Nonprofit Management Leadership

This case study illustrates the unique challenges of leading a faith-based nonprofit organization within a multifaith constituency in Asia. The core themes of the case are based on research conducted with the staff, executive team, and board members of an international faith-based nonprofit organization in Asia. Specifically, the case focuses on three identity-based leadership dilemmas in relation to (1) creating a shared sense of organizational identity, (2) talent management, and (3) board governance. By describing the challenges faced by the CEO, the case shows how a strong faith-based identification can positively bind an organization together, but also result in organizational blind spots with unintended consequences.

Detecting agency problems is an important task when assessing the effectiveness of a nonprofit organization's governance. A first step is to examine the objectives of principals and agents and determine whether there is a systematic difference between them. Using a discrete choice experiment, we identify the objectives of board chairpersons (principals) and headmasters (agents) of Flemish nonprofit schools. We find systematic differences between the two groups. Of the seven possible objectives set out in the experiment, six are relevant for both headmasters and board chairpersons. For four of these, the preferences of both groups differ significantly. Whereas ideological values play an important role for both the board and the headmaster, they are significantly more important for the board. Both parties dislike having a large number of pupils, and the disutility is larger for the board. With respect to job satisfaction and pupil satisfaction, we find the opposite: while the board is prepared to give up pupil and job satisfaction in favor of the other objectives, these two objectives score very high on the priority list of the headmasters.

This article reviews research on motivation of employees in the nonprofit sector, with a major emphasis on the motivation of teachers and hospital nursing staff. Although both areas are widely researched in the nonprofit sector, empirical motivation research conducted in schools and hospitals is certainly not extensive. Nevertheless, based on these limited research findings, we derive potential hypotheses for future research in schools and hospitals.

The authors examined nineteen nonprofit performing arts organizations, investigating the distribution of influence among organizational members, the grouping of volunteers and staff in organizational structures, and the effectiveness of the organizations. The organizations' effectiveness was assessed using multiple performance indicators. The analysis revealed five groupings or configurations of influence, which correlated to the organizations exhibiting the highest and lowest levels of organizational effectiveness. The authors conclude that a variety of structures are associated with good performance but structural dysfunctions are associated with organizational failure, and that members' commitment to an organization's structure is an important element of success.

This article describes mortality patterns for nonprofit organizations in a major U.S. metropolitan area between 1980 and 1988. Twenty percent of the nonprofits in a panel ceased operations during this period. Mortality rates were found to vary widely. In some instances, high mortality was found in parts of the sector that were growing rapidly. Overall, nonprofits that ceased to operate were younger and smaller, used fewer strategies to attract funders, and had less diversified income streams than survivors. These patterns also varied substantially. The results point to the drawbacks of using limited or commonsense information and the necessity of theory-based research.

Results from a survey of a national sample of 1,190 working adults update findings collected in 1977 (Mirvis and Hackett, 1983) on the characteristics and attitudes of people working in nonprofits. As in the earlier survey, it shows that people employed in the private nonprofit sector gain more satisfaction from their jobs than their counterparts in business and government and have more trust in their management. still, people working in nonprofits are just as concerned that their employers will “take advantage” of them and, in contrast to the 1977 survey, are no more psychologically committed to their organizations than are people in the other sectors.

Facing a decline in the number of hours donated to nonprofit organizations, volunteer coordinators must strive to determine the most effective strategies for retaining volunteers. Relationship management theory provides a framework to gauge the well-being of an organization's relationship with its stakeholders. Through surveys administered to 317 teenage volunteers at three library systems, this study found that of four factors—trust, commitment, satisfaction, and control mutuality—trust had the strongest ability to predict intent to continue volunteering. Further analysis revealed that trust could be enhanced by including teenagers in work groups throughout the organization, seeking their input on organizational decisions, and ensuring they receive formal and informal organizational communications.

This study explores the attitudes of leaders of religious congregations toward computers. We uncover attitudes toward information (and thus toward computers) that are different from those reported for leaders in other organizational contexts. In short, clergy felt that systematically collecting and storing information and trying to serve as many people as possible could distract them from what is distinctive about their jobs—that the job in a religious congregation is accomplished through personal rather than transactional relationships.