Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Organizations: A Practical Guide for Dynamic Times

2020 ◽  
pp. 000765032092733
Author(s):  
Ziva Sharp

Emergent structural approaches to institutional complexity tend to inhibit the role of agency in addressing logic multiplicity scenarios. Prior studies of logic multiplicity have documented a diverse set of outcomes, ranging from domination through hybridization, and characterized by various levels of conflict. A new stream of research has emerged that seeks to explain this heterogeneity through the structural components of complexity. These studies tend to minimize the role of agency in institutional complexity scenarios, positing that outcome diversity, and the organization’s ability to exert agency, can be accounted for by the interaction of exogenously determined parameters, such as centrality, compatibility, prioritization, and jurisdictional overlap. This article revisits the role of agency in these models, suggesting that agency is not only framed by, but may itself shape, structure. The article draws on a comparative case study in five Israeli nonprofit organizations, focusing on the introduction of the business logic through a strategic planning process, and the challenge that this represents for the legacy social logic. The case studies demonstrate that organizations regularly use a set of distinctive mechanisms to manipulate the structural components of complexity, and, in so doing, agentically regulate logic multiplicity outcomes.


2018 ◽  
pp. 623-652
Author(s):  
Rui Sun ◽  
Hugo Asencio ◽  
Julie Reid

This chapter examines whether and how the use of social media and government funding may enhance the capacity of a nonprofit organization, help fulfill its mission, and facilitate its strategic planning process. Both the organizational capacity and strategic planning literature emphasize the importance of leadership, management, collaboration, and fiscal, technical resources. Using a case study of the American Lung Association in Arizona (ALAA), this chapter finds that government grants and strategic use of social media in nonprofit organizations can lead to increased public awareness of the issues related to their organizational missions, greater fundraising capacity, and enhanced collaboration among their employees.


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