Successful Nonprofit Organizations Research Articles

Nonprofits must improve their change management during tumultuous times

If the past few years have shown us anything, it's that nonprofits need to be adaptable to change. Whether that's changing funding sources, changing physical limitations on operations, or changing donor preferences, successful nonprofit organizations must be able to revise their operations to meet these new conditions as they arise.

HOW TO START A SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP VENTURE THAT CHANGES LIVES

AbstractThe author describes his journey from being a business executive to starting and operating a successful nonprofit organization, Getting Out and Staying Out (GOSO), and he outlines how to become an impactful social entrepreneur. He contends that his “lessons learned have applicability for people in today's workforce who are considering career pivots or “encore careers,” for those contemplating retirement, or people who may have been downsized due to the effects of the pandemic. The objective of GOSO was that “the agency was going to help young men get out and then stay out of Rikers Island, as well as any other jail or prison.” He notes that “someone was there for them for the first time who could help them get out and stay out of Rikers Island by getting jobs with benefits, furthering their education, and getting lives that they had never imagined.” He describes transferal skills he learned in business, such as sales and marketing; and also outlines steps to take in nonprofit formation, such as fund raising, creating a mission statement, incorporating as a 501 (c) (3), and hiring a staff. Besides the benefits for the young men , “I also created a whole new life for myself.”

Impact of the African Organisation for Research and Training in Cancer on Improving Cancer Care on the Continent: 15-Year History

Background and context: African Organisation for Research and Training in Cancer (AORTIC) seeks to become the continent's preeminent nonprofit organization working for cancer control. Established in 1982, and gaining exponential momentum since 2003. Milestones achieved include placing cancer control on the continent's health agenda. Main activities have been to foster collaboration for research and training, advocacy, palliative and psychosocial care, survivor groups, educative meetings for local and international cancer care professionals. Strategy/Tactics: To demonstrate impact of AORTIC on the continent over the past one and a half decades as a successful nonprofit organization aimed at reducing impact of cancer in Africa. Position our organization to lead the continent with home grown innovation to sensitize the cancer workforce to needs of our patients and countries by developing strategies that impact on improving cancer care across the continuum, research priorities and capabilities, professional development, including advocacy, survivorship, acting as a consultative mouth piece and authority on cancer control needs of Africa. Program/Policy process: 11 successful international biennial cancer conferences in Africa, with a steady increase in attendance from 300 to +900 delegates, 12 to 95 sessions, +3000 abstracts presented over 15 years. Last meeting labeled as; “This meeting is high-value; at the level of the best oncology meetings as ASCO and ESMO”. Regional training in pathology, oncology, psycho-oncology, palliative care, advocacy, prevention and early diagnosis. Regional meetings: Senegal, Tanzania, Nigeria, Angola, Mozambique and Cape Verde. Special interest groups: radiation, pathology, nursing, pediatrics and advocacy promoting professional and research development activities. African cancer leadership mentoring academies for young investigators - +40 participants to date. Grants for qualifying members to participate in external training workshops. 39 newsletters - translated into French and Portuguese. Memberships - span across the African continent, Europe, North America and Australia and organizations - 500 individual and close to 20 organizational members. Hosted Africa regional meetings at UICC WCC since 2014. Active on social media - +1300 followers. Publications: Cancer Plan for the African Continent 2013-2017 Handbook for Cancer Research in Africa Cancer Advocacy Training Toolkit for Africa AORTIC Cancer Network Directory, plus an online map Journal articles and position papers - 12 Declarations - 2 Projects - cancer registry mapping Grants - Beginning investigator catalytic grants (BIG Cat), partner NCI (USA) +20 beneficiaries. What was learned: Through coordinated and concerted efforts, relevant stakeholders who can influence and improve cancer care on the continent through collaboration, research and training, AORTIC is a continental networking hub spanning the African continent of more than 13,000 contacts and is a major instrument of change in effective control of cancer in Africa.

Strategic analysis of CSF’s for not-for-profit organizations

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to analyze how strategic planning is used as critical success factors (CSF’s) in not-for-profit (NFP) organizations. This was because many nonprofits had to innovate their operations owing to the global fiscal crises, the continuing international economic instability, natural disasters or the increasing man-made worldwide terrorism. Additionally, the objective is to identify what successful nonprofit organizations actually do to remain effective at the national association level of analysis.Design/methodology/approachA constructivist research design ideology is applied (in contrast to the customary positivist philosophy to collect quantitative). The literature is critically reviewed to identify NFP CSF’s and terms such as capacity building. NFP institutions are theoretically sampled using US-based retrospective data to identify practitioner CSF activities. Applying a constructivist research design ideology, the theoretical CSF’s from the literature review are compared to practitioner activities. Representatives of NFP organizations are invited to participate in a strategic planning exercise to identify the most important CSF’s from the literature and practice that would be needed in the future.FindingsSeven of the nine United Nations NFP capacity building CSF’s are similar to NFP nine practitioner best practices. In comparison to the general literature, NFP practitioners applied leadership, strategic planning, innovation, documented procedures/training, human/technology resource management, financial management, accountability practices, ethical standards with professional communications policies, collaborative fundraising and marketing initiatives along with performance success evaluations.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample was drawn theoretically from 44 nonprofit state-centered institutions in the USA. Although statistically the results pertain strictly to US-based nonprofits, the principles should generalize to other countries as revealed by the similarity with United Nations innovation and strategic planning recommendations.Originality/valueThe authors applied a strategic planning exercise with the 44 participants at their recommendations to prioritize the CSF’s. The result was an innovative SWOT-TOWS diagram that summarized how the nine CSF’s were prioritized and grouped into the three categories of market performance, ethical responsibility and human resources.

