Human service sector nonprofit organization's social impact

Abstract

Purpose

Given that most nonprofit organizations are viewed as inefficient and unresponsive, and the survival or growth of the organization is not proof of its ability to improve social conditions, this study aims to examine the nonprofit organization in terms of its ability to be a change agent, reducing needs rather than meeting them and tackling underlying causes of problems. The significance of the social entrepreneur for this study was to provide the definition for the highest possible level of social impact by a human service sector nonprofit organization.

Design/methodology/approach

The research population for this study was composed of 501(c)(3) public charities in the P20 National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) category with annual income between $100,000 and $10,000,000. The NTEE code P20 corresponds to the category human service organizations; nonprofit organizations in this category serve people in the USA with a broad range of social services. The GuideStar database was used to gather information for the sample. The database includes 1.7 million NPs registered in the USA. The data are based on the Internal Revenue Service Form 990 filed annually by all 501(c) organizations with gross receipts of $25,000 or more. The total number of P20 organizations in the GuideStar database in the stated income range was found to be 2971. The total number of responses to the survey was 105, of which 99 were fully completed and usable, representing a response rate of 8.5 percent.

Findings

These findings support conclusion from prior research which defined high impact nonprofit organizations as those who created social change by focusing on the difference they could make in the communities by thinking and acting in new ways to work within the pressures of the environment.

Research limitations/implications

Similar to other studies, this paper concluded that there was no easy measure of tool to effectively assess the performance of nonprofit organizations.

Practical implications

It was found that the human service sector nonprofit organizations in the study adopted more strategic orientation in order to empower those being helped to become independent.

Originality/value

This paper codified human service sector nonprofit organizations into specific categories to measure the impact on the micro and macro environment.

Citation

Kelly, D. and Lewis, A. (2009), "Human service sector nonprofit organization's social impact", Business Strategy Series, Vol. 10 No. 6, pp. 374-382. https://doi.org/10.1108/17515630911005664