Keith Snavely

Development of Trust in Rural Nonprofit Collaborations

Development of trust among organization leaders and staff is important to the formation of successful organizational collaborations. Nonprofit leaders in two rural regions of southern Illinois and the Mississippi Delta demonstrate an awareness of the importance of trust among participants in the collaborations they engage in. Several environmental factors both encourage and constrain the ability of nonprofits in the two regions to form collaborations and build trust among partners. One of these, rural location, is largely considered a positive influence, making it easier for nonprofit leaders to get to know each other and work cooperatively. In addition, other factors such as race relations, government policies and mandates, nonprofit leadership, and organization financial and political resources have powerful effects on creation of collaborations and development of trust.

Marketing in the Government Sector: A Public Policy Model

Public agencies show increasing interest in marketing strategies. Although a marketing approach to service delivery can be useful, public agencies need to reformulate business marketing principles to fit the uniqueness of the public sector. Especially important are the broad purposes government agencies serve, as opposed to the narrow, self-interest goals of the private for-profit sector. Using revenue departments as an illustrative case, the author proposes a public policy model of marketing for a government sector.

Three Faces of the State and the Nonprofit Sector

Recent changes in the U.S. nonprofit sector reflect the influence of market-based public policies and values. In this article, the authors suggest a framework to assess the effects of these policies and values on nonprofit sector characteristics. They propose three models of the state along with three corresponding models of the nonprofit sector. Using recent implementation of market-based policies in two policy domains, foster care and job training, they find that the market-based policies have significantly altered nonprofit behavior and structure. They conclude with suggestions for research using their models of the state and the nonprofit sector.

Bulgaria's non-profit sector: the search for form, purpose, and legitimacy

Bulgaria, like other East European nations since the collapse of communism, has moved rapidly to form private, self-directed non-profit and voluntary organisations. Like those nations too, Bulgaria faces a number of challenges in its pursuit of forming a strong non-profit sector. Chief among those challenges are establishing a sound legal foundation, defining the social purposes and functions of the non-profit sector, and establishing the legitimacy of these organisations in the minds of the Bulgarian people. These three challenges are analysed in the essay, following an overview of the current make-up and characteristics of the emerging non-profit sector.

Competitive Sourcing in the Federal Civil Service

Competitive sourcing, meaning public—private competitions to perform work in the federal civil service, was made a priority management policy of the George W. Bush administration. Competition, it is believed, will greatly enhance administrative efficiency whichever bidder, public or private, wins. Introduction of such market-based human resource policies into the federal civil service has engendered debate over long-term effects on merit principles, public service motives and ethics, and administrative performance. This article contributes to that discussion by examining the policy origins and purposes behind competitive sourcing and by analyzing implementation of the policy during the Bush administration. Results show that the market ideology expressed in competitive sourcing has been moderated and mediated by the implementation process. Congressional and public employee involvement alongside that of the administration produced policy outcomes of mixed results.

Technical assistance for institutional capacity building the transferability of administrative structures and practices

The US government has been actively engaged for the last 15 years in foreign assistance programs for building democratic governance institutions and enhancing overall government capacity in the former Soviet bloc countries. Transfers of public policies, administrative structures and management practices from one country to another are problematic. In this article we suggest that there are some fundamental constraints inherent in the framework of cross-national transfers. It identifies two major transferability challenges: (1) feasibility of transfer and (2) appropriateness of transfer. This article discusses three institution building programs of short duration (three to five years), whose broad purposes were institutional and professional capacity building. Many powerful forces, domestic and international, shape the likelihood of democratic consolidation in the transitional democracies. While fundamental questions about the transferability of institutional norms and structures from one country to another remain, our experiences indicate that thoughtful and flexible implementation strategies are likely to increase the chances that soft technology transfer projects will contribute to building institutional capacity. A great degree of uncertainty, nevertheless, will always remain in determining the long-term impacts of foreign technical assistance programs for transfer of institutional norms and structures.

Municipal Government-Nonprofit Sector Collaboration in Bulgaria An Attitudinal Analysis

The worldwide phenomenon of devolution of power to local governments and growth of community nonprofit organizations increases opportunities for municipal government-nonprofit sector collaboration. Successful collaboration between the two institutions is seen as a promising trend because it stimulates development of a healthy civil society and delivery of a broader array of social services. This article presents an analysis of survey data that measured attitudes of Bulgarian municipal officials toward municipal-nonprofit collaboration. Municipal officials’ orientation toward working cooperatively with nonprofit organizations is critical to success. The survey data indicate that Bulgarian municipal officials are supportive of the general notion of municipal-nonprofit collaboration, but they retain serious reservations about the capacity of community nonprofit organizations to contribute meaningfully to service delivery in cooperation with local government. They perceive financial and human resource constraints within the nonprofit sector as well as within their own structures, thus making successful collaboration and its benefits problematic.

Defining the Role of Nonprofit Corporations in Community Economic Development

In this paper we outline the unique nonmarket and market functions nonprofit corporations perform in the local economy that are important to community economic development. Their key nonmarket functions include the provision of cultural and environmental amenities, stimulus of community development and entrepreneurial activity in the most economically distressed communities, and delivery of numerous human welfare services. Each of these functions enhances the quality of life factors for its residents. A positive spinoff is that as the community becomes a more desirable place to live, location decisions of households and business enterprises are influenced. As for market functions, nonprofit corporations supply essential services which are treated as inputs into the business production process, attract income into the community or region through sales of services to residents outside the community, attract grants and loans that contribute to the circular flow of income in the community, and facilitate seco...

State Taxation of Interstate Sales: Enforcement Problems and Prospects

In their search for additional revenues, state governments in recent years have turned greater attention to collection of use taxes. Growth in interstate mail order sales has vastly increased the potential yield from use taxes, but Supreme Court decisions have limited the ability of states to effectively collect the tax. States have attempted to overcome enforcement barriers by joining in interstate use tax compliance compacts, and promoting congressional legislation to overcome constitutional prohibitions.

The Welfare State and the Emerging Non-profit Sector in Bulgaria

indigents, protection of children, housing, care for the elderly), establish private schools, make grants and loans through foundations, support cultural activities, promote international cooperation, protect the environment and so on. Laws have been promulgated to protect the rights and encourage the creation of these non-profit organisations. The transition of the East European nations to market economies and democratic states provides a unique opportunity to examine the defining of the social roles and functions of non-profit organisations as it takes place. A few well known theories have been advanced to explain the roles and functions of non-profit organisations, and hence their reason for being. For instance, it has been argued that non-profit organisations arise as a solution to the problem of information asymmetry in the market place, a situation in which suppliers have more information than consumers about the quality and cost of services such as nursing home care.2 Non-profit organisations, because they lack a profit motive, are a more trustworthy alternative for consumers who are at a disadvantage in such situations. Non-profit organisations have also been depicted as arising to satisfy unmet citizen demand for government services.3 Furthermore, non-profit organisations have been identified as significant players in economic development, often importing income into regional economies, offering community amenities, and supplying inputs such as a skilled workforce to profit-making enterprises.4 Their roles in economic development have also been documented in less developed economies.5 Another way of comprehending the social functions of non-profit organisations is in terms of their supplying of social services and implementation of governmentsponsored social programmes. This welfare-state model, which focuses on relations between the state and non-profit organisations, has gained currency in recent years. Scholars from this stream of theory tend to depict non-profit organisations as complements to the welfare state; they work cooperatively with the state in providing services, help fill in the gaps in state social service delivery, and grow in strength as a result of receiving contracts and subsidies from the state. This welfare-state model is an apt approach for examining the social roles and