Kirsten A. Gronbjerg

Community Variations in the Size and Scope of the Nonprofit Sector: Theory and Preliminary Findings

Nonprofits reflect and shape community conditions. Understanding the nature of this relationship is important if we are to fully comprehend the role nonprofits play in contemporary society and if policy makers are to make effective use of the sector to implement local responses to community needs. Using data on Internal Revenue Service–registered nonprofits for Indian acounties, the authors examine how theories of demand, supply, and social structure predict the overall density of nonprofits in local communities. The authors find substantial county-level variations in the densities of nonprofits overall and of charitable, advocacy, and mutual-benefit nonprofits. Using multiple regression techniques, they are able to explain 20% to 46% of overall variation (depending on legal category involved) in nonprofit densities. Their findings support the supply and social structure, but not demand, explanations and reveal somewhat divergent patterns for the various types of nonprofits.The authors note several important caveats to the findings.

Understanding nonprofit funding : managing revenues in social services and community development organizations

PrefaceThe Author Part One: Perspectives on Nonprofit Funding 1. The Vital Importance of Funding Relations: Sectoral and Organizational Perspectives 2. Funding and Nonprofit Management: Theories and Research Part Two: Structure and Management of Nonprofit Funding Sources 3. The Scope and Breadth of Nonprofit Funding Sources 4. TrAnds in Nonprofit Funding Patterns 5. Raising Money from Fees: Management Challenges and Marketing Strategies 6. Special Event Fund-Raising: Managing Uncertainty 7. Donations: Balancing Flexibility and Risks 8. Public Funding: A Driving Force Part Three: Putting It All Together: Managing Tasks, Planning, and Resources 9. Restricted Grants and Contracts: Complex Paths and Management Burdens 10. Handling Coordination, Uncertainty, and Transaction Costs 11. The Challenges of Managing Organizational Resources Part Four: The Impact of Complex Funding Patterns on Nonprofit Organizations 12. Assessing the Structure and Management of Nonprofit Funding Relations.

The U.S. Nonprofit Human Service Sector: A Creeping Revolution

In this article, the author examines a slow but profound revolution in U.S. human services over the past 50 years. The author provides a general overview of the human service field, its current size and composition, and the role of nonprofit organizations; examines broad trends in these dimensions and the role of government policies; and reviews why and how these developments constitute significant changes in human services and how they compare with those in other fields. The article concludes with a look at the future role of nonprofit organizations in human services and at major developments in the funding and management of nonprofit human service organizations.

Evaluating Nonprofit Databases

The nonprofit sectors increasing size, political relevance, and visibility to social scientists demands data on the sectors scope, characteristics, and trends. National and statewide data initiatives have responded to these needs, but most databases remain problematic, especially at the level of local communities. Knowledge about the sector is therefore likely to be incomplete and/or biased. This article reports on efforts to create and assess a comprehensive non-profit database, using Indiana as a test case. Three institutional databases (IRS registration, state incorporation, and phone listings) were combined and supplemented from local listings in 11 communities. We included an alternative hypernetwork sampling strategy for comparison purposes. The results show major gaps in the Internal Revenue Service and state incorporation databases and a surprisingly small overlap between the two. The databases, and various definitions of the sector, differ in their portrait of the sector, and the profile differ...The nonprofit sectors increasing size, political relevance, and visibility to social scientists demands data on the sectors scope, characteristics, and trends. National and statewide data initiatives have responded to these needs, but most databases remain problematic, especially at the level of local communities. Knowledge about the sector is therefore likely to be incomplete and/or biased. This article reports on efforts to create and assess a comprehensive non-profit database, using Indiana as a test case. Three institutional databases (IRS registration, state incorporation, and phone listings) were combined and supplemented from local listings in 11 communities. We included an alternative hypernetwork sampling strategy for comparison purposes. The results show major gaps in the Internal Revenue Service and state incorporation databases and a surprisingly small overlap between the two. The databases, and various definitions of the sector, differ in their portrait of the sector, and the profile differences vary from one community to the next.

