Abstract A significant amount of nonprofit work happens on the “frontlines”—interacting directly with clients and developing relationships with them in unpredictable and complex social service settings. As a result, frontline work tends to result in high degrees of burnout among staff, manifesting in emotional exhaustion and cynicism towards clients, as well as poor health for workers and ongoing turnover for organizations. How do frontline workers avoid burnout and attrition while doing effective work with clients? Informed by an inductive qualitative research study of frontline workers across 10 social service organizations, this policy brief first presents two approaches to frontline work that I witnessed, both of which have negative impacts on staff and clients. These approaches align with extant scholarship on street-level bureaucracy. I then present a third approach, drawing from a practice of compassionate accompaniment I observed in my research, and which avoids the commonplace negative outcomes. This approach aligns with literature from liberation theology, as well as abolitionist organizing, decolonizing approaches, and feminist theory. Inspired by the practice of compassionate accompaniment, I propose four policy suggestions involving novel processes of training, selecting, managing, and regulating frontline workers to reduce staff burnout and increase their effectiveness with clients.
{"title":"Avoiding Burnout with Compassionate Accompaniment: A Novel Approach to Training, Selecting, Managing, and Regulating Frontline Workers","authors":"Carrie Oelberger","doi":"10.1515/npf-2023-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/npf-2023-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract A significant amount of nonprofit work happens on the “frontlines”—interacting directly with clients and developing relationships with them in unpredictable and complex social service settings. As a result, frontline work tends to result in high degrees of burnout among staff, manifesting in emotional exhaustion and cynicism towards clients, as well as poor health for workers and ongoing turnover for organizations. How do frontline workers avoid burnout and attrition while doing effective work with clients? Informed by an inductive qualitative research study of frontline workers across 10 social service organizations, this policy brief first presents two approaches to frontline work that I witnessed, both of which have negative impacts on staff and clients. These approaches align with extant scholarship on street-level bureaucracy. I then present a third approach, drawing from a practice of compassionate accompaniment I observed in my research, and which avoids the commonplace negative outcomes. This approach aligns with literature from liberation theology, as well as abolitionist organizing, decolonizing approaches, and feminist theory. Inspired by the practice of compassionate accompaniment, I propose four policy suggestions involving novel processes of training, selecting, managing, and regulating frontline workers to reduce staff burnout and increase their effectiveness with clients.","PeriodicalId":44152,"journal":{"name":"Nonprofit Policy Forum","volume":"5 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139439414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract As weather disasters intensify under the impacts of climate change, an important public policy question is whether the kinds of organizations most likely to provide disaster relief are themselves planning for climate change. A statewide Indiana survey of the leaders of a wide variety of community “social safety net” organizations ( N = 467) provides rich descriptive data to understand the realities of local disaster planning as it relates to climate change. Our findings support federal disaster policy in showing first that most of these charities have been or expect to be involved in local disaster relief, either as a primary or secondary mission focus. Charities identifying as primarily disaster responders are much more likely to belong to local emergency planning networks and slightly more likely to plan for emergencies. However, most charity leaders do not acknowledge climate change’s human origins and have not discussed climate change at the board level, with this position strongly related to their understanding of climate change’s potential impact on the communities they serve. And most have not taken some risk mitigation steps. We conclude that the Federal Emergency Management Authority’s national disaster response policy, which relies on the readiness of nonprofits to fill in service roles, does not account for the potential unpreparedness of nonprofits themselves. Policymakers should expand their “whole-community” (three-sector) approach to reinforce local network opportunities as forums for exchanging experience and knowledge, including an explicit linkage between the communication of the science of climate change and emergency planning.
