Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Nonprofit governing board diversity recently gained attention from scholars, and the changing demographics of the United States' population create urgency around understanding how to diversify nonprofit boards. This study examined nonprofit board diversity in the largest majority-minority city in the United States -- Houston, Texas -- which was also declared the most diverse city in the country in the 2010 Census. GuideStar was used to identify nonprofit organizations in the Houston metropolitan area with annual revenue of $250,000+ and were contactable. 712 executive directors were surveyed electronically; there was a 26% response rate yielding responses from 185 nonprofit organizations. The survey was designed in three sections to study board composition, board processes and whether or not the executive director's perception of the governance model would influence the diversity ratio on an organization's board, and the analyses correspond with those three sections. The study found Houston's nonprofit boards are 9% more diverse than the national average and that Caucasians continue to be overrepresented in governing roles. Other composition findings were that the diversity ratio for board members under 35 years old is beginning to mirror the Houston population and that there was statistical significance between board members being 65 years+ and a lower diversity ratio on the board; however, there was no evidence that suggested nonprofit boards are more diverse in diverse communities. The study identified a gender gap in executive committee service, with a mode of one female serving on these committees despite that fact women make up 46% of all nonprofit board members. No relationship was found between diversity ratios and board procedures or the executive director's perception of the organization's governance model. Other findings were that Houston boards use executive committees at twice the rate of the national average, and that there is direct contradiction between the perceived value of diversity and what characteristics are considered important when recruiting board members. This study ruled out simple solutions for increasing board diversity through board procedures, and it identified areas for future research regarding governance models, the alignment of recruiting characteristics with board diversity and gender equality in leadership.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This dissertation explores growth among American charities by examining 25 years of the Philanthropy 400, an annual ranking published by The Chronicle of Philanthropy of the 400 charities receiving the most donations. Data preparation for the Philanthropy 400’s first analysis remedied publication deadline constraints by aligning data by fiscal years and adding 310 charities omitted from the published rankings, resulting in a study population of 1,101 charities. Most studies of charity finance examine individual Forms 990. The Philanthropy 400 uses consolidated financial information from entire organizational networks, creating the same basis for charities filing a single Form 990, like the American Red Cross, and charities with affiliates filing more than 1,000 Forms 990, like Habitat for Humanity. Organizational ecology theory frames examination of aggregate changes in the Philanthropy 400. Two questions examine how age and dependence on donations as a percentage of total income affect persistence in the rankings. A third question examines the changing share of total U.S. giving received by ranked charities. Despite stability resulting from the same charities occupying 189 of the 400 ranking positions every year, the median age of ranked charities decreased. Younger charities generally climbed within the rankings, while older charities tended to decline or exit the rankings. Younger new entrants often persisted in the rankings, suggesting some donors embrace various new causes or solutions. Charities ranked only once or twice decreased in number with each successive ranking. Most charities ranked only once entered the rankings by receiving two or more times their typical amount of donations, suggesting that sustained fundraising programs regularly outperform charities that periodically experience years of extraordinarily high donations. The aggregate inflation-adjusted donations received by the Philanthropy 400 increased during the study period and increased as a percentage of total U.S. giving. As predicted by organizational ecology, the increasing percentage of total U.S. giving received by the Philanthropy 400 coincided with slowing growth in both the number of U.S. charities and total U.S. giving. If the Philanthropy 400 continues to increase its percentage of total U.S. giving, this could affect financing for smaller charities.

