Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Ahead of Print. Benford’s Law asserts that the leading digit 1 appears more frequently than 9 in natural data. It has been widely used in forensic accounting and auditing to detect potential fraud, but its application to nonprofit data is limited. As the first academic study that applies Benford’s Law to U.S. nonprofit data (Form 990), we assess its usefulness in prioritizing suspicious filings for further investigation. We find close conformity with Benford’s Law for the whole sample, but at the individual organizational level, 34% of the organizations do not conform. Deviations from Benford’s law are smaller for organizations that are more professional, that report positive fundraising and administration expenses, and that face stronger funder oversight. We suggest improved statistical methods and experiment with a new measure of the extent of deviation from Benford’s Law that has promise as a more discriminating screening metric.

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Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Ahead of Print. Utilizing a mixed-methods research design consisting of two consecutive phases, this study investigates older adults’ perceptions and understanding of social connectedness factors influencing late-life volunteering. In the first phase, quantitative data from the Belgian Ageing Studies project (N = 24,508, from 89 municipalities) was analyzed through regression modeling. In the second, qualitative phase, focus groups with older people were conducted in each of the six research locations, to elucidate and build on the quantitative results. The research findings indicate that formal connectedness is highly influential for both the potential to volunteer and actually doing so. Membership of an association and being a new resident are key determinants for volunteering in later life. Moreover, local policy also functions as an important bridge between long-term residents and new residents in terms of the social structure of the society and the extent to which people are integrated into the community.

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Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Ahead of Print. We examine a phenomenon which includes people who have had transformative experiences while abroad and traveling, and who have returned home to the United States and become philanthropic entrepreneurs: they start their own international nonprofit organizations. We set out to examine the motivations for giving to international causes through these nonprofits, called grassroots, international non-governmental organizations (GINGOs), which allow individuals to actualize their calling to serve distant places and causes. As an exploratory, qualitative inquiry, we build on recent survey and experiment data about motivations to international giving and donor choice. In particular, GINGO leaders as philanthropic entrepreneurs challenge two main deterrents related to international giving: trust and its influence on willingness to donate to international causes and the adage that “charity begins at home.” Our findings support suggestions in the literature that personal networks and word of mouth are important in donor choice and incentivizing giving to international causes.

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Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Ahead of Print. This article investigates the impact of hospital profit status on quality of care as measured by risk-adjusted, 30-day, inpatient readmission rates gathered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It also evaluates the association between inpatient readmission rates and market concentration, measured by the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index, and various hospital characteristics. It concludes that nonprofit (NP) hospitals have a statistically significant negative association with readmission rates because they can focus on their mission without intense pressure to make a profit. We find no significant association between quality of care and hospital market competitiveness nor any statistically significant evidence to reject the exogeneity assumption of NP status.

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Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Ahead of Print. The purpose of this study was to explore and examine the constraints faced by managers as they attempt to scale up their sport for development and peace (SDP) organizations, and to identify the strategies they are employing to mitigate these constraints. Previous research has not examined constraints to scaling up in the SDP nonprofit space. Findings revealed three major themes related to challenges within four types of scaling up (quantitative, functional, political, organizational); skepticism about sport as a development tool, funding challenges leading to an entrepreneurial mind-set, and challenges associated with a general lack of business acumen among key leaders. Within each of these three themes, strategies for addressing these constraints are illuminated. These constraints and strategies are positioned within the broader nonprofit context, and theoretical and practical implications for scaling up SDP organizations are also explicated.

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Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Ahead of Print. Today’s uncertain financial markets could affect foundations’ future grantmaking capacities. We review foundations’ financial decision-making patterns and their effect on foundations’ assets, longevity goals, and payouts. Using three fictional foundations with different longevity goals and grantmaking preferences, we demonstrate the delicate balance and tight nexus between asset management strategies, payout rates, and longevity. To do so, we perform stochastic Monte Carlo simulations of multiple foundation life cycles, conducted under diverse capital market scenarios. The findings suggest that foundations should (a) readjust their return expectations to today’s less favorable markets; (b) reduce their reliance on past portfolios’ investment returns or unique “success stories” in making decisions; (c) appreciate the strong interdependence between portfolio-mix, payout rates, and longevity; (d) consider effects of their particular mission/problem area on these parameters; and (e) use tailored projection analyses that simulate various investment strategies, payouts rates, and longevity to meet their grantmaking goals.

