Nonprofit Management & Leadership最新文献

Nonprofit organizations should consider using incentive-based management programs so long as such programs are studied thoughtfully, implemented carefully, and closely tied to other important management practices. The article describes the experiences of one nonprofit organization, Citizens' Scholarship Foundation of America (CSFA), in successfully conducting a staff incentive program during the past several years. The author also reports briefly on the results of a recent survey among CSFA staff involved in the incentive plan, outlining the benefits of such a program in helping the organization to reach its objectives. Finally, the author addresses potential pitfalls to avoid in implementing an effective staff incentive program.

Major findings and policy implications on how nonprofit social service organizations manage their funding relations are summarized. Data from in-depth case studies of six medium-sized social service organizations with distinctive funding profiles yielded findings on the major contingencies associated with controlling fees, the volatility of donations, and the driving force of public funding relationships for funders (public and private), nonprofit managers, and the role of nonprofit organizations.

Board approval of an operating budget, a traditional exercise of board authority, can trivialize board leadership and stultify managerial prerogatives. Considered within a new governance paradigm, conventional budget approval is not only unnecessary, but dysfunctional. This article argues that boards should proactively establish policy for financial planning and then require administrative budgeting throughout the year to meet the policy criteria. The result is that boards stay focused on the bigger issues, particularly program priorities and goals, leaving managers the authority to create and adjust budgets within policy boundaries.

Can nonprofit boards conduct accurate and trustworthy evaluations of their own performance? Factors that limit trustee self-assessments include problems with available instruments as well as with trustees' critical abilities. Drawing upon previous research that identified six dimensions of board competencies, the author developed and field-tested a new instrument for use in board self-assessments. Information on the reliability and validity of this approach is presented, and implications are drawn for board efforts to monitor and appraise their performance.

It is generally agreed that nonprofit nursing homes pay higher wages to their employees, hire more staff per patient, and are thus more costly than for-profit nursing homes. We attempt to show that higher costs in nonprofit nursing homes are related to higher quality of care in these homes. Using the 1985 National Nursing Home Survey, we show that nurses in nonprofit nursing homes have different characteristics than nurses in for-profit homes and that these differences in characteristics account for the differences in wages, a finding consistent with our hypothesis concerning quality differences between types of homes.

Career professionals, such as business executives who devote their time and talents to committee work in voluntary organizations, are highly valued as volunteers. These professionals have a variety of motives for adding volunteer work to their demanding schedules. Should volunteer agency administrators accept and reward these motives indiscriminately, or should they try to mold them to conform to agency values? The answer, according to this study, is yes to both alternatives, depending on whether the aim is to improve these volunteers' attitudes or their performance.