Rachel Fyall
University of Washington
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Publication
Featured researches published by Rachel Fyall.
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly | 2015
Rachel Fyall; Michael McGuire
As nonprofit organizations have become more essential to public service delivery, their representatives increasingly seek to influence the public policy process. In spite of this tendency toward advocacy, research often overlooks the nuanced perspective of nonprofit representatives who undertake such activity through coalitions. The analysis presented here offers an accounting of the struggles faced by nonprofit professionals as they pursue the myriad activities that constitute an advocate’s portfolio. The work is guided by a reconsideration of the dichotomies prevalent in nonprofit advocacy research and is presented through the eyes and words of nonprofit advocates. The research uses the context of a particular network of coalition organizations and service providers in the area of affordable housing. Drawn from a grounded theory approach, the findings offer emergent themes that deserve attention when designing new studies on nonprofit advocacy.
Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance | 2017
Rachel Fyall; Scott W. Allard
ABSTRACT Nonprofit social service agencies are essential to the safety net assisting Americans with low incomes. These agencies also fulfill important civic functions through political activities such as policy advocacy and public education. To learn more about nonprofit political behavior, we analyze unique survey data drawn from 1,205 faith-based and secular nonprofit social service agencies across the United States. We distinguish between six different types of political activity while also considering program service areas. Our findings indicate that there is substantial variation in the type of political activity undertaken by social service nonprofits, and organizational characteristics can help explain this variation.
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly | 2018
Rachel Fyall; M. Kathleen Moore; Mary Kay Gugerty
There are profound differences within the nonprofit sector, and research benefits from the ability to group nonprofits by substantive focus. Researchers typically rely on the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) codes to categorize nonprofits, but we argue that mission statement text offers a better information source for nonprofit researchers to create categories of organizations. Harnessing advances in data availability and machine-reading technology, this article introduces a new method whereby mission statement analysis drives research and analysis of “like” organizations. Using an automated dictionary method to analyze mission statements, we draw a sample of housing and shelter nonprofits in Washington State. Compared with the corresponding sample based on NTEE classification, our results find roughly double the number of housing and shelter nonprofits based on their mission statements. Our method also proves more accurate than NTEE codes when applied to a sub-sample of nonprofits known to provide shelter for the homeless.
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly | 2018
Rachel Fyall; Jamie Levine Daniel
Public and nonprofit actors have long partnered to carry out emergency food assistance, particularly through the use of nonprofit food pantries. Although nonprofit pantries fulfill an important function in policy implementation, they differ with respect to specific mission and organizational priorities. To what extent do organizational priorities explain variation in emergency food? Our analyses examine this question using survey data from 95 nonprofit food pantries associated with a Midwestern Foodbank, administrative records, and census tract-level data. Findings indicate that the priorities of nonprofit pantries help explain variation in food assistance provided by pantries, even after taking into consideration measures of need, accessibility, capacity, and processes. Our results imply that policymakers may be better equipped to meet community food needs by knowing more about the organizational priorities of nonprofit service providers.
Complexity, Governance & Networks | 2014
Michael McGuire; Rachel Fyall
Public management networks are fixtures of contemporary governance. They play an important role in planning for and delivering public goods and services. However, public management networks do not always possess the capacity to convert collective solutions to formal policy or program adjustments. Despite the very broad range of activities in them, the ability of networks to create this “policy energy” is limited. Government or other powerful agencies can often dominate the management of networks, elected officials may make policy decisions that are inconsistent with the recommended action of networks, and assessing the performance of networks is very often a moving target. This article discusses these and other types of administrative and political barriers that can hinder the ability of public management networks to influence policy making and implementation.
Public Administration Review | 2016
Rachel Fyall
Policy Studies Journal | 2017
Rachel Fyall
Author | 2018
Rachel Fyall; Jamie Levine Daniel
Cityscape | 2017
Rachel Fyall; Alexander Casey
2017 APPAM Fall Research Conference | 2017
Rachel Fyall