Summer 2019 – Digital Issue

Unbalanced: Stakeholders, Accountability, and Nonprofits

Features

• Welcome
  
  
• The Nonprofit Whisperer
  After an organization receives its first large grant, a consultant is brought in to instill a culture of compliance. But where to begin? What the consultant is really managing, explains the Nonprofit Whisperer, is a shift of the organization from its founding stage to its next stage of development—and she outlines the steps needed to help guide the process.
  
  
• How Conscious Election of the Right Kind of Accountability Legitimates Your Nonprofit
  
  
• The Collision Course
  A Conversation about Stakeholders with Tom Kochan In this interview with the Nonprofit Quarterly, Tom Kochan, codirector of the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research, discusses the growing call for systems of accountability in nonprofits.
  
  
• The Accountability Imbalance
  What Nonprofits Need to Change When it comes right down to it, writes Ruth McCambridge, nonprofits are “not meant to make individuals wealthy—they are designed to put the collective good first.” But where is the accountability? This article looks at how stakeholder theory applies to and plays out in and around nonprofits, and outlines the questions that should be central to nonprofit leaders. by Ruth McCambridge
  
  
• Unbalanced: A Map of Nonprofit Stakeholders
  This article presents an annotated map outlining the nonprofit sector’s external stakeholders, and describes the imbalance between the level of responsibility and the level of enforced accountability vis-à-vis each stakeholder group. by the editors
  
  
• How to Cocreate Your Nonprofit Brand with Your Stakeholders
  “In these times, nonprofit brands need to be more adequately defined as dynamic social interactive processes involving a multiplicity of stakeholders.... Managing nonprofit brands requires acknowledging multiple stakeholders’ involvement in processes and structures related to brand development. “ This article explains the whats, the whys, and the hows. by Christine Vallaster and Sylvia von Wallpach

• Moving beyond Feedback: The Promise of Participatory Grantmaking
  “Are listening and feedback enough to upend the deeply entrenched power imbalances that have been a hallmark of institutional philanthropy?,” asks philanthropic consultant Cynthia Gibson. While essential, they are just the first step toward what participatory grantmakers call “authentic” participation. This article describes what participatory philanthropy is, and why it’s important for funders to embrace participation as a larger powershifting ethos that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion in both its process and outcomes. by Cynthia Gibson

Departments

• A New Social Contract for the 21st Century
  The U.S.’s New Deal and civil rights social contract is irrevocably broken, but a new social contract is emerging from the grassroots. We must nurture and support it. by Cathy Albisa
  
  
• Nonprofit Capacity Building: A Multiple-Capitals Approach
  Capacity building is critical, but what do we mean by the term? Surely, it involves more than adding staff. Adopting a multiple capitals approach can bring clarity—and this article shows you how. by Elizabeth A. Castillo