Non-Profit Basics
This is the primary mission-driven characteristic that distinguishes a nonprofit from a for-profit business.
What is the absence of profit distribution (or: operating for a public/social mission, not shareholder profit)?
This chain-reaction dynamic — where government under-provision triggers nonprofit overextension — is the formal definition of this theory.
What is government failure theory?
Hurricane Katrina made landfall on this U.S. city in August 2005, devastating its levee infrastructure.
What is New Orleans?
During COVID-19, this type of nonprofit organization saw the most dramatic spike in demand, serving millions of newly food-insecure Americans.
What are food banks (or food pantries)?
Scholars argue nonprofits should serve as this to the government, not replacing it.
What is a stopgap (or supplement/safety net complement)
Advocacy is similar to but NOT this thing
What is Lobbying?
What are underserved or minority communities (heterogeneous demand groups / outlier populations)?
In government failure theory, nonprofits step in when government refuses or is unable to serve this group.
This federal agency was widely criticized for its slow and wasteful response to Hurricane Katrina.
What is FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency)?
The number of food-insecure Americans grew from 35 million to this estimated figure during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020
What is 50 million?
This federal program, administered by the USDA, provides surplus food commodities to food banks and is one of the government's primary tools for supporting nonprofit food distribution.
What is TEFAP (The Emergency Food Assistance Program)?
These two types of resources — related to people and money — are the primary inputs that nonprofits rely on to deliver services.
What are volunteers and donations (or: human capital and funding)?
Weisbrod's concept describing how governments fund services for the average citizen while leaving outliers to nonprofits.
What is demand heterogeneity?
The American Red Cross mobilized over 74,000 of these people to help in the first two weeks after Katrina.
What are volunteers?
This 2020 federal relief bill provided some — but widely criticized as insufficient — support to nonprofits during the pandemic.
What is the CARES Act?
The GAO identified this key advantage nonprofits hold over government agencies in disaster response: they are more flexible, act faster, and have these.
What are pre-existing relationships with local officials and communities?
Name 2 types of Non-Profit/Government relationships
What is Supplementary, Adversarial, or Complementary?
This social scientist's 1977 book on the voluntary nonprofit sector laid the groundwork for government failure theory.
Who is Burton Weisbrod?
FEMA conducted this simulation exercise one year before Katrina, designed to prepare for exactly such a hurricane — yet failed to act on its lessons.
What is 'Hurricane Pam'?
According to a Duke World Food Policy Center study, this percentage of food banks saw an increase in demand for their existing services during COVID-19.
What is 88 percent (within 5%)?
Researchers and nonprofit leaders use this phrase to describe the dangerous shift from nonprofits serving as emergency responders to fulfilling what has become a permanent, chronic need.
What is the normalization of charitable substitution for government services (or: chronic reliance on emergency food infrastructure)?
Name a level of Civic Engagement
What is Political, Community, Civic Skills, or Social Justice?
This 2019 academic study revisited Weisbrod's original framework and connected it to modern nonprofit realities.
What is Paalberg and Zuhlke's 'Revisiting the Theory of Government Failure in the Face of Heterogeneous Demands'?
FEMA wasted $100 million worth of this specific supply by shipping it to warehouses far from the Gulf Coast and discarding it two years later.
What is ice?
Researchers noted that even after the initial COVID-19 crisis, Feeding America's food distribution levels remained above pre-pandemic levels by this percentage.
What is 55 percent (more than 55% above pre-pandemic levels)?
This philosopher-economist concept, related to public goods theory, argues that when the private or voluntary sector permanently substitutes for public provision, it reduces political pressure to fix the underlying government failure.
What is voluntary failure?