The authors develop a four-part scheme for classifying the roles of nonprofits and apply this scheme in interpreting the diverse experiences and adaptation strategies of nonprofit social service organizations. There is a need to more fully integrate some classes of nonprofits that have not traditionally been seen as key actors in disaster systems.

Understanding Employees’ Commitment to their Sector of Employment: A Qualitative Study

Why do many people remain committed to their chosen sector of employment when they could obtain better working conditions, higher pay, improved career opportunities, heightened reputation, or other benefits by shifting to a different sector? More generally, what factors lead people to be more or less committed to their sector of employment? Research on commitment to work-relevant targets has extensively studied employees’ commitment to their organization and occupation, but largely neglected employees’ commitment to their sector of employment. To address these questions, we conducted focus groups and interviews with 218 present and former employees of the nonprofit social services sector in Singapore. Our analyses revealed that the factors that contribute to and undermine individuals’ commitment to their sector of employment include not only the identity and characteristics of the sector itself, but also a range of other factors that reside within the person, their families, their clients, and their organizations. Our study illuminates an important but understudied target of work-relevant commitment, provides rich, qualitative insights into the foundations and development of commitment, contributes to emerging research on employee identity and careers, and offers valuable practical implications for employees and for organization and sector leaders.

The Impact of COVID-19 on (Remaking?) Social Service Delivery: An 18 Month Review

ABSTRACT Purpose Our 18-month exploratory qualitative study explored the impacts of COVID-19 on social service delivery in the mid-island region of Vancouver Island, Canada to contribute to meaningful local practice and to add to evolving social work knowledge regarding pandemics. Method: Interviews were held at six-monthly intervals with representatives from 12 social service nonprofit and government organizations. Results The study demonstrates that the challenges and stressors of this period have resulted in both a re-affirming of relational social work practice alongside some re-making of social service delivery. Discussion The study confirms expectations of COVID-19 entrenching inequities, deepening needs, and creating new categories of service users while also taxing service providers. The value of face-to-face engagement is underscored as foundational to effective social work, though how this is effected has changed. A hybrid model of social service delivery has emerged blending in-person and remote approaches. Policy engagement has shifted in the short-term allowing greater visibility of complex service provider issues. Workplace conditions have altered, and placement options have expanded. These developments offer a tenuous template for the future, though whether such social service delivery remaking is temporary or not remains unclear. Conclusion The research concludes that pandemic conditions will prompt immediate adaptation and innovation, but that evaluation is needed to identify which measures are sustainable in dealing with a prolonged pandemic and to anticipate future disruptions.

From “Crisis” to “Opportunity”: Israeli Social Service Nonprofits’ Responses to COVID-19

ABSTRACT Nonprofit organizations operating in civil society have become the main channel for social service provision in most neoliberal welfare economies. Social service nonprofits (SSNs) deliver essential services mainly to vulnerable and marginalized populations. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, SSNs have been at the frontline of dealing with its socioeconomic consequences. This paper focuses on the activities and responses to the crisis of SSNs in Israel. Interviews with SSN directors (N = 17) show that they dealt with growing demands for services due to the social implications of the pandemic, along with operational difficulties, such as deterioration in clients’ condition, disruption in service continuity, and reduced funding and staff. Next to these difficulties, the findings highlighted the social innovations adopted by SSNs to maintain service provision, such as implementing remote service technologies, forming collaborations, and recruiting volunteers. Implications for the social services and policies are presented and discussed.

"Hurry up and wait": Stigma, Poverty, and Contractual Citizenship.