{"title":"Nonprofit Disaster Response and Climate Change: Who Responds? Who Plans?","authors":"Beth Gazley, Rachel Cash","doi":"10.1515/npf-2023-0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/npf-2023-0017","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract As weather disasters intensify under the impacts of climate change, an important public policy question is whether the kinds of organizations most likely to provide disaster relief are themselves planning for climate change. A statewide Indiana survey of the leaders of a wide variety of community “social safety net” organizations ( N = 467) provides rich descriptive data to understand the realities of local disaster planning as it relates to climate change. Our findings support federal disaster policy in showing first that most of these charities have been or expect to be involved in local disaster relief, either as a primary or secondary mission focus. Charities identifying as primarily disaster responders are much more likely to belong to local emergency planning networks and slightly more likely to plan for emergencies. However, most charity leaders do not acknowledge climate change’s human origins and have not discussed climate change at the board level, with this position strongly related to their understanding of climate change’s potential impact on the communities they serve. And most have not taken some risk mitigation steps. We conclude that the Federal Emergency Management Authority’s national disaster response policy, which relies on the readiness of nonprofits to fill in service roles, does not account for the potential unpreparedness of nonprofits themselves. Policymakers should expand their “whole-community” (three-sector) approach to reinforce local network opportunities as forums for exchanging experience and knowledge, including an explicit linkage between the communication of the science of climate change and emergency planning.","PeriodicalId":44152,"journal":{"name":"Nonprofit Policy Forum","volume":"141 5","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135777135","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This research note illuminates the ascent of so-called “learning pods”, a concept and phenomenon with close connections to civil society that rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic. We begin by characterizing and positioning learning pods in the diverse U.S. K-12 educational landscape. Next, participation in, and intent to form/join, learning pods are depicted by reporting on secondary data from a population poll among a national sample of U.S. adults since the start of the 2020 academic school year to December 2021. The second half of the research note discusses how learning pods can help garner useful insights to existing nonprofit research and theory.
{"title":"The Rise of Learning Pods: Civil Society’s Expanding Role in K-12 Education in the United States","authors":"Fredrik O. Andersson, Jurgen Willems","doi":"10.1515/npf-2022-0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/npf-2022-0020","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This research note illuminates the ascent of so-called “learning pods”, a concept and phenomenon with close connections to civil society that rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic. We begin by characterizing and positioning learning pods in the diverse U.S. K-12 educational landscape. Next, participation in, and intent to form/join, learning pods are depicted by reporting on secondary data from a population poll among a national sample of U.S. adults since the start of the 2020 academic school year to December 2021. The second half of the research note discusses how learning pods can help garner useful insights to existing nonprofit research and theory.","PeriodicalId":44152,"journal":{"name":"Nonprofit Policy Forum","volume":"68 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135862958","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Voluntary Failure or Interdependence Theory remains among the most salient of Salamon’s conceptual contributions to nonprofit studies globally. Broad criticism has been scarce. Yet, there are questions about how the theory can be tested, or whether it is even testable in the first place. A lot of these questions focus on the four voluntary failures. In this commentary, I argue that the role of the voluntary failures is often overemphasized as part of Salamon’s theoretical constructs. This overemphasis in turn lends itself to problematic interpretations of his theory, which was not intended to offer a ‘failure rationale’ for the existence of the nonprofit sector—akin to the twin failures of the market and government, but at its core seeks to provide a rationale for the positive collaborative relations between government and the nonprofit sector. Within that rationale, the voluntary failures play only a relatively minor role.
{"title":"Rereading Salamon: Why Voluntary Failure Theory is Not (Really) About Voluntary Failures","authors":"Stefan Toepler","doi":"10.1515/npf-2023-0080","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/npf-2023-0080","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Voluntary Failure or Interdependence Theory remains among the most salient of Salamon’s conceptual contributions to nonprofit studies globally. Broad criticism has been scarce. Yet, there are questions about how the theory can be tested, or whether it is even testable in the first place. A lot of these questions focus on the four voluntary failures. In this commentary, I argue that the role of the voluntary failures is often overemphasized as part of Salamon’s theoretical constructs. This overemphasis in turn lends itself to problematic interpretations of his theory, which was not intended to offer a ‘failure rationale’ for the existence of the nonprofit sector—akin to the twin failures of the market and government, but at its core seeks to provide a rationale for the positive collaborative relations between government and the nonprofit sector. Within that rationale, the voluntary failures play only a relatively minor role.","PeriodicalId":44152,"journal":{"name":"Nonprofit Policy Forum","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135944864","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Evidence demonstrating the essential role of human service nonprofits in restoring justice to communities has led to an increased need in understanding how these nonprofits view their service delivery role in relation to the state in a restorative justice context. Despite the increase in funding dedicated to restorative justice programs and increased collaborations between states and nonprofits, few studies have explored perceptions of collaborative restorative justice roles in state-led initiatives. This exploratory qualitative study uses semi-structured interviews to understand how leaders in these programs view their organization’s roles in restorative justice implementation. The analysis evaluates the variations in perceptions among nonprofits leaders as well as the differences in perceptions between nonprofit versus public managers/policy makers. Results indicate that nonprofit leaders and public managers/policy makers view nonprofits as pivotal to restorative justice policy implementation given their capacity to engage in grassroots problem-solving and develop strengths-based programs.
