Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly

This article uses data from the 2006 Social Capital Community Survey to examine the impact of social capital, religious capital, human capital, and attitudes on volunteerism. Five alternative structural models are estimated. Tests reveal unambiguously the inferiority of the Tobit model and point to a double-hurdle model with independent errors as the best alternative. Major findings are that more diversity in friendships and more education increase the likelihood of volunteering, greater intensity of religious belief increases the level of volunteerism, and more informal social networking and formal group involvement along with greater religious participation increase both the likelihood and level of volunteering. Study results suggest strongly that the nonprofit voluntary sector has a vested interest in promoting policies that expand educational opportunities and foster civil engagement, social interaction, and religious participation.

Research has shown that individuals with greater public service motivation (PSM) values are more likely to work for government, because government jobs offer more public service opportunities; the question then arises of whether they are also drawn into other activities that offer service opportunities, such as participation in voluntary organizations. This study examined the volunteering behavior of government employees in different domains. Using the Americans’ Changing Lives survey, logistic regression models were estimated to examine the relationship between employment in the government sector and self-reported volunteering in five different types of organization. The results indicated that government employees engage in significantly more volunteering than their private-sector counterparts. When separate models were run for volunteering in each organization type, controlling for several other factors, the results showed that these initial big differences were driven primarily by their volunteering in two specific types of organization: Educational institutions and political groups.

Through their nonpartisan voter registration and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) activities, nonprofit human service organizations play a critical role in promoting a more inclusive democracy by engaging low-income citizens and marginalized populations in the voting process. Previous studies of nonpartisan voter mobilization have focused on the effectiveness of door-knocking and phone calls by large community organizing groups as a strategy for increasing voter turnout. However there have been no studies to date examining the effectiveness of offering voter registration and other forms of voting support at the service delivery site, a strategy described as “agency-based” voter engagement. Using a quasi-experimental design, this study addresses this gap in the literature by examining the effects of nonprofit voter mobilization efforts on increasing voter turnout. We use voter turnout data from 505 clients of seven nonprofit human service organizations in the city of Detroit collected after the 2010 elections. The findings yield strong evidence that nonprofits’ agency-based voter mobilization efforts are effective. We find that for each voting-related contact a client receives from his or her service agency, the likelihood of turnout increases by 11.1 percentage points, even after controlling for other factors known to influence voting behavior. Moreover, we find that the most effective forms of voting-related contacts are voter registration assistance and personal voting reminders. We conclude by examining the implications of these findings for nonprofits’ voter engagement efforts.

Private nonprofit organizations (NPO) involved in publically funded welfare programs face the challenge of maintaining autonomy in their strategic decision-making processes. In this article we study the extent to which NPO managers perceive this autonomy vis-à-vis government in defining the NPO’s mission, their working procedures, the target groups to be served and the results to be achieved. Empirical evidence is taken from a large-N sample of 255 NPOs engaged in social welfare provision in Belgium. Our findings suggest that public resource dependence does have a negative impact on the perception of NPOs about the level of organizational autonomy. Still, we will argue that, when looking at the relative share of public income in the NPO’s total budget, the nature and intensity of the consultation process between government and NPO and some measures of organizational capacity, this picture is less black and white than presumed.

The current two studies, one testing college students and the other testing adults, showed nearly identical comparative effects of news features about either a nonprofit organization alone or about that same nonprofit but sponsored by a commercial company. There were two exemplars of nonprofit and commercial company pairings, and each was presented as “localized.” That is, the nonprofit and commercial company were located in the same city as the respondents or nonlocalized. Surprisingly, there was almost no indication that the commercial sponsor damaged positive responses, but there was some indication that under the localized condition, there was more negativity toward the commercial sponsorship. The elaboration likelihood model and attribution theory provide theoretical space for understanding these effects.

Some local governments solicit voluntary Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOTs) from nonprofit organizations. PILOTs are intended to substitute for property and other taxes nonprofit entities do not pay even though they consume local government services. The diffusion of PILOTs to other jurisdictions depends in part on local government financial managers’ knowledge and perceptions. Using a mail survey of local government financial managers, this study explores factors that explain the use and solicitation of PILOTs. Jurisdictions where local government financial managers do not view administrative and political costs as greater than benefits of revenue are more likely to have and solicit PILOTs. Proximity to other jurisdictions that have a PILOT make it more likely a jurisdiction will consider soliciting a PILOT. However, perceived stakeholder support for the tax exempt status of the nonprofit sector makes a jurisdiction less likely to consider soliciting PILOTs.

This first ever functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis of charitable bequest decision making found increased activation in the precuneus and lingual gyrus of the brain compared to charitable giving and volunteering decisions. Greater lingual gyrus activation was also associated with increased propensity to make a charitable bequest. Previous studies have shown that activation of these brain regions is related to taking an outside perspective of one’s self, recalling the recent death of a loved one, and recalling vivid autobiographical memories across one’s life. We propose that bequest decision making is analogous to visualizing the final chapter in one’s autobiography and that fund-raisers may do well to emphasize donors’ autobiographical connections with the charity. Due to inherent mortality salience, people may resist creating this final chapter but, once engaged, may seek to leave an enduring legacy.

We investigate the relationship between revenue diversification and volatility for nonprofits. Modern portfolio theory suggests that more diversification reduces volatility at the expense of reduced expected revenue. We find that this relationship should not be taken for granted. We use a new empirical measure of volatility that addresses estimation issues of expected revenue, including heteroskedasticity and the omission of the effect of diversification on expected revenue. We also examine the impact on nonprofits of different types of diversification. We find that the effects of diversification on volatility and expected revenue depend on the compositional change in the portfolio. For example, a more diversified portfolio achieved by replacing earned income with donations reduces both volatility and expected revenue, while replacing investment income with donations to achieve an increase in diversification of the same magnitude reduces volatility and increases expected revenue. This suggests other motives for nonprofit organizations to hold investments.

The purpose of the study is to review the adoptability of learning orientation (LO), market orientation (MO), and innovation to human service nonprofits by investigating the relationships among these. The study hypothesizes and analyzes the mediating effect of MO in the movement from learning orientation to innovation. The findings based on nonprofit community centers in South Korea partially support the positive influence of LO and MO on innovation, proposing the importance of establishing both LO and MO to facilitate innovations in human service nonprofits. The study suggests implications for practice and future research.