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Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Ahead of Print. Charitable nonprofits strive to meet their organization’s goals, address external demands, and secure resources to pursue their missions. Management scholars have recommended that nonprofits promote innovation and innovative practices to maximize profits and gain a competitive advantage. However, the voices of nonprofit practitioners who implement this strategy have not been heard. We used data from interviews and focus groups with 47 practitioners representing development and peace-building nonprofits across six continents to probe what innovation means to them. Five themes emerged: (a) experimentation and social transformation, (b) financial sustainability, (c) collective solutions, (d) new means for achieving missions, and (e) adaptations to local contexts. These findings reveal discrepancies in the meaning of innovation between theory and practice. The findings from this study suggests innovation and innovative practices can have different meanings in different sectors. Perspectives on nonprofit innovation are multifaceted, yet the overarching emphasis is finding transformative ways to attain organizational goal(s) for social change.

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Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Ahead of Print. The financial antecedents of nonprofit dissolution have not been well studied, although there is growing scholarly attention devoted to the dissolution of nonprofit organizations. Using longitudinal data on U.S. public charities from 2005 to 2015, this study employs the Cox proportional-hazards model to examine the effects of overhead costs and revenue mix on nonprofit dissolution. In particular, we find that spending on employee compensation and fundraising each has a nonlinear, U-shaped relationship with the likelihood of nonprofit dissolution. We also find that commercial nonprofits are less likely to dissolve than their noncommercial counterparts. Finally, revenue diversification has a favorable effect on nonprofits’ survival prospects. These findings provide important managerial implications for nonprofits to sustain their operations and influence in practice.

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Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Ahead of Print. Worldwide, millions of people volunteer for nonprofit organizations. These organizations heavily depend on volunteers, such that successfully retaining them represents an indispensable task, as well as one that might benefit from the application of fit theory. The complex mechanisms that shape volunteers’ fit throughout their volunteering experiences in the nonprofit environment have been scarcely analyzed though, and fit research has only selectively assessed volunteer experiences. Therefore, the current study investigates how volunteers perceive person–environment fit using a qualitative research design that relies on narrative interviews. Eight service-related and daily-life–related fit themes emerge at the organizational, collaborational, individual, and external levels. These identified fit themes help clarify how volunteers relate distinctly to the environments established by the organizations for which they volunteer. In addition to extending research on volunteering experience, this qualitative analysis of perceived fit among volunteers enriches fit theory, by contextualizing the concept of fit for volunteers.

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Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Ahead of Print.

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Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Ahead of Print. The public and nonprofit sectors generally pay less than the private sector, and individuals are willing to forgo higher salaries in exchange for greater intrinsic satisfaction derived from making a contribution to society. However, personal financial considerations, such as education debt, may discourage individuals from pursuing careers in lower paying sectors even if they are predisposed to public service motivation (PSM). We surveyed a sample of graduating students to investigate if (a) education debt discourages students from pursuing lower paying public or nonprofit careers and (b) whether PSM overrides the considerations students might make about entering lower paying sectors as their education debt rises. First, we find that education debt has a marginal effect on initially selecting private over public and nonprofit careers. Rising education debt may discourage students from public sector careers after controlling for PSM. We also find that rising education debt may discourage students from nonprofit careers even with high levels of PSM. The present study enhances our understanding of how financial considerations, in the form of education debt, may influence a student’s initial choice in pursuing public, private, and nonprofit careers.

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Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Ahead of Print. Do non-Westerners donate differently? Drawing on a unique survey after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, this article reports some empirical findings about Chinese donation behavior. Our empirical analysis confirms the importance of various socioeconomic factors in charitable giving. What distinguishes the Chinese case from other societies is the role of politics. Political attitudes affect how people donate: Less trustful individuals and less dependent communities do not embrace state-centered charity enthusiastically. Our research expands the spatial coverage of the charity study that is dominated by experiences and practices from European and North American countries. To generate hypotheses about political attitudes, we develop a simple political model of charity. Placing politicians’ survival motivation at the center opens up new inquiries that are underexplored by current literature. It also inspires further research into comparative institutional designs of charity across national boundaries.

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