Nonprofit Advocacy Under a Third-Party
Government Regime: Cooperation or
Conflict?
Bram Verschuere & Joris De Corte
VOLUNTAS: International Journal
of Voluntary and Nonprofit
Organizations
Official journal of the International
Society for Third-Sector Research
ISSN 0957-8765
Voluntas
DOI 10.1007/s11266-013-9427-9
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DOI 10.1007/s11266-013-9427-9
ORIGINAL PAPER
Nonprofit Advocacy Under a Third-Party Government
Regime: Cooperation or Conflict?
Bram Verschuere • Joris De Corte
Ó International Society for Third-Sector Research and The Johns Hopkins University 2013
Abstract In this article we discuss the extent to which service-delivering nonprofit
organizations (NPOs) are committed to fulfill an expressive advocacy role, and we
look at the advocacy strategies these organizations adopt. Furthermore, we question
whether a close relationship with government compromises the NPOs’ willingness
to perform these advocacy activities. Based on a large-N sample of more than 250
NPOs in the Flemish welfare sector, our research shows that the overall commitment to an advocacy role was rather low. Rather than focusing on a role as
adversary of government, NPOs seek to adopt ‘‘softer’’ strategies such as the use of
insider contacts with policy makers, the participation in umbrella organizations or
building coalitions with other NPOs. Finally, we found mixed evidences concerning
our initial hypotheses. Most importantly, as the dominant source of public income
did not stifle the NPOs’ commitment to advocate, we found little support for a
resource dependence framework.
Résumé Cet article apporte une définition de la mesure selon laquelle les organisations sans but lucratif (OSBL) assurant des prestations de services sont
déterminées à assumer un rôle démonstratif de défense et il examine les stratégies
adoptées par ces organisations pour y parvenir. Nous nous interrogeons en outre sur
la question de savoir si une relation étroite avec le gouvernement compromet la
volonté des OBSL de mettre en œuvre ces activités de défense d’une cause. Sur la
base d’un échantillon large de plus de 250 OBSL actives en matière de fourniture
B. Verschuere
Department of Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Faculty of Economics and Business
Administration, Ghent University, Henleykaai 84 Camp, Mercator G, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
e-mail: [email protected]
J. De Corte (&)
Department of Social Welfare Studies, Faculty of Psychology and Pedagogical Sciences,
Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
e-mail: [email protected]
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d’aide sociale dans les Flandres, il nous est apparu que l’engagement global en
faveur d’un rôle de défense était plutôt faible. Plutôt que d’endosser en priorité un
rôle d’adversaire du gouvernement, les OBSL s’efforcent d’adopter des stratégies
‘plus subtiles’ telles que l’utilisation de contacts internes avec les décideurs politiques, la participation à des organisations-cadres et la mise en place de coalitions
avec d’autres OBSL. Enfin, nous n’avons mis en évidence que très peu d’éléments à
l’appui d’un cadre de dépendance quant aux ressources. Si le gouvernement tout
comme les OBSL dépendent des ressources contrôlées par les autres parties, ils
seront plus enclins à envisager une collaboration.
Zusammenfassung Dieser Beitrag bestimmt das Ausmaß, in dem es sich dienstleistungserbringende Nonprofit-Organisationen zur Verpflichtung gemacht haben,
die ausdrückliche Rolle eines Interessenvertreters zu übernehmen. Dabei werden die
in diesem Zusammenhang angewandten Strategien dieser Organisationen betrachtet.
Des Weiteren stellen wir die Frage, ob eine enge Beziehung zur Regierung die
Bereitschaft der Nonprofit-Organisationen zur Ausübung dieser Interessenvertretung gefährdet. Beruhend auf einer N-Stichprobe von mehr als 250 Nonprofit-Organisationen, die in Flandern Diensteistungen bereitstellen, kamen wir zu dem
Ergebnis, dass das insgesamte Engagement zur Ausübung einer Interessenvertretung
eher gering war. Statt sich auf eine Rolle als Gegenspieler der Regierung zu konzentrieren, versuchen die Nonprofit-Organisationen, auf ,,weichere‘‘Strategien zu
setzen, zum Beispiel die Nutzung von Insider-Kontakten zu politischen Entscheidungsträgern, die Mitwirkung in Dachverbänden und die Bildung von Koalitionen mit anderen Nonprofit-Organisationen. Am Ende fanden wir nur wenige
Beweise für ein ressourcenabhängiges Regelwerk. Da sowohl die Regierung als
auch die Nonprofit-Organisationen von den Ressourcen des jeweils Anderen
abhängig sind, ist eine Zusammenarbeit von größerer Wahrscheinlichkeit.