{"title":"The Essential Role of Human Service Nonprofits in Restorative Justice Policy Implementation","authors":"Paige L. Moore, Kara L. Lawrence","doi":"10.1515/npf-2022-0040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/npf-2022-0040","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Evidence demonstrating the essential role of human service nonprofits in restoring justice to communities has led to an increased need in understanding how these nonprofits view their service delivery role in relation to the state in a restorative justice context. Despite the increase in funding dedicated to restorative justice programs and increased collaborations between states and nonprofits, few studies have explored perceptions of collaborative restorative justice roles in state-led initiatives. This exploratory qualitative study uses semi-structured interviews to understand how leaders in these programs view their organization’s roles in restorative justice implementation. The analysis evaluates the variations in perceptions among nonprofits leaders as well as the differences in perceptions between nonprofit versus public managers/policy makers. Results indicate that nonprofit leaders and public managers/policy makers view nonprofits as pivotal to restorative justice policy implementation given their capacity to engage in grassroots problem-solving and develop strengths-based programs.","PeriodicalId":44152,"journal":{"name":"Nonprofit Policy Forum","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135740315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lester M. Salamon Memorial Issue, Part II","authors":"S. Toepler, Alan Abramson, Mirae Kim","doi":"10.1515/npf-2023-0079","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/npf-2023-0079","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44152,"journal":{"name":"Nonprofit Policy Forum","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90383786","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Forty years of neoliberal policies and protocols, such as privatization, austerity measures, and managerialism, has pushed the U.S. human service sector to the brink of collapse. This commentary delineates the impact of neoliberalism on nonprofit human service agencies. Specific attention is paid to the untenable working conditions of professional frontline staff, who are tasked with providing much needed programs and services to often vulnerable populations. Worker strategies for coping with and fighting against neoliberalism, both individual and collective, are delineated. This piece concludes with some suggestions for more systemic responses to ameliorate and challenge neoliberalism’s impact on the human service sector workforce, although additional strategies are also needed.
{"title":"Precarious Professionals: The Impact of Neoliberalism on the Workforce of the Nonprofit Human Service Sector","authors":"C. Hyde","doi":"10.1515/npf-2023-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/npf-2023-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Forty years of neoliberal policies and protocols, such as privatization, austerity measures, and managerialism, has pushed the U.S. human service sector to the brink of collapse. This commentary delineates the impact of neoliberalism on nonprofit human service agencies. Specific attention is paid to the untenable working conditions of professional frontline staff, who are tasked with providing much needed programs and services to often vulnerable populations. Worker strategies for coping with and fighting against neoliberalism, both individual and collective, are delineated. This piece concludes with some suggestions for more systemic responses to ameliorate and challenge neoliberalism’s impact on the human service sector workforce, although additional strategies are also needed.","PeriodicalId":44152,"journal":{"name":"Nonprofit Policy Forum","volume":"29 1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79653222","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract To offer guidance to nonprofit leaders desiring to leverage diversity for inclusion, performance, and equity, we develop a framework for a comprehensive, mission-enhancing policy. The policy fits nonprofit organizations’ distinctive characteristics of shared mission attainment and values focus among members. The framework proceeds from an extensive transdisciplinary review and synthesis of empirical literature. It focuses on lived actions in the form of organizing practices that leaders can institute and sustain. Through a combined lens of practice theory, intergroup contact theory, and systems dynamics, we identify everyday workplace practices that undermine inclusion, performance, and equity. We detail how these anti-inclusive practices produce systemic resistance to current diversity policies by operating in vicious cycles that continually reproduce organizational and social problems. We specify a combination of practices for accountability, inclusive interactions, and personalized socialization that address the anti-inclusive practices and produce virtuous cycles of inclusion among organizational members. Illustrative cases demonstrate how the combination of practices has been effective in producing inclusion and attitude change in nonprofit organizations. To overcome policy resistance, these cases and other evidence suggest nonprofit diversity policy should emphasize inclusive values and mission-attainment rather than legal compliance.
