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The purpose of this paper is twofold. The first is to map the most influential literature in nonprofit finance and financial management. The second is to understand why the literature has evolved the way it has, including isolated silos developing in certain disciplines.

The review includes articles assembled from three sources: a core list, an expert list and journal archive searches on phrases that emerged. Using social origins theory as a guide, we coded 119 articles for traits such as root discipline, methodology and author characteristics.

Research tends to stay confined within the doctoral discipline of the author, who publishes in journals valued by their discipline. This has caused limited cross-referencing across disciplines, and it has allowed different understandings and judgments of the same phenomenon to exist in different fields. Data availability drives much of the research agenda, but author teams of mixed disciplines are promising.

Unlike a traditional literature review, this study identifies factors that have had a formative influence on the development of the diverse field of nonprofit finance and financial management. This diversity has resulted in a fractured field held in silos with few indigenous developments. Using social origins theory as a guide, this study provides an overview of the most consequential literature through the analysis of authors and institutional characteristics. This approach provides an evolutionary perspective and illustrates how this disciplinary adherence has created a research topography that limits progress for both scholars and practitioners.

Inspired by a food bank distribution operation, this paper aims to study synchronized vehicle routing for equitable and effective food allocation. The primary goal is to improve operational efficiency while ensuring equitable and effective food distribution among the partner agencies.

This study introduces a multiobjective Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) model aimed at addressing the complex challenge of effectively distributing food, particularly for food banks serving vulnerable populations in low-income urban and rural areas. The optimization approach described in this paper places a significant emphasis on social and economic considerations by fairly allocating food to food bank partner agencies while minimizing routing distance and waste. To assess the performance of the approach, this paper evaluates three distinct models, focusing on key performance measures such as effectiveness, equity and efficiency. The paper conducts a comprehensive numerical analysis using randomly generated data to gain insights into the trade-offs that arise and provide valuable managerial insights for food bank managers.

The results of the analysis highlight the models that perform better in terms of equity and effectiveness. Additionally, the results show that restocking the vehicles through the concept of synchronization improves the overall quantity of food allocation to partner agencies, thereby increasing accessibility.

This paper contributes significantly to the literature on optimization approaches in the field of humanitarian logistics.

This study provides food bank managers with three different models, each with a multifaceted nature of trade-offs, to better address the complex challenges of food insecurity.

This paper contributes significantly to social responsibility by enhancing the operational efficiency of food banks, ultimately improving their ability to serve communities in need.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to propose and analyze this new variant of vehicle routing problems in nonprofit settings.

Food banks play an increasingly important role in society by mitigating hunger and helping needy people; however, research aimed at improving food bank operations is limited.

This systematic review used Web of Science and Scopus as search engines, which are extensive databases in Operations Research and Management Science. Ninety-five articles regarding food bank operations were deeply analyzed to contribute to this literature review.

Through a systematic literature review, this paper identifies the challenges faced by food banks from an operations management perspective and positions the scientific contributions proposed to address these challenges.

This study makes three main contributions to the current literature. First, this study provides new researchers with an overview of the key features of food bank operations. Second, this study identifies and classifies the proposed optimization models to support food bank managers with decision-making. Finally, this study discusses the challenges of food bank operations and proposes promising future research avenues.

In the performance measurement and management research field, the applicability of performance measurement systems (PMS) in nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and public administration has been considered a challenge. The diversity of these organizations makes it difficult to define proper terminology and organizational characteristics. PMS evolution has not yet been able to capture all performance dimensions of a public administration and, especially for NPO considering its dynamic and multiple goals. The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework that identifies and classifies the factors that influence the design of PMSs in NPOs and public administration.

The study was developed through a systematic literature review (SLR). A set of 29 papers were intensely studied, and the results provide a multi-disciplinary and holistic set of factors.

A set of ten factors that influence the design of PMSs in NPO and public administration were found. They were categorized into three groups: factor related to purpose, stakeholders and management.