Resumen El presente artı́culo determina la medida en que las organizaciones sin
ánimo de lucro (NPOs, del inglés Nonprofit organizations) que entregan servicios se
comprometen a cumplir un papel de defensa expresiva y examina las estrategias que
dichas organizaciones adoptan para hacerlo. Asimismo, nos preguntamos si una
estrecha relación con el gobierno pone en peligro la disposición de las NPO para
llevar a cabo estas actividades de defensa. Basándonos en una amplia muestra N de
más de 250 NPO activas en la provisión de bienestar en Flandes, encontramos que el
compromiso global con un papel de defensa era bastante bajo. En lugar de centrarse
en un papel como adversarias del gobierno, las NPO tratan de adoptar estrategias
‘‘más blandas’’, tales como el uso de contactos privilegiados con polı́ticos y la
participación en organizaciones paraguas y la creación de coaliciones con otras
NPO. Finalmente, encontramos solamente poca evidencia que apoye un marco de
dependencia de recursos. Dado que tanto el gobierno como las NPO dependen de los
recursos controlados por las otras partes, será más probable que colaboren.
Keywords Nonprofit Advocacy Advocacy strategies Resource dependence Third-party government regime
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Introduction
Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) perform various roles within contemporary
societies (Anheier 2005). In many countries, these private actors are primarily
recognized for the purpose of public welfare provision to citizens (Salamon et al.
1999). Najam (2000) considers them as so-called ‘‘policy entrepreneurs,’’ whose
role is not limited to the implementation of policies. These entrepreneurs make their
way through other phases of the policy cycle as well. The key argument is that the
NPOs have a capacity, due to their unique position close to clients and citizens, to
give voice to unaddressed societal needs by translating their clients’ concerns into
political claims (Ross and Osborne 1999; Snavely and Desai 2001). This advocacy
role could be considered as an essential component of their socially inspired mission
as civil society organizations (Bar and Schmid 2013). Hence, by giving input to the
process of developing public policies, NPOs could protect the well-being of their
clients, promote economic and social justice, and strengthen democracy and
equality of opportunities (Reid 1999; Onyx et al. 2008; Bar and Schmid 2013).
In this article, the central focus is on the advocacy behavior of service-delivering
NPOs in Flanders, the Dutch speaking region of Belgium. We argue that this case is
relevant as it is an example of a contemporary welfare state in which private NPOs
developed historically strong (financial) ties with government to deliver social
services to citizens (Salamon et al. 1999). We distilled three research questions.
Firstly, we analyze the extent to which Flemish NPOs perceive themselves as
advocates on behalf of their constituents, or not. This is important as recent studies
have pointed out that only few service-delivering organizations do invest time and
energy in fulfilling an advocacy role (Anheier 2005; Child and Gronbjerg 2007).
Secondly, we analyze the different strategies (insider, outsider, and collective) on
which NPOs rely to carry out this role (Grant 2000, Binderkrantz 2005). Finally, our
third research question has an explanatory nature and focuses on different factors
that might have a (positive or negative) impact on the NPOs commitment to
advocate. On the one hand we rely on a resource dependence framework by
focusing on factors related to their relationship (e.g., in financial terms or the
accountability pressure) with government. The literature on the topic of external
funding has been inconclusive so far (Bar and Schmid 2013). For some, NPOs will
be reluctant to ‘‘bite the hand that feeds them’’ (Smith and Lipsky 1993; Guo and
Saxton 2010), while others have pointed out that the government funding might
enable NPOs to advocate (Berry and Arons 2003; Chavez et al. 2004; PlittDonaldson 2007). On the other hand, we build upon a resource mobilization
framework by looking at factors that are related to organizational size, such as the
number of paid workforce, the NPO’s total budget, and the degree to which the
organization is professionalized (Child and Gronbjerg 2007; Plitt-Donaldson 2007).