{"title":"Embedding Inclusive, Equitable Diversity Practices in Nonprofit Organizations: Developing Policy to Account for System Dynamics","authors":"R. Bernstein, P. Salipante","doi":"10.1515/npf-2022-0042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/npf-2022-0042","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract To offer guidance to nonprofit leaders desiring to leverage diversity for inclusion, performance, and equity, we develop a framework for a comprehensive, mission-enhancing policy. The policy fits nonprofit organizations’ distinctive characteristics of shared mission attainment and values focus among members. The framework proceeds from an extensive transdisciplinary review and synthesis of empirical literature. It focuses on lived actions in the form of organizing practices that leaders can institute and sustain. Through a combined lens of practice theory, intergroup contact theory, and systems dynamics, we identify everyday workplace practices that undermine inclusion, performance, and equity. We detail how these anti-inclusive practices produce systemic resistance to current diversity policies by operating in vicious cycles that continually reproduce organizational and social problems. We specify a combination of practices for accountability, inclusive interactions, and personalized socialization that address the anti-inclusive practices and produce virtuous cycles of inclusion among organizational members. Illustrative cases demonstrate how the combination of practices has been effective in producing inclusion and attitude change in nonprofit organizations. To overcome policy resistance, these cases and other evidence suggest nonprofit diversity policy should emphasize inclusive values and mission-attainment rather than legal compliance.","PeriodicalId":44152,"journal":{"name":"Nonprofit Policy Forum","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81994932","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The 1990s saw what Della Porta (2020. “Building Bridges: Social Movements and Civil Society in Times of Crisis.” Voluntas 31 (5): 938–48) calls the renaissance of civil society, from which studies on the relations between Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and the state grew exponentially. Based on this context, this theoretical essay aims to demonstrate how the theories of coproduction and institutional logics can be used in a complementary way to understand these relations. We use a qualitative methodology of extensive literature review and study of the proposed concepts. We identify six contributions of this complementary use: (i) CSOs-state coproduction processes take place on institutional fields, (ii) Coproduction encompasses the mobilization of institutional logics’ material and symbolic resources, (iii) Structural mechanisms influence coproduction, (iv) Institutional logics bring both collaboration and conflict dimensions into coproduction processes, (v) Coproduction helps operationalize studies in institutional logics, and (vi) Institutional logics influence coproduced results. We hope that our theoretical–analytical contributions can be applied in empirical studies and improved in the future.
{"title":"Analytical Lens for Investigating CSOs and State Relations: The Contributions of Coproduction and Institutional Logics Perspectives","authors":"B. Holanda, P. Mendonça","doi":"10.1515/npf-2023-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/npf-2023-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The 1990s saw what Della Porta (2020. “Building Bridges: Social Movements and Civil Society in Times of Crisis.” Voluntas 31 (5): 938–48) calls the renaissance of civil society, from which studies on the relations between Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and the state grew exponentially. Based on this context, this theoretical essay aims to demonstrate how the theories of coproduction and institutional logics can be used in a complementary way to understand these relations. We use a qualitative methodology of extensive literature review and study of the proposed concepts. We identify six contributions of this complementary use: (i) CSOs-state coproduction processes take place on institutional fields, (ii) Coproduction encompasses the mobilization of institutional logics’ material and symbolic resources, (iii) Structural mechanisms influence coproduction, (iv) Institutional logics bring both collaboration and conflict dimensions into coproduction processes, (v) Coproduction helps operationalize studies in institutional logics, and (vi) Institutional logics influence coproduced results. We hope that our theoretical–analytical contributions can be applied in empirical studies and improved in the future.","PeriodicalId":44152,"journal":{"name":"Nonprofit Policy Forum","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90824645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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