Essays on Nonprofit Organizations, donations, and fund-raising (original) (raw)
Related papers
2011
Abstract Charitable giving is one of the essential tasks of a properly functioning civil society. This task is greatly complicated by the lack of organizational transparency and by the information asymmetries that often exist between organizations and donors in the market for charitable donations. The disclosure of financial, performance, donor-relations, and fundraising-related data is thus an important tool for nonprofit organizations attempting to attract greater donations while boosting accountability and public trust.
Demand for Collective Goods in Private Nonprofit Markets: Can Fundraising Expenditures Help Overcome
1986
Economic theory ascribes the primary role in the provision of public goods to government. This emphasis on government overlooks the role of the not-for-profit sector in providing collectivetype goods. In this paper we seek to determine the factors influencing charitable contributions to private nonprofit organizations by estimating a demand function for the output of these collective-good providers. Specifically, we test the hypothesis that voluntary giving is resuonsive to conven%ona< market variables such as advertising expenditures, price, and quality. the results are strongly supportive.
Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 1994
T sents an increasingly important force in the American economy. The organizations comprising this sector of the economy now represent almost 8 percent of the gross domestic product, nearly double that of fifteen years ago. (This percentage figure is based on 1990 data; see Skelly, 1992.) Along with their economic impact, nonprofit organizations provide leadership and assistance in areas as varied as health care, education, social services delivery, environmental protection, and the arts. Through both indirect program services and direct grantmaking, nonprofits are playing an increasingly influential role in shaping the diverse substance and culture of American society. Years ago, Tocqueville wrote that a "democracy's progress is directly related to [its people's] ability to associate voluntarily in order to solve problems and meet needs" (quoted by ONeill, 1989, p. 14). This is a role largely filled by nonprofit organizations and the many individuals who donate their time and money to them. The Compendium of Studies of Tax-Exempt Orgunizutions: A Series of Publications The Compendium of Studies of Tax-Exempt Organizations, Vol. 2: 1986-1 992, is the second in a series of source material on the nonprofit sector. The Statistics of Income (SOI) Division of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) conducts annual studies of different types of tax-exempt organizations from data obtained from the information returns filed with the IRS. Compendium, Vol. 2, is part of a series of
This paper examines the effects of aggregate government payments to nonprofit organizations on aggregate private philanthropy. Four behavioral models of private philanthropic giving are proposed to formulate four hypotheses about those effects: no net effect (null hypothesis), crowding in (positive effect), crowding out (negative effect), and ''philanthropic flight'' or displacement (negative effect across different subsectors). These hypotheses were tested against the evidence from 40 countries collected as a part of a larger research project aimed to document the scale and finances of the nonprofit sector. The data show that, on the balance, government payments to nonprofit institutions (NPIs) have a positive effect on aggregate philanthropic donations to nonprofits, as stipulated by the crowding in hypothesis, but a field level analysis revealed evidence of ''philanthropic flight'' or displacement from ''service'' to ''expressive'' activities by government payments to ''service'' NPIs. Due to the limitations of the data, these results indicate empirical plausibility of the hypothesized effects rather than their incidence. The findings demonstrate the complexity of the relationship between government funding and philanthropic donations to nonprofits, which depends on the goals of the actors (donors and recipients) and institutional settings mediating the transaction costs of difference sources of nonprofit support. como parte de un proyecto de investigación más amplio que tenía como objetivo documentar la escala y las finanzas del sector de las organizaciones sin ánimo de lucro. Los datos muestran que, sobre la balanza, los pagos gubernamentales a las instituciones sin ánimo de lucro (NPI, del inglés Non-Profit Institutions) tienen un efecto positivo sobre las donaciones filantrópicas acumuladas, según lo estipulado por la hipótesis de atracción, pero un análisis a nivel de campo reveló pruebas del ''vuelo filantrópico'' o desplazamiento de las actividades de ''servicio'' a ''expresivas'' por los pagos gubernamentales a ''servicio'' de las NPI. Debido a las limitaciones de los datos, estos resultados indican la plausibilidad empírica de los efectos de las hipótesis en lugar de su incidencia. Los hallazgos demuestran la complejidad de la relación entre la financiación gubernamental y las donaciones filantrópicas a las organizaciones sin ánimo de lucro, que depende de las metas de los actores (donantes y receptores) y de las configuraciones institucionales que intervienen en los costes de transacción de diferentes fuentes de apoyo sin ánimo de lucro.