Managing Grants and Contracts: The Case of Four Nonprofit Social Service Organizations:

Nonprofit organizations face complex problems in managing resources on a continuing basis because their funding sources differ greatly in structure and predictability. Case studies of four nonprofit social service agencies, representing key theoretical dimensions from models of organizational behavior, show how the agencies relate to different funding sources and manage the challenges they present. Donations and government Junding vary in their predictability and in the scope of management work they demand; such funding contingencies impede strategic planning and can drain other organizational resources. Funding relationships involve gov ernment agencies and nonprofit organizations in a system of mutual dependence.

Developing a Universe of Nonprofit Organizations: Methodological Considerations

By using tested approaches to identifying the universe of local or regional populations of nonprofit organizations, researchers and pol icymakers can begin to study a variety of factors affecting voluntary organizations more effectively.

Extent and Nature of Overlap between Listings of IRS Tax-Exempt Registration and Nonprofit Incorporation: The Case of Indiana

To consider the capacity of nonprofits and communities that respond to public policy initiatives, the authors use a comprehensive database of Indiana nonprofits to examine two indicators of nonprofit formalization: tax-exempt registration under Section 501(c) of the IRS code and formal incorporation with the Indiana Secretary of State. The authors find that only 23% of the 54,108 nonprofits in the statewide database meet both criteria for formalization. The authors test whether more formalized nonprofits (appearing on both lists) are larger, older, and active in more institutionalized fields than those on only one or neither of the two lists. The findings generally confirm these expectations. The authors also hypothesize that larger, growing, and more institutionally developed communities will have a more formalized nonprofit sector (greater list overlap). However, few community-level variables relate meaningfully to the measure of sector formalization. Other factors that may be relevant for such an analysis are considered.

Using NTEE to classify non-profit organisations: an assessment of human service and regional applications

The National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) constitutes a major contribution to the field of non-profit research, but is beset by conceptual and practical problems. The application of the taxonomy to the list of charitable organisations recognised by the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is also an important resource for research, although it has limitations as well, especially for industry-specific and regional analyses. Using survey data from the Chicago metropolitan region, I show that regional estimates for human services based on only those charitable organisations which are required to file tax returns may miss over 40 per cent of the total number of organisations and under-estimate total revenues by almost half. Finally, I point to conceptual, technical and institutional challenges that must be addressed if the NTEE is to gain maximum utility.

Mapping Small Religious Nonprofit Organizations: An Illinois Profile

Small religious nonprofit organizations in the human service field are relatively invisible to researchers, reflecting in part their disproportionate omission from the Internal Revenue Service list of charitable nonprofits. Drawing on a 1991 survey of Illinois nonprofit human service organizations, the authors describe their organizational and financial characteristics as well as their governance structures and relations with religious congregations. The authors conclude that the organizations are internally diverse and also differ in significant ways from their nonreligious counterparts in the field. Finally, the authors present research and policy implications.

Examining the Landscape of Indiana’s Nonprofit Sector Does What You Know Depend on Where You Look?

The authors examine technical aspects of surveying nonprofits to determine whether inferences about characteristics of the sector depend on how samples are selected. Using a stratified sample drawn from a comprehensive nonprofit database, they analyze how major profile features of the nonprofit sector vary by sampling source and by how broadly researchers define the sector. The results reveal significant differences in the accuracy, completeness, and response rates associated with alternative sampling sources. Nonprofits found on multiple listings respond at higher rates and are more formalized than those found on only one sampling source, and sampling sources vary in the profiles they generate for the nonprofit sector. The authors conclude that researchers who wish to generalize their findings to the full nonprofit sector should consider the list of incorporated nonprofits as a sampling frame—it is among the most efficient and produces the fewest distortions in nonprofit profile features.