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The recent push for impact measurement has been positive, but it has also led to wasted resources and often misleading data about what works. In The Goldilocks Challenge, Mary Kay Gugerty and Dean Karlan put forth four key principles to guide organizations of all sizes to create strong, "right-fit" data collection systems.
Advocacy organizations are viewed as actors motivated primarily by principled beliefs. This volume outlines a new agenda for the study of advocacy organizations, proposing a model of NGOs as collective actors that seek to fulfil normative concerns and instrumental incentives, face collective action problems, and compete as well as collaborate with other advocacy actors. The analogy of the firm is a useful way of studying advocacy actors because individuals, via advocacy NGOs, make choices which are analytically similar to those that shareholders make in the context of firms. The authors view advocacy NGOs as special types of firms that make strategic choices in policy markets which, along with creating public goods, support organizational survival, visibility, and growth. Advocacy NGOs' strategy can therefore be understood as a response to opportunities to supply distinct advocacy products to well-defined constituencies, as well as a response to normative or principled concerns.
An analysis of the features of both governmental regulation of non-profit organizations and self-regulation by non-profit sectors themselves.
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Geopolitical shifts, increasing demands for accountability, and growing competition have been driving the need for change within transnational nongovernmental organizations (TNGOs). As the world has changed and TNGOs' ambitions have expanded, the roles of TNGOs have shifted and their work has become more complex. To remain effective, legitimate, and relevant in the future necessitates organizational changes, but many TNGOs have been slow to adapt. As a result, the sector's rhetoric of sustainable impact and social transformation has far outpaced the reality of TNGOs' more limited abilities to deliver on their promises. Between Power and Irrelevance openly explores why this gap between rhetor...
Previously the role of social capital - defined as the institutions and networks of relationships between people, and the associated norms and values - in programs of poverty alleviation and development has risen to considerable prominence. Although development practitioners have long suspected that social capital does affect the efficiency and quality of most development processes, this book provides the rigorous empirical results needed to confirm that impression and translate it into effective and informed policymaking. It is based on a large volume of collected data, relying equally on quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to establish approaches for measuring social capital and its impact. The book documents the pervasive role of social capital in accelerating poverty alleviation and rural development, facilitating the provision of goods and services, and easing political transition and recovery from civil conflicts.
From Egypt to South Africa, Nigeria to Ethiopia, a new force for political change is emerging across Africa: popular protest. Widespread urban uprisings by youth, the unemployed, trade unions, activists, writers, artists, and religious groups are challenging injustice and inequality. What is driving this new wave of protest? Is it the key to substantive political change? Drawing on interviews and in-depth analysis, Adam Branch and Zachariah Mampilly offer a penetrating assessment of contemporary African protests, situating the current popular activism within its historical and regional contexts.
An examination of why NGOs often experience difficulty creating lasting change, with case studies of transnational conservation organizations in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Why do nongovernmental organizations face difficulty creating lasting change? How can they be more effective? In this book, Cristina Balboa examines NGO authority, capacity, and accountability to propose that a “paradox of scale” is a primary barrier to NGO effectiveness. This paradox—when what gives an NGO authority on one scale also weakens its authority on another scale—helps explain how NGOs can be seen as an authority on particular causes on a global scale, but then fail to effect change at the local leve...
The social sector provides services to a wide range of people throughout the world with the aim of creating social value. While doing good is great, doing it well is even better. These organizations, whether nonprofit, for-profit, or public, increasingly need to demonstrate that their efforts are making a positive impact on the world, especially as competition for funding and other scarce resources increases. This heightened focus on impact is positive: learning whether we are making a difference enhances our ability to address pressing social problems effectively and is critical to wise stewardship of resources. Yet demonstrating efficacy remains a big hurdle for most organizations. The Gol...
A conceptual framework and empirical case studies of the policy effect of voluntary programs sponsored by industry, government, and nongovernmental organizations. The recent growth of voluntary programs has attracted the attention of policymakers, nongovernmental organizations, and scholars. Thousands of firms around the world participate in these programs, in which members agree to undertake socially beneficial actions that go beyond the requirements of government regulations, such as following labor codes in the apparel industry, adhering to international accounting standards, and adopting internal environmental management systems. This book analyzes the efficacy of a variety of voluntary ...