May 31, 2001 | Read Time: 1 minute
Strategic Positioning and the Financing of Nonprofit Organizations: Is Efficiency Rewarded in the Contributions Marketplace?, by Peter Frumkin and Mark T. Kim, examines the question of whether donors reward nonprofit groups that demonstrate superior financial and operational efficiency. Mr. Frumkin, an assistant professor of public policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Mr. Kim, a doctoral student at the school, analyzed the administrative efficiency and fund-raising results of a large sample of nonprofit organizations over 11 years. Groups that demonstrated that they were more cost-efficient than other charities fared no better with individual, foundation, and corporate donors than did less efficient nonprofit groups, the researchers found. The authors, therefore, suggest that “economizing may not always be the best strategy in the nonprofit sector.” The working paper is the second in a series from Harvard’s Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations.
Publisher: Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, Harvard University, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, BT214, Cambridge, Mass. 02138; (617) 496-5675; fax (617) 495-0996; hauser_center@harvard.edu; http://www.ksghauser.harvard.edu; 31 pages; $5.00.
