Developing nonprofit communities through resource network interventions

This dissertation reports on developmental research with a set of loosely linked organizations during 1983-87. It examines how resource exchange activity among managers in 148 small nonprofit organizations in a metropolitan area emerged and grew. A concept of collaborative resource management in an interest-based community of organizations is developed. The purpose of the research are to study how resource networks emerge in an interorganizational setting and to evaluate the potential of such networks for affecting the development of such settings into organizational communities. Examining how small, fragile nonprofit organizations adapted to turbulent conditions in their resource environments is intended to help illuminate the dynamics of interorganizational adaptation in general. The research context is the Delaware Valley Council of Agencies, a membership association of nonprofit organizations created in 1984 and based in Philadelphia. An action-research methodology is used, and the intervention is a "network-catalyzing" type. Perspectives from social network theory, the social-ecology branch of oganization theory, community development theory and institutional economics are brought together and applied in the setting under the major theme of resource mobilization. A three-phase model of Collaborative Resource Management is proposed a priori, then tested for appropriateness in the field. Five types of collaborative resource programs are described and evaluated for their impact on the development of organizational communities. The study concludes that the intervention had two effects: (1) the capacity of the local nonprofit sector to direct its own affairs increased; and (2) decisions in their collective resource and political environments began to be made jointly. Contributions to development theory, interorganization theory, and planning theory are indicated.