The study synthesized the literature and provided a conceptual framework of the factors that influence the design of PMSs in NPO and public administration. No individual paper collected in the SLR shows a similar organization of the factors as the present paper. The set of factors indicates the importance of this study for NPO and public administration, and how complex a PMS in an NPO and public administration can become. The conceptual model presented can further assist practitioners in developing design process observing the role that the identified factors play.

This study aims to conduct a literature review on factors that influence the implementation and design of performance measurement systems in nonprofit organizations.

The research strategy is conceived through a literature review focused on the analysis of authorship, supported by bibliometric techniques such as citation, co-citation and co-authorship social networks.

Models and theories proposed for measuring performance in non-profit organizations are being researched, starting to form an intellectual structure related to performance measurement systems and nonprofits. Three main research topics have been given more attention: strategic performance and public service performance, health-care performance and nonprofit operations strategy and performance measurement.

The study is limited to scientific journal papers and could benefit from the addition of new sources of information such as conference papers, books and standards. The body of knowledge of this topic could also benefit from an in-depth investigation through a comprehensive review of models and theories, as a proposal for a future research agenda.

As practical applications are identified, groups of researchers in different countries and subjects that can generate research agendas, scientific communities used to investigate issues related to performance in nonprofit activities.

Performance measurement in nonprofit organizations is a topic of study that has been receiving considerable attention in recent years, to the point that the literature is revealing specific models for measuring performance in this type of organizations. Particular models and theories are being conceived, specializing existing models and theories related to performance measurement and management.

The purpose of this paper is to consider how public policy rules and norms embedded in the operation and financing of firms and nonprofits may affect the choice of one or the other for nesting a social enterprise while reducing the risk of failure due to an initial bad choice.

The paper is conceptual and literature based. It identifies and evaluates factors in public policy that are embedded in the rules and norms of operating and financing firms and nonprofits that could materially affect the choice of a nesting place of a social enterprise. It treats the choice as a two-stage process: whether firm or nonprofit and what type of firm or what type of nonprofit.

The choice of a structural form for nesting a social enterprise is dependent upon the public policies embedded in each form that affect the probability of venture success and entrepreneurial remorse.

This paper suggests that public policy norms and rules are deserving variables in the empirical and experimental determinants of choice and success in social enterprises.

This paper may be used for conducting experiments of choice, as a teaching or other pedagogical tool, and for guiding entrepreneurs in making informed choices as to where to nest a social enterprise.

The literature contains several articles on how personality, alertness, opportunity, context, and similar factors affect entrepreneurial behavior. This paper is unique in that it adds public policy to that list by demonstrating that the norms and rules derived from policy (federal and state) are determinative of an informed choice.

Nonprofit performance measurement is receiving increasing academic and practitioner attention, but the design of nonprofit measurement systems has received limited consideration. This is in contrast to the well‐established body of knowledge that focuses on performance measurement in private and public sector organisations. The purpose of this paper is to ascertain whether this body of knowledge can be used to inform the design of nonprofit performance measurement systems.

A case study approach was taken to examine the performance measurement practices used in six nonprofit organisations and their associated funders and regulators. A total of 24 managers from 18 organisations took part in the study.

The study found underdeveloped and resource intensive performance measurement systems in the majority of organisations that were examined. The performance measurement literature from the private and public sectors advocates the development of relevant, balanced, integrated, strategic and improvement‐oriented performance measurement systems; concepts that have received limited consideration in the nonprofit literature. This research found that performance measurement system design principles developed for the private and public sectors were applicable to the nonprofit sector.

Whilst a range of stakeholders was included in the research, further work is required to validate the applicability of the findings to the diverse nonprofit sector. Nevertheless, given the dearth of operations management focused research on nonprofit performance measurement systems this study makes a useful contribution.

The study presents empirical evidence of the myriad criteria and processes that are used to measure nonprofit performance. The paper shows that current measurement practice is detracting from the performance of nonprofit organisations.

