Combining Nonprofit Service and Advocacy: Organizational Structures and Hybridity

Facilitating political engagement is a vital function of the nonprofit sector. While some public charities engage in political activities like policy advocacy, many focus exclusively on their core service mission. Current nonprofit research does not adequately theorize the inherent tension between service and advocacy activities. We conceptualize nonprofits engaging in service and advocacy as hybrid organizations that incorporate two distinct logics. Using the organizational hybridity literature, and empirical data from a survey of Massachusetts nonprofits, we examine how the logics of service provision and political advocacy are combined and managed across a sample of nonprofits. We find that nonprofit service–advocacy hybrids adopt an array of organizational structures to accommodate these logics, including decoupled, segregated, outsourced, and blended structures. Our results suggest that compartmentalization may be a common strategy and that certain organizational structures are related to the presence of mission integration, funding reliance, competition, and advocacy objectives.

Internal audience segmentation and diversity in internal communication

Purpose Workforce diversity is becoming a crucial matter in the area of internal communication. Realizing that there are multiple brackets within the body of a workforce (i.e. internal audience), the purpose of this paper is to develop an intermediate approach to manage diversity by segmenting the internal audience. Design/methodology/approach Developing a segmentation approach for managing diversity, the authors recommended the use of a few mathematical methodologies, including the expectation-maximization algorithm, partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) methodology, and Chow test, on a surveyed data set collected from 1,236 nurses of the US healthcare system. A PLS-SEM model, including employees’ mission awareness, management’s mission fulfillment, employees’ mission fulfillment, and turnover intention, was examined with respect to two internal segments. Findings Using a simple set of demographic variables, the authors demonstrated a practical approach to segmenting an internal audience and showed that causal relationships in a nomological network of variables regarding mission integration are significantly different between internal segments. Based on the segmentation approach, the authors proved that managers, in an effort to gain maximum diversity, can mix and match both the centrifugal force of diversity and the centripetal force of diversity to value individuals and for mission integration in their practices, respectively. Research limitations/implications The authors highlighted a practical matter of internal communication by connecting the concepts of diversity and internal audience segmentation. However, the generalizability of the results must be assessed in other settings. Practical implications While managing diversity involves valuing employees as individuals, the segmentation concept can function as a practical and useful intermediate tool for managing diversity. Practitioners can utilize varied sets of segmented variables according to their contexts. Social implications The authors emphasized valuing employees as individuals and developed a managerial way to make personal differences an asset to the productivity of an organization and society. Originality/value Introducing a segmentation approach to internal communication and adopting a set of useful statistical techniques, the authors attempted to develop a unique managing model of diversity. The authors suggested a dynamic and substantial segmentation of an internal audience with a smaller set of appropriate variables in each context.

Sacred Encounters

This chapter examines the role played by chaplains at HolyCare Hospital's Department of Mission Integration and Spiritual Care. The Department of Mission Integration and Spiritual Care was responsible for maintaining the “emotional and spiritual well-being” of patients as well as for elevating the spiritual dimensions of the hospital as a whole. In the face of market pressures, Amanda Roberts, a chaplain at HolyCare Hospital, admitted that “it can feel as though the spirit or the heart of the place is getting dried out.” The market jeopardized those parts of hospital care that, in her mind, were most central to healing. The chapter considers how HolyCare Hospital wrestled with the relationship between the market for care and the meaning of care. It shows that the Catholic values at HolyCare Hospital had economic value, and that the hospital's marketing strategy merged seamlessly with its religious identity.