Emotional appeals are frequently employed in strategic messaging by nonprofit organizations. In this study, I identify instances of emotional appeals in select print adverts of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the American Cancer Society, and use rhetorical analysis to explore how each organization’s tactics are strategic in their appeal to target audiences’ emotions. In doing so, I identify several reoccurring emotional themes—including hope, love, and unity—that engage their target audiences and persuade them to respond to diverse calls-to-action. In order to make these appeals to audience emotion, the adverts employ rhetorical devices such as personification, metaphor, repetition, and imagery. Rhetorical analysis of the two organizations’ strategic messaging suggests that their calls-to-action, at least in print adverts, rely heavily on appeals to audience emotion. Taken together, the data suggest that previous efforts made by these nonprofits have been proven successful.

Exploring the Career Experiences and Leadership Perceptions of Nonprofit Executives in Central Florida: A Mixed-Methods Study. JahKiya S. Bell, 2016: Applied Dissertation, Nova Southeastern University, Abraham S. Fischler College of Education. Key Words: nonprofit organizations, leadership effectiveness, leadership qualities, administrator characteristics. This applied dissertation was designed to explore the professional and leadership development thoughts and experiences of nonprofit administrators in the Central Florida region. Administrators play a significant role for in ensuring the sustainability and success of nonprofit organizations. Administrators must possess the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will allow them to lead their organization to accomplish goals while securing necessary funding from diversified sources. In Central Florida—defined in this study as Orange, Osceola, and Seminole Counties—as of 2012 there were 1,485 health and human services nonprofit organizations in the region, which is 42% increase in the number of nonprofit organizations in the past ten years. An increase in the number of nonprofit organizations is indicative of an increase in competition for available funds. The problem addressed by this research was that while research is available about general leadership practices and the knowledge and skills necessary to become a leader, there was a lack of knowledge regarding the specific experiences of nonprofit administrators in Central Florida. This study collected and discussed the academic and professional credentials held by participating nonprofit administrators and leaders in the Central Florida, as well as reviewed these leaders’ perspectives on the knowledge, skills, and leadership practices required to lead a nonprofit organization.

COVID-19 has had significant impacts on society, both in lifestyle and commerce, especially in Central Florida where the economy is centralized around tourism. While local and state governmental agencies are distributing aid to meet the needs caused by high unemployment, the nonprofit sector mobilized to help fill the gap in assistance by providing resources and services. However prior research into the nonprofit sector finds that prolonged economic downturn may eventually affect the nonprofit force by reduced funding to programs as it did during the 2008 economic recessions. Hence, many nonprofit organizations may be at risk of insolvency in the coming months. Research into organizational survival and capacity-building strategies may solve these problems. Utilizing a sample of 26 nonprofit organizations in the Central Florida area and a web-based survey, this study explores how capacity-building strategies may be correlated with organizational survival. The findings indicate that capacity-building strategies focused on leadership capacity, management and operations capacity, and community engagement capacity may help to increase organizational survival during a pandemic.

Branding through children is a marketing tactic that many organizations and businesses utilize today; but what marketing strategy best carries out a message to the children and their guardians themselves? This thesis examines the different strategies used by for-profit and not-for-profit companies in order to better understand branding through children. It dives into an experiment testing the effectiveness of various marketing approaches and their success of gaining further children at events. The strategies are then dissected into which worked best in order to answer the question, “What branding strategies are most effective for non-profits which focus on children?”

Different types of nonprofit organizations including human service nonprofits like homeless shelters, public broadcasting organizations, and the like thrive on donations. Effective fundraising techniques are essential to a nonprofit’s existence. This research study explored a revised theory of planned behavior to include guilt and convenience in order to understand whether these factors are important in donors’ intentions to give. This study also examined the impact of two different kinds of guilt; anticipated guilt and existential guilt to determine if there was any difference between the types of guilt and the roles that they play as predicting factors in a revised TPB model. This study also explored how human service nonprofits and public broadcasting organizations compare in the factors that help better predict their donating intentions. An online survey was administered to a convenience sample, and hierarchical regression analysis was used to determine significant predicting factors within each revised TPB model. This study confirmed that the standard theory of planned behavior model was a significant predictor of intentions to donate for donors of both human service nonprofits and public broadcasting organizations. However, in both contexts, not all traditional factors of the TPB model contributed to the donation intentions. This study also provides further evidence that guilt can increase the predictive value of the standard TPB model for both types of nonprofits. Anticipated guilt more specifically, was a significant predicting factor for donors’ intentions to give to public broadcasting organizations. In contrast, convenience did not affect the explanatory power of the TPB model in either context. The TPB models for the two nonprofits are compared and theoretical and practical explanations are discussed.