The Role of the Board of Directors in Building Successful Nonprofit Organizations

The Role of the Board of Directors in Building Successful Nonprofit Organizations John Lipinski, PhD; Jeananne Nicholls, DBA Abstract The effectiveness of nonprofit organizations is dependent on strong board leadership. This paper lays the foundation for new theories that will help build stronger organizations. Given the importance of nonprofit organizations in today’s economy, it is imperative that we do everything we can to increase their effectiveness. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jmpp.v4n1a1

Fish Friendly Farming: Water, Wine, and Fish—Sustainable Agriculture for a Thirsty World

This case study focuses on Fish Friendly Farming, part of a nonprofit organization, the California Land Stewardship Institute. The FFF program is an example of an innovative model for cooperative public-private environmental collaboration and stewardship. The case provides a history of FFF and its ability to create networks and collaborations between parties that typically find it difficult to work together. This case focuses both on sustainability issues related to land and farming, and on challenges related to scaling up a successful nonprofit organization.

Fractals of strategic coherence in a successful nonprofit organization

AbstractWe theorize that organizations that are able to use stories and examples to explain their strategy and offer a flexible guide to discretionary employee behaviors use them in what can be termed a fractal fashion. The thesis is based on the idea of how strategic logic can be communicated and how it can be reiterated to lead to strategic coherence across different levels of analysis in organizations. The parallels of a nonlinear, reinforcing process that is based on iteration inspired us to draw on complexity theory and fractal processes to understand the generation of strategic coherence. We present the case of a successful nonprofit organization where it appears that such a fractal use of stories occurred.

Book Review: Good Governance: The Board’s Role in Building Successful Nonprofit Organizations

Book Review: Good Governance: The Board’s Role in Building Successful Nonprofit Organizations

Leaders who make a difference: essential strategies for meeting the nonprofit challenge

There are many books on leadership, but few that focus specifically on the role of nonprofit executives. Author Burt Nanus and colleague Stephen M. Dobbs have written this comprehensive book on nonprofit leadership. The authors show how leaders build successful nonprofit organizations by developing key relationships to improve their performance and move them toward a greater good - such as much higher levels of service to their clients and community. They describe the six key roles that effective leaders must play - visionary, strategist, change agent, coach, politician, and fundraiser - and present inspiring examples of how their actions in these roles have been crucial to the success of large and small nonprofits flourishing across the nation. The book offers proven lessons on strategy, team building, fundraising, advocacy, board relations, and much more. Grounded in real-world practice, the book champions the potential of all nonprofit leaders to greatly improve the performance of their organizations and realize their visions of better communities.

Is It Time to Replace the SAT?

lives, an academic icon, and a rite of passage. Each year two million high school seniors pay twenty dollars and toil for three hours over numerous verbal and math questions. Today approximately 1,600 colleges and universities require the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) as criteria for admission, while many others highly recommend it. The SAT has never been more popular. The Educational Testing Service (ETS), which administers the SAT, is one of the country's most successful nonprofit organizations, with more than 3,000 employees and gross annual revenues in excess of $300 million, about 40 percent of which is derived from the test. Yet all is not well with the SAT. Despite its success, or perhaps because of it, critics question the appropriateness and validity of the test to the point of calling for its replacement. The most widely reported criticisms are those that charge that the test has a race and gender The race issue came to a head in 1989 when Georgetown University men's basketball coach John Thompson claimed that the SAT had a proven cultural bias. Thompson's statement was triggered by the NCAA's passage of Proposition 42, which required athletes to score a combined 700 out of a possible 1 600 to be eligible for an athletic scholarship. Thompson and others argue that the test is geared toward white middle-class culture, putting blacks at a disadvantage which explains why blacks score 200 points lower than whites on average. FairTest, an advocacy group that monitors standardized tests, also believes that the SAT is biased. Typically, questions use words or concepts that are part of white culture but may not be part of black culture, the group argues. In a^highly publicized report, FairTest cited a word analogy question in which regatta was part of the answer a question that 53 percent of whites but