When Missions, Markets, and Politics Collide: Values and Strategy in the Nonprofit Human Services
- 1 March 2000
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly
- Vol. 29 (1_suppl), 141-163
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0899764000291s007
Abstract
This article explores the meaning of nonprofit strategy in the human services through an examination of the challenges facing nonprofit organizations working in the field of welfare-to-work transitions. After considering how the growing competition from large business firms in this field poses a major challenge to nonprofit organizations, the article suggests that many nonprofits are not well equipped to engage in a narrow efficiency competition with large corporations. Instead, nonprofit human service organizations need to develop a strategy that emphasizes the unique value-driven dimension of their programs. Welfare reform legislation can serve as an opening for both faith-based and secular nonprofits to differentiate themselves and to develop a distinctive position within the government-contracting market. From this analysis, the article draws some broader conclusions about the future of strategy in the nonprofit human services in an increasingly competitive environment.Keywords
This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
- Performance, Accountability, and Purchase of Service ContractingAdministration in Social Work, 1993
- The Role of Nonprofit EnterpriseThe Yale Law Journal, 1980