Social Capital – Resources List
Will the Real Driver of the Nonprofit Economy Please Stand Up? A Step-by-Step Process for Achieving Organizational Sustainability through Social Capital
Video:
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Insights
On Social Capital Conversion
How Do NPOs Get Funding? A Business Model Perspective Based on the Conversion of Symbolic Capital
This 2020 paper by Rachel Bocquet, Gaëlle Cotterlaz-Rannard, and Michel Ferrary, published in Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, presents a new framework for considering how and why nonprofits partner with for-profit organizations (FPOs) for funding: “With an explicit consideration of symbolic capital—and the risks of damaging it if the NPO turns to FPOs for funding—the authors explore specific issues related to NPO business models.” Read more.
A Bourdieusian Perspective on the Business Model: Exploring the Virtuous Circle of Societal Value Creation and Capture by Nonprofit Organizations
Another paper from Cotterlaz-Rannard and Ferrary, this one from the 2021 AGRH Congress conference: “Despite some considerations about societal value, the dominant paradigm in business model literature remains centered on economic value creation as the ultimate goal.… For NPOs, societal value is understood not as a support to economic value but as an end in itself.” Read more.
On Social Capital and Sustainability
Structural Embeddedness and the Liability of Newness Among Nonprofit Organizations
Mark A. Hager, Joseph Galaskiewicz, and Jeff A. Larson, writing in 2004 for Public Management Review, examine the circumstances that lead newer nonprofit organizations to close down more frequently than longer-established ones. Read more.
Social Media Capital for Nonprofits: How to Accumulate It, Convert It, and Spend It
Chao Guo and Gregory D. Saxton, writing for the winter 2016 edition of the Nonprofit Quarterly, discuss the advent of what was then a new kind of observable capital—social media capital. Read more.
Who Are Stakeholders and Why Do They Matter?
Elizabeth Castillo, writing for the spring 2020 edition of the Nonprofit Quarterly, explains what stakeholders are, as well as their role in the nonprofit economy. Read more.
Nonprofit Capacity Building: A Multiple-Capitals Approach
Castillo, writing for the summer 2019 edition of the Nonprofit Quarterly, discusses capacity building through a lens of different kinds of capital: “A multiple-capitals approach can help nonprofit organizations build capacity dependably and systematically across multiple levels. Further, this approach offers a cohesive and compelling rationale to support strategic decision making and present a clear case for philanthropic support.” Read more.
Case Study
Northern Dental Access Center Expansion through Service to “Competitors”
A Minnesota-based, rural-serving nonprofit dental practice renegotiated its niche with a wide range of partners during the pandemic. The ways it stood in for its neighbors paid off in the long term.
REQUEST FOR STORIES
We want to help illuminate the stories of nonprofits that have managed through periods of unexpected crisis for themselves and their communities. What is in it for you? You will get a free write-up of your social capital story by Elizabeth Castillo, a nationally known academic in the field of sustainability who will be working in partnership with the Nonprofit Financial Commons. What’s in it for the rest of us? We will get a clearer picture of how nonprofits accumulate, deploy, and convert social capital over time to create sustainability even in the face of unpredictable conditions. To share your story, email Ruth McCambridge at rmccambridge@nonprofitfinancials.org.
