Founders of Nonprofit Human-Service Organizations: Identity and the Neighborhood

Background: Nonprofit human-service organizations (NPOs) have a significant role in the delivery of public goods and services to families and individuals in need at the local level. Such organizations are particularly important in neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage as improving access to services by bridging the gap between government assistance and local need is increasingly filled by human-service organizations. Yet, there is limited research on who the individuals are that choose to position their organizations in these contexts and how their racial/ethnic identity may affect organizational outcomes. Specifically, this study examines:

(1) Does the racial/ethnic identity of founders of NPOs located in neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage affect their organizational outcomes?

a. How do founders frame the social issues in the neighborhood?

b. How do founders attain legitimacy in this environment?

c. What types of racial work do the founders engage in within the community?

Methods: This is a multiple case study design. The site of this research is a neighborhood of concentrated disadvantage while the units of analysis are five individual founders, four founders of color and one white founder. The data consists of 30 interviews including multiple interviews with the five founders as well as individuals intimately connected to the neighborhood such as community stakeholders (e.g., neighborhood council members, field deputy for local politicians, etc.). In addition, each NPO’s IRS 990 tax-exempt forms, their website, and other documents such as annual reports, meeting agendas, and administrative documents was included in each case’s document analysis. Atlas.ti was used to code transcripts through deductive design.

Results: Through an analysis of framing practices with a focus on strategic processes, founders engaged in developing specific frames to community social ills in order to attract clients and acquire resources. Founders relied on an alignment with their clients and resource providers. Additionally, the cultural opportunities and constraints that founders presented is discussed. An individual’s beliefs, ideologies, narratives, and values, considered a cultural “tool kit,” was of importance. The founders in this study displayed a repertoire of racialized experiences, which influenced their organization’s service delivery. Implications for theory, practice and future research are discussed.

Conclusion: Understanding founders’ experience in poor neighborhoods is imperative to the study of urban poverty. Being aware of how identity matters and how these individuals navigate the processes of organizational survival in such neighborhoods is increasingly important. Knowledge of the growing responsibilities placed upon NPOs in providing undelivered public goods and services due to macro social policy changes in the last three decades and now the current administration, including tougher sanctions on welfare recipients and benefits, a congress that is doubtful to increase benefits to the poor, means NPOs are even more critical in high-poverty neighborhoods for improving the livelihoods of the poor thus lessening the negative effects of poverty by providing access to vital social services. Who these organizations decide to serve as their target population is especially important not just for founders and policy makers, but also for social workers, as such results highlights larger holes in the social safety net.