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Nonprofit Governance in the United States: Findings on Performance and Accountability |
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Nonprofit boards are increasingly a focus of those interested in greater accountability and transparency, including policymakers, media, and the public. To help inform current policy debates and initiatives to strengthen nonprofit governance, in 2005 the Urban Institute conducted the first ever national representative survey of nonprofit governance, with over 5,100 participants. Attention to the influence of organizational environments on boards has declined significantly in the board research literature, and when attention is given, it is typically to the financial context. As organizational theorists remind us, nonprofits face normative pressures to adopt certain policies and practices in order to demonstrate their public legitimacy. This study draws attention to the relationships between the public policy environment and nonprofits. A major point of this study, however, is that the impact of public policy extends beyond legislative proposals aimed specifically at nonprofits. Developments in the corporate sector not only shape wider expectations about governance that influence nonprofits, but as our findings show, board members that sit on both corporate and nonprofit boards serve as a channel through which corporate practices are brought into the nonprofit world. Another major purpose of this study is to identify factors associated with promoting or impeding boards' performance of basic stewardship responsibilities related to overseeing and supporting the organization and its mission.
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