Abstract

Nonprofits continue to be faced with the pressure to succeed under financial restrictions. While donors assert that financial restrictions help nonprofit service delivery, nonprofit professionals claim that financial restrictions hinder service delivery. Applying both principal-agent and resource dependence theories, this study tests competing hypotheses to understand whether donor-imposed financial restrictions help or hinder nonprofit service delivery. Using a sample of national arts and culture nonprofits in the United States from 2011 to 2018, our results indicate a negative relationship between financial restrictions and program outputs. We find that donor-imposed financial restrictions hinder nonprofit service delivery. We also find that the relationship turns more negative when financial restrictions are mostly derived from permanently restricted donations. The findings challenge the donors’ view that imposing restrictions on donations ensures that nonprofits will further their missions. This study extends prior research by focusing on program outputs rather than financial performance, while also having theoretical implications for scholars and practical implications for both nonprofit and public managers, and donors.

摘要

非营利组织继续面临在财务限制下取得成功的压力。虽然捐助者声称财务限制有助于提供非营利服务，但非营利专业人士声称财务限制阻碍了服务提供。本研究同时应用委托代理和资源依赖理论，测试相互竞争的假设，以了解捐助者强加的财务限制是否有助于或阻碍非营利服务的提供。使用 2011 年至 2018 年美国国家艺术和文化非营利组织的样本，我们的结果表明财务限制与项目产出之间存在负相关关系。我们发现捐助者施加的财务限制阻碍了非营利服务的提供。我们还发现，当财务限制主要来自永久限制捐赠时，这种关系变得更加消极。调查结果挑战了捐赠者的观点，即对捐赠施加限制可确保非营利组织进一步履行其使命。本研究通过关注项目产出而不是财务绩效来扩展先前的研究，同时也对学者具有理论意义，对非营利组织和公共管理者以及捐助者具有实际意义。