Nonprofit organizations are faced with unprecedented challenges as they seek to accomplish their lofty missions in a complex environment, ripe with uncertainty. The global COVID-19 pandemic brought forth new problems for communities and workplaces. As a result, some old ways of working may no longer be useful. To make meaningful progress on their social missions while navigating an unfamiliar post-pandemic context, nonprofits need new tools to help them understand and respond to changing community needs. Evidence has shown design thinking to be an effective approach to developing innovative strategies tailored to real needs, however, it has not been widely practiced in the nonprofit sector. Therefore, the purpose of this action research study was to introduce design thinking to one nonprofit organization where new strategies were necessary to effectively support constituents’ evolving needs. Five action research cycles engaged staff and stakeholders in a design team to apply human-centered design to a real organizational challenge. Research questions sought to understand how design thinking practices were implemented, which attributes contributed to the development of a new strategy, and the ways in which design thinking influenced how the organization responds to evolving constituent needs. Qualitative data from participant interviews, observation, and focus groups found four themes addressed the research questions: Relevance, Leadership Expectations, Capacity, and Intentionality. By way of engaging in play and inquiry, participants saw design thinking as an opportunity to innovate and adapt, helping nonprofits become more relevant. Findings also revealed expectations for leaders to have the answers may hinder ideation and implementation, though data also suggest leadership communication may be a particularly powerful facilitator of design thinking implementation, providing clarity on organizational priorities and aligning leaders and team members. Capacity, including organizational resources and personal bandwidth, was also found to affect how the design team’s ongoing work was supported and implemented across the organization. Finally, intentionality was revealed through the application of empathy, collaboration, and testing assumptions to aid learning. Such attributes may have already been present, but following design thinking, became intentional practices. Taken together, this also suggests incorporating elements of design thinking may be beneficial for nonprofits, as well as easier to implement than a full design thinking process. Findings from this study provide insights into what helps and hinders the implementation of a human-centered design practice, based on real experiences of nonprofit practitioners attempting to innovate and adapt to better serve their communities. This study contributes to knowledge regarding how design thinking might impact nonprofit organizations and offers some actionable insights regarding team dynamics, leadership, and facilitation of design practices. Finally, these findings offer practical implications and recommendations for organizations seeking to address longstanding problems in new ways, which may be particularly important in complex times.

Chapter 1 raises the research question guiding this study. Do relationships that board members of nonprofits have to officials in other agencies affect the likelihood of acquiring grants? The objective of this study was to examine the role that relationship ties played in the nonprofit sector’s ability to receive grants. Chapter 2 ties the research agenda to existing research. Nonprofit organizational and financial behavior was explained in terms of resource dependence. Since nonprofit organizations face uncertainty in resource allocation, the behavior of the organization and the board members change in reaction to uncertainty. The relationships that board members possess serve as social capital for the nonprofit through a series of formal and informal ties. Chapter 3 provides a theoretical framework for measuring relationship ties as well as other variables to funding. Ties that were measured included previous work experience in government agencies, nonprofit agencies, for-profit organizations, and universities. Relationships ties also included previous appointment to a nonprofit board and membership in professional associations. Additional variables such as financial and organizational measures were considered that had an effect on funding likelihood. Expected funding then became a function of all of these variables. This framework led to the hypothesis that nonprofits with a greater number of relationship ties, controlling for appropriate variables, will receive more funds from a government agency. Chapter 4 describes the methods used. The sample of organizations included 176 nonprofit community healthcare organizations over the span of five fiscal years. Board member names, financial and organizational data, and relationship ties were collected as they were expected to affect funding outcomes. Information on relationships was obtained from three sources: LinkedIn profiles, Who’s Who profiles, and agency websites. Financial and organizational variables were obtained from nonprofit organizations’ 990 tax forms. Chapter 5 details the analyses and the results from the collected data. Conducted analyses included a series of multiple regressions, a probit regression, and fixed-effects and between-effects panel data regression models. The findings partially supported the hypothesis. While there were some relationship ties that were correlated to anticipated funding, the effects were small across analyses. Financial and organizational variables overshadowed the effects of relationship ties. There was evidence of mediation in that a number of variables were significant only if board members were in an organization receiving funds prior to the examined time period. Ties to other nonprofits mattered only when an agency already had funding. Chapter 6 concludes with possible explanations, policy implications, and further directions.

