Light and Dark Sides of Nonprofit Activities and the Rules to Manage Them

Abstract

Nonprofit organizations face numerous challenges in balancing mission and nonmission pressures. These competing demands create tensions that must be managed if nonprofits are to balance the light and the dark aspects of their activities. In addition to government regulation, the authors examine other sources of “rules” used to navigate light/dark tensions in the nonprofit sector. Drawing on one form of nonprofit activity—charitable bingo—this article uses neoinstitutional theories to develop a conceptual framework of how government and nongovernment actors actively generate rules to manage these tensions. Their work with charitable bingo demonstrates that nonprofit organizations are not simply passive recipients of nonnegotiable state-imposed rules. On the contrary, the authors demonstrate that individuals, nonprofits, and state actors develop boundary, position, choice, and scope rules to manage mission tensions in the nonprofit sector. Nonprofits that use rules to manage tensions appear better equipped to shape their environments by influencing their regulatory environments and how their missions are portrayed.