Abstract

The growing commercialization of the nonprofit sector, nonprofits’ reliance on revenue from commercial activities, has aroused substantial research and practical attention. There is a concern that commercial revenue will crowd out charitable contributions and thus undermine the civic and philanthropic nature of the nonprofit sector. However, previous empirical studies report mixed findings concerning the interaction between these two revenue sources. In this study, informed by the notion of legitimacy threshold, we propose that the effect of commercial revenue on charitable contributions follows an inverted U-shaped pattern. Our analysis of a longitudinal dataset of U.S. arts and cultural nonprofits over the period of 2008–2016 confirms the curvilinear association: low levels of commercial revenue crowd in charitable contributions, while commercial revenue greater than 25% of total revenue crowds out charitable contributions. The finding contributes new knowledge to the literature and offers practical implications.

摘要

非营利部门日益商业化，非营利组织对商业活动收入的依赖，引起了广泛的研究和实际关注。人们担心商业收入会挤出慈善捐款，从而破坏非营利部门的公民和慈善性质。然而，先前的实证研究报告了关于这两种收入来源之间相互作用的混合结果。在这项研究中，根据合法性门槛的概念，我们提出商业收入对慈善捐款的影响遵循倒 U 形模式。我们对 2008-2016 年期间美国艺术和文化非营利组织的纵向数据集的分析证实了曲线关联：低水平的商业收入人群在慈善捐款中，而商业收入超过总收入的 25% 则排挤了慈善捐款。这一发现为文献提供了新知识，并提供了实际意义。