SPEN: CSI: Stanford GSB

The Nonprofit Sector:
A Research Handbook

The long-awaited second edition of what has been called the "bible" of nonprofit scholarship provides a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary perspective on nonprofit organizations and their role in society. Twenty-seven new chapters by prominent scholars reflect upon the rapidly expanding world of nonprofits, co-edited by Professor Walter W. Powell, SPEN faculty director.

Table of Contents [ PDF 98.3KB]

Preface [ PDF 92.3KB]

Stanford Project on the Evolution of Nonprofits (SPEN)

Podcast on Social Innovation Conversations

The Nonprofit Accountability Trap

The inherent tensions between the high resource costs of evaluation and the demands of service delivery are a challenge for nonprofits and foundations alike. Denise Gammal presents SPEN results to foundation professionals during the Grantmakers for Effective Organizations 2006 conference.

SPEN's first report, Managing Through Challenges [ PDF 520KB], profiles the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, California, and national nonprofit sectors and discusses critical management issues facing the sector.

KQED-FM 88.5 (NPR),
All Things Considered (1:04 minutes, RealPlayer® format) Denise Gammal, managing director of the Stanford Project on the Evolution of Nonprofits, interviewed on role of non-profit groups in Bay Area economy.

The Stanford Project on the Evolution of Nonprofits (SPEN) is a major research initiative of the Center for Social Innovation. SPEN seeks to advance scholarship regarding the management of nonprofits, exploring in particular how nonprofit leaders appropriate, adapt or reject management ideas and practices as they create and shape social purpose institutions. We consider how these ideas circulate among nonprofits and to the sector from business or government. The research has deepened our understanding of organizational and philanthropic issues facing the social sector.

There are nearly 10,000 charitable 501(c)(3) nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay Area, of which more than 45 percent were founded since 1990. In order to better understand how these emerging and mature nonprofits are managed, the initiative utilized a multi-method approach in two complementary projects. First, SPEN profiles the social sector landscape and sets it within the socio-economic context, using IRS data on nonprofits at the regional, state and national levels. Second, SPEN researchers have also completed extensive interviews with the executive directors or board presidents from a randomly selected, representative sample of 200 operating charities in the San Francisco Bay Area, collecting quantitative and qualitative information on the founding, funding, leadership, and management of each nonprofit. These participating organizations range through the full spectrum of nonprofit activity, from grassroots, volunteer-based nonprofits to multi-million dollar operations. The study has remarkable breadth to complement its cross-sector approach.

During our first phase, we developed a benchmark profile of the sector and documented how nonprofits are beset by capacity challenges and struggling to find new sources of funding (download SPEN report). Despite many difficulties, however most nonprofits are professionalizing their management and governance, responding creatively to funding issues, developing and adopting increasingly sophisticated accountability practices, and engaging in a wide array of advocacy activities—each the focus of a working paper being prepared for submission to academic journals. Throughout our analyses, the transformation of nonprofits has emerged as a central theme as many organizations are attempting to change funding models, introduce new programs, or build organizational capacity.