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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The study of the nonprofit sector has traditionally focused on nonprofit organizations as recipients of charity. A perspective that has been relatively neglected is that of nonprofit organizations as not only recipients but also as donors of charitable resources. This dissertation explores the phenomenon of philanthropic behavior of nonprofit organizations, using studies of the contributions and community health programs of nonprofit hospitals in Indiana as an example. Philanthropic behavior is defined as actions and programs initiated by a nonprofit organization to meet additional community needs – beyond its primary mission or services. It presents the hypothesis that such activities are undertaken for reasons similar to for-profit organizations – and have comparable organizational benefits. The studies reported in the dissertation show a wide variation in reporting such activities as well as of the organizational structures in place to manage such behavior. This variation is seen even in seemingly similar hospitals such as religious hospitals within an identified system. The dissertation discovers that while nonprofit organizations may engage in philanthropic behavior, these practices go largely unrecognized. Because the actions are not systematically noted or recorded, some very significant residual benefits that nonprofits provide for their defined communities are also unrecognized. It also finds that when these activities are evident, they are driven more by the professional values and actions of individual employees than by organizational policies. The dissertation concludes that drawing conclusions from this study of the data on Indiana hospitals – both from state reports and the IRS Form 990s – is difficult. There is an inconsistency between the two databases as well as within each of the datasets that makes any specific conclusions as to the relative values of different hospitals or to standards is suspect. It notes that while the revised Form 990 should help in overall transparency, the reporting of areas such as health education and donations will most probably continue to be inconsistent. This inconsistency makes the information difficult to use as either an evaluation tool or as policy to encourage community-serving behavior.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Think tanks are generally described as nonprofit institutions made up of experts who achieve change by offering policy prescriptions to lawmakers and by strategically marketing their ideas in the media. They have been part of the American political landscape since the turn of the 20th century, and there are now hundreds of such organizations across the country. This study was directed to state-based groups on the conservative side of the political spectrum that produce policy research in support of their political philosophy of a limited role for government, free enterprise in the marketplace, and greater individual liberty. The purpose was to examine the effectiveness of state-level, free-market think tanks, using some of the same criteria that have been applied to national think tanks; evaluate their use of nonprofit networks and the types of social capital they generate; and provide new insights into this relationship.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In recent years, social capital has emerged at the forefront of comparative research in the areas of philanthropy, community development and international aid. The predominant body of research has been conducted in the United States, Netherlands, and other Northern/Western contexts. From this body of knowledge, the academic community has begun to tease out how philanthropic traditions arise within and adapt to a given cultural context. Stemming from the assertions of Fukuyama, Putnam and Banfield, a theory has emerged that high levels of social capital is connected to high levels of philanthropic support (money and time), and low levels of social capital is connected to low levels of philanthropic support. This is to be expected since, theoretically, in cultures with less trust and civic behavior, there is a higher cost to giving and volunteering, and therefore people give less. Research conducted in American and Dutch communities suggests that a high level of philanthropic behavior is expected to be found in places where people share a high level of social capital (Putnam, 2000); that individuals who have more social capital in terms of access to social networks are more likely to be charitable (Brooks, 2005; Brown and Ferris, 2007); that a donor’s perception that a nonprofit organization is trustworthy affects his or her decision to give (Bekkers, 2003); and that an individual’s participation in different types of civic networks relies on varying levels of social trust (Uslaner, 2002). Colombia offers an interesting case study of the interplay between social capital and philanthropy because much is known about the Colombian citizenry’s propensity to trust and associate. Additionally, the incredible growth of nonprofits in Colombia and Latin America since the early 1990s has spurred an increase in qualitative research surrounding Latin American philanthropy.

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?”

In Sweden the second highest division in football is named Superettan and if a footballclub participates in that division they are considered by the Swedish footballassociation an elite football club. With that comes financial requirements and newrevenue streams which demands more of the club than if it played in lower divisions.Recent studies have reported a framework in the performance management systemthat organizations can use to produce missions, control and manage resources to makethe organizations accomplish more. In this paper a resumé will describe the strategic work and work process for the nonprofit organizations operating in Superettan. The purpose of the study is to examinethe work with mission and vision, what performance management and measurementis used and how the football clubs are working with combining non-profit objectiveswith for-profit objectives. The study's conclusion has been presented, regarding the combination of non-profitobjectives and the for-profit objectives. The result has shown that the non-profitobjectives have a large impact on the for-profit objectives. All the clubs are workingwith performance measurements and most of the performance measurements whetherit´s financial or sport measurement are linked with the sport performance. The processfor setting mission and vision are similar in each participating club. The board has thefinal approval but the suggestions of mission and vision many times comes from theclub manager and different sections of the club.

Despite the fact that charitable organizations are critical to society and the economy, there has been little research on ethical leadership and its impact on employee performance. Because of the different provisions that exist in a nonprofit firm, it is s tated that nonprofit leadership varies from those of forprofit organizations. "How does ethical leadership influence employee performance in nonprofit organizations?" is the thesis research topic. We interviewed the leaders of four distinct nonprofit or ganizations in four different countries, as well as four employees from each organization, to acquire a deeper understanding of their perspectives on the subject we researched. A qualitative study was conducted with the abductive research approach in mind, with semistructured interviews being employed to produce the best research results. This study could be classified as credible with a high degree of validity after a thorough assessment of the research methodology, ethical issues, research quality, and of their important features of the research. The results have shown that the ethical leadership styles we found at the nonprofit organization that we have investigated had supportive and open communication relationship behavior and middle to low task behavior. The leaders work closely together with their employees with high trust. We have also pointed out the formal and informal leadership between leaders and employees and some differences between volunteers and payable participants. The result has thus contributed to increased knowledge in theoretical and empirical aspects where there has been perceived to be a lack of sufficient information and knowledge regarding the current aspects of ethical leadership and its influence on employee performance in nonprofit organizations.