The emergence of welfare contractualism in the United States in the 1970s marked a shift from viewing welfare as an entitlement to viewing welfare as a right to be earned through work. Combined with the continual degradation of labor markets since the 1970s, the rise of neoliberal ideology emphasizing individualism, and the passage of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, the devolved welfare system – most often managed by a myriad of social service nonprofits – has exacerbated the difficulties of the poor. Scholars have noted, for instance, the loss of civil rights and the proliferation of administrative burdens – including incessant waiting – with which poor people seeking aid are increasingly faced. But “contractual citizenship,” I argue, has not just remade relations between the poor and the state. Rather, as a diffuse cultural ethos, contractual citizenship has also remade relations between and amongst the poor themselves, exacerbating stigmatization, distancing, and denigration. Drawing upon an ethnography of a soup kitchen based in Syracuse, New York, I argue that as a consequence of contractual citizenship, prospective recipients of aid and the poor more broadly adapt their behavior to appear as deserving, worthy citizens and, simultaneously, externally defame their peers for their lesser behaviors. Those who take maximum advantage of free resources – such as attending multiple emergency food programs and taking more than one plate of food – are often deemed by other poor recipients of aid as greedy, ungrateful, and selfish. Thus, the repetitious and time-consuming nature of interacting with the state for basic resources – such as housing or welfare – is further complicated by this intraclass stigma. These findings not only shed light on the challenges of building solidarity amongst the poor but show how political and economic shifts influence how poor people interact with each other and the state.

Интеграция медицинского и социального обслуживания пожилых в России: успехи и барьеры

Aging creates demand for the integration of health and social services, as it ensures more timely response and better satisfaction of patients' needs for treatment and care and helps to contain the growth of costs of the services. The research aims at assessing the current level of integration of health and social services for the elderly in Russia. List of possible integration mechanisms that may coordinate work provision of services to the elderly was elaborated. Analysis of the regulatory framework and interviews with leaders and workers of health and social care in three Russian regions (Oryol Oblast, Karelia and North Ossetia) was carried out to determine the existing and implementing forms of integration and to assess the level of integration and barriers to its increase. The current level of integration of social and medical services in Russia seems to be low. In recent years, there has been a transition from a strict division of responsibility of departments to an integrated system, but the parameters of the transition have not been sufficiently developed. Significant barriers to integration (administrative, legal, financial, and related to staffing) exist. The results of the study can be used in work of federal and regional authorities to improve health care, social services and long-term care for the elderly, and by commercial and non-profit social service organizations.

The features of digitalization of regional socially oriented NPOs: Cases of Yekaterinburg

The article presents the results of a study of the digitalization of activities of socially oriented non-profit organizations in Yekaterinburg. This city was chosen because of its status as theadministrative center of the Ural Federal District and the Sverdlovsk Region, which scores high in the development ratings of the non-profit sector of social services. Interviews with representatives of SO NPOs showed that organizations in Yekaterinburg are going through the stage of “digitalization” Most often they resort to using websites, social networks, instant messengers and online fundraising. Some NGOs are working on creating digital products in various forms for online consultation. The digital dividends received by SO NPOs in Yekaterinburg include: reduction of time costs due to the introduction of electronic document management, an increase in the inflow of financial resources due to the use of online fundraising tools, and a reduction in the risk of loss of reputation due to an increase in the level of publication openness of information resources of NPOs. Information portals are gaining popularity among NGOs, acting as intermediaries in attracting intellectual volunteers to social projects. Furthermore, a sector-wide need in a regional information aggregator for NPOs and in facilitating access of non-profit social service providers to databases of service recipients was identified. Among the barriers to digital maturation is the lack of financial and human resources, the lack of a developed strategy for digital transformation.

Sharing the Mic in Domestic Violence Program Leadership: Expanding on Dr. Perlmutter's Call for Social Work Administration

Domestic violence (DV) work in the United States emerged as a grassroots collectivist movement and grew into more formalized programming within nonprofit social service organizations. In this commentary, co-authored by DV program leaders along with DV scholars and social work educators, we apply and extend the work of Dr. Felice Perlmutter as we reflect on the role of professionalized social work in DV program leadership. Narratives of DV program leaders highlight models of anti-oppressive, feminist and empowerment-focused leadership emerging from diverse sources of experience and education. We promote an anti-oppressive stance of “sharing the mic” to include diversity of voices and ways of learning and leading. We assert that formal social work education and training provides valuable preparation, as do lived experiences, survivor voices, and community membership. A theory of effective leadership emerges that promotes mutual respect, empowerment and collective partnerships that benefit from the talents, skills and experience of all.