This study explores the turnover intentions of fundraisers employed by 501(c)(3) public charities in the United States. Specifically, the study considers the effects of the following variables on fundraisers’ intentions to leave their current position (in the short-term and long-term) and/or the profession of fundraising: perceptions of fit with organization and job; exchange relationships between employees and their organization and supervisor; overall job satisfaction; culture of philanthropy; salary; age; and organizational size. Through a secondary analysis of a national data set, multiple regression analysis identifies the variables that are statistically significant predictors of turnover intentions. Perceived person-organization fit, job satisfaction, and age are supported as the significant predictors of long-term turnover intentions. Fundraisers who believe they fit well with the culture of their organization, are highly satisfied with their job, and are older will likely stay in their position longer. Perceived person-organization fit and job satisfaction are supported as the significant predictors of short-term turnover intentions. Similar to long-term turnover intentions, but without the effect of age, fundraisers who perceive a high level of congruence with their organization’s culture, and who are satisfied with their job, are less likely to have plans to give notice. Lastly, perceived person-job fit and job satisfaction are supported as the significant predictors of intentions to leave the field of fundraising. Fundraisers who report that their position is a good match for their abilities, and who are highly satisfied in their position, are more likely to remain committed to fundraising as a career.

ABSTRACT This project discusses the development of Keep in Touch. Keep in Touch is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which is designed to aid the visitation process. Visitation is concerned with children and their families who have been separated. Reasons for separation vary; however, many children have been separated and would benefit greatly from a local visitation program. Items such as children’s rights, California’s mandatory mediation law, and the current conditions of the family court house in San Bernardino County are all discussed and examined as supporting evidence to the problem of family visitation. The goal of Keep in Touch is to provide a comfortable environment, both physical and virtual, that encourages open communication (dialogue) between children and their families. The cultural climate of Keep in Touch is one that encourages, supports and nurtures the natural connection between children and their families.

This report outlines the methodology and findings used to create the book Selling Disbelief: A 20 Step Guide to Grow and Promote Atheist and Secular Groups (Appendix A). The book Selling Disbelief outlines a six-month marketing plan and best practices for groups that are part of the growing Secular Movement. This project is the first systematic academic study of marketing methods in regards to promoting Secular movements. A need for this research has been identified due to a lack of research in this particular field and the continued marginalization facing the non-religious. The objectives of this project were twofold: The first objective was to identify the themes and methods that are most effective in promoting Secular groups and organizations to the general public and to Atheist, Agnostic, and Secular individuals, and to identify those areas where knowledge or methods were lacking or ineffective. The second objective was to conduct an extensive literature review of existing marketing best practices, and using the information from objective one as a guide, to adapt existing marketing information for use by Secular groups. For objective one, the project used ten in-depth interviews with experts in the marketing and organizing of Secular groups. These experts were selected based on years of experience, visibility, and availability. The data was analyzed through Thematic Analysis to find themes on methods, messages, and tactics that have lead to successful marketing and promotion. For objective two, this project used a review of existing marketing and promotion literature of best practices for community groups of a similar nature to Secular groups. By triangulating the existing marketing literature with themes from the interviews, best practices pertinent to Secular groups were identified. The interview and research findings of this project were compiled into a handbook titled “Selling Disbelief: A Guide to Organizing and Promoting Secular Organizations” with recommendations and best practices for Secular and Atheist groups to market and promote their organizations.