Despite the perceived uniqueness of the nonprofit sector, this paper shows that learning from the private and public sectors can be used to inform good practice in nonprofits. As relatively little research has been done in this area, the findings make a valuable contribution to the body of knowledge.

This study aims to use the original data collected from school board members representing nonprofit charter schools in the state of Minnesota to examine the relationship between the distribution of board-executive governance responsibilities and the performance of organizations operating as part of a New Public Management style macro-governance reform.

A combination of survey data collected from Minnesota charter school board members and hard performance data were utilized in two OLS regression models to predict the link between organizational governance and school performance.

The authors find that boards can improve hard measures of organizational performance by shifting responsibility of day-to-day operations closer to the executive, and public advocacy duties closer to the board. The results build on the existing literatures on school board governance and board-executive relations. Overall, the findings suggest the existence of an ideal balance between board-executive governance responsibilities in key functional areas on charter school boards.

Though a healthy literature exists regarding the value of charter schools, very few studies have actually explored the way in which these organizations are governed. This study is the first to link charter board governance responsibilities to performance.

Spirituality refers to the relationship that individuals have with something greater than themselves. It is an inner experience that includes a sense of transcendence, a connection to a higher power, or a sense of purpose or meaning. Nonprofit organizations can be defined as a unique category of organizations whose primary goal is not to make a profit. They represent a wide range of collective action and have long been collaborators with public governance systems in both developed and developing economies.

In the current socioeconomic structure, nonprofit organizations have become prominent policy actors, responsible for producing and distributing goods and services. To fulfill their responsibilities, these organizations rely on spirituality as a means of obtaining resources.

While contemporary nonprofit organizations have evolved from religious charities of the past, it would be incorrect to suggest that religious influences have disappeared completely. In fact, today's nonprofit organizations and charity sector exist on a spectrum that can be defined along a religious – secular axis, under the influence at different levels.

As modern nonprofit organizations are directly affected by contemporary organizational processes and principles, it is essential to examine spirituality in such organizations, regardless of whether they are religiously affiliated or not. This chapter examines the relationship between spirituality and nonprofit organizations, while also assessing their organizational effectiveness, career opportunities, leadership approaches, teamwork, job satisfaction and job dedication, in terms of spirituality and spiritual intelligence not only from a religious and cultural perspective, but also from an organizational one.

This manuscript explores the value of mission statement emotional content in the relationship between money raised by a nonprofit organization through fundraising efforts and the money spent. It proposes the emotional content of a mission statement moderates money spent and earned to ultimately to impact how much revenue a nonprofit makes through fundraising.

The manuscript evaluates the qualitative turned quantitative data (via text mining [TM]) in mission statements from 200 nonprofits serving the homeless sector via a moderation analysis. After segmenting the sampled nonprofits by gross revenue, the authors analyze the impact of the positive and negative emotional tone in each group to determine how the content of a mission statement impacts organizational revenue.

The paper provides empirical insights about how the emotional polarity of a mission statement influences money earned through fundraising. However, the positive and negative tone of a mission statement impacts organizations differently based on size. For nonprofits that report an annual revenue of less than $1 million, a positive tone in the mission statement results in higher revenue. Conversely, nonprofits that report over $1 million earn less revenue with a positive tone in their mission statement.

Owing to the specialized group sampled, the findings possibly only apply to the sampled group. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the relationships found in other areas of nonprofits. However, the implications of mission statement polarity influencing financial performance in any population should be of keen interest to practitioners when crafting mission statements.

The finding that mission statement emotional tone influences the financial performance of a nonprofit has direct implications for the effective delivery of services in the nonprofit realm. Leaders of nonprofits can use the study’s findings to position their organizations to capture potential needed revenue in the crafting of their mission statements.

This paper uniquely exposes the moderating impact of the emotional tone in mission statements in relationship with financial performance.