The Case for For-Profit Charities
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
Nonprofit firms may not distribute profits to owners but instead must retain them or reinvest them. Nonprofits that are "charitable organizations" under § 501(c)(3) of the tax code may receive donations from individuals who are allowed to deduct their donations from their income for tax purposes. We argue that the law should not link tax benefits to corporate form in this way. There may be good arguments for recognizing the nonprofit form and good arguments for providing tax subsidies to charities or donors to charities, but there is no good argument for making those tax subsidies available only to charities that adopt the nonprofit form. Consequently, the "for-profit charity" may well be a desirable institution. Currently, no such entity exists, but the reason is surely discriminatory tax treatment; the charitable activities of many commercial firms suggest that in the absence of discriminatory tax treatment for-profit charities would flourish.
Toward a Theory of Charitable Fund‐Raising
Journal of Political Economy, 1998
Private providers of public goods, such as charities, invariably enlist fund-raisers to organize and collect contributions. Common in charitable fund-raising is seed money, either from a government grant or from a group of ''leadership givers,'' that launches the fund drive and generates additional gifts. This paper provides a theoretical basis for fund-raisers and seeds to charity. The primary assumption is that there is a range of increasing returns at low levels of provision of the public good. It is shown that fund-raisers have a natural and important role, and that sometimes only a small amount of seed money can grow into a substantial charity. I am grateful to the National Science Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Vilas Associates Fund for financial support; to Marc Bilodeau, Peter Cramton, Preston McAfee, Larry Samuelson, Al Slivinski, Rich Steinberg, Lise Vesterlund, the editor, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments; and to Deena Ackerman for valuable research assistance. 1 The figures on the overall industry are taken from Kelly (1997). The 25 largest charities are those identified by Money Magazine Online: http://money/features/ charity 1196/top25.html.
An Analysis of the Relation between Nonprofit Organizations’ Income Structure and Disclosures
2013
Each year ARNOVA gathers more than 600 of the best scholars, researchers and teachers interested in nonprofits, voluntary action, philanthropy and civil society at its Conference. The panoply of presentations, from these scholars and students examining the realm of voluntary / nonprofit / nongovernmental /civil society organizations and action, offers a wide-ranging vista-with some significant detail-of the most pressing subjects, topical emphases and methodologies of the latest research in this field. This catalogue is presented for those interested in questions about and developments in philanthropy, fundraising, nonprofit management, voluntary action, social enterprise and civil society, from the local to the international scale. This catalogue can be searched by key words, including author's names or paper titles, as well as by field or subject of interest. If you want to search this document, just hit 'Ctrl f', and a box in which you can enter search terms should appear in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. The work referenced here belongs to and is best understood by the authors, so we leave it to you to contact the authors to request copies of their papers and seek conversations, as you wish. Authors' email addresses are found on the right-hand side of the top line of each entry. Please note: ABSTRACTS were pulled directly from submitted papers. What we know is that dialogue among scholars and practice-leaders around these presentations of research is critical to building knowledge and improving practice. So we hope publishing this will encourage those conversations and further collaboration; and we hope you find this a useful tool for your own work.
Information, Competition, and the Quality of Charities
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
We propose a model of charity competition in which informed giving alone can explain quality heterogeneity across similar charities. It is this heterogeneity that also creates the demand for information. In equilibrium, too few donors pay to be informed; but interestingly, informed giving may increase with the cost of information. This is true if the charitable market is highly competitive or if private consumption is a strong substitute to giving -both of which are supported by evidence.