As a result, we will be able to add to the discussion on the advocacy behavior of
service-delivering NPOs, especially in a third-party government regime as it appears
in Flanders. Furthermore, as resources, goals and priorities inevitably will collide
during this process of implementing and developing policies, we might enrich our
comprehension on the nature of the relationships these two sectors develop in a
modern welfare state (Najam 2000).
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NPO-Advocacy: Theoretical Framework and Initial Hypotheses
In order to obtain a better understanding of the NPOs’ commitment to fulfill an
advocacy role and their choice for particular strategies, we use a framework that
combines wisdom from resource dependence theory, institutional theory, and
resource mobilization theory.
Resource Dependence
Resource dependence suggests that the organizations are dependent on their
environment for resources that are critical for their survival, which generates
uncertainty (Pfeffer and Salancik 2003). Service-delivering NPOs that are largely
funded by governmental subsidies may be confronted with a kind of conflict of
interest: they depend on the government for their financing (hence survival) and
may thus be hesitant to being too critical toward that government. This results in a
situation in which NPOs aiming to perform an advocacy role will fear punishment
for certain levels of unwelcome political activity. Furthermore, resource dependence
also operates in a more subtle way as government funding causes changes in
nonprofit organizational structure and behavior by redirecting organizational
attention and energy away from advocacy and toward administrative activities,
necessary to sustain the funding source on which they depend (Alexander et al.
1999). Hence, we hypothesize a negative relationship to occur between the amount
of public income and the corresponding accountability pressure exerted by that
same government on the NPOs’ commitment to fulfill an advocacy role (H1a).
Alternatively, we hypothesize a positive impact of the relative share of private
income (such as gifts) in the NPOs’ total budget on the extent to which NPOs play
an advocacy role (H1b).
The close (financial and accountability) ties NPOs develop with government
under a third-party government regime might also tell us something about the
choice for particular advocacy strategies. We may argue that the NPO managers,
whose organizations receive public funding, have an objective to protect or enhance
these funding streams or otherwise aim at improving working conditions within
their respective policy domains. In other words, NPOs have a monetary self-interest
and do not necessarily react passively to their resource environments because they
will also try to control and shape these environments. When government is an
important part of that (funding) environment we can expect political activity,
through the use of insider strategies like looking for close contacts with politicians
and civil servants (Galaskiewicz 1985; Berry and Arons 2003). Hence, we expect
that the NPOs that have close (financial and accountability) relationships with
government, will have an incentive to develop more insider contacts with
government (H1c).
Organizational Field of Activity
Nonprofits are active in different fields of activity face distinctive public policy
environments (Powell 1987). These fields could be considered as broad policy areas
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in which similar types of social actors, such as NPOs, operate. More formally, these
fields consist of those organizations that, in aggregate, constitute a recognized area
of institutional life (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). In these fields, stable patterns of
interaction among the totality of relevant actors are produced, and exert fieldspecific institutional forces on their occupants. We therefore, expect field of activity
to be a useful predictor variable for variation in nonprofit advocacy activity, as
nonprofits respond to the unique structures and pressure characteristics of the fields
they inhabit. To a certain extent, organizations in the same field will be subject to
isomorphism: they tend to show similar organizational behavior, like advocacy
(DiMaggio and Powell 1991). Hence, we could hypothesize that the commitment of
NPOs to exert an advocacy role will vary dependent on the policy field in which the
organization is active (H2). For a more detailed view on our sample, we refer to
Table 4.
Organizational Capacity: Mobilizing Resources
In general, wisdom from resource mobilization theory suggests that only those
organizations that have the internal capacity, e.g., in terms of (professionalized)
staff, will be able to take up an expressive advocacy role. Hence, we argue that
commitment to an advocacy role is positively related to the size of the organization,
as larger organizations can be expected to have more overall capacities to be
involved in a broader array of activities (H3a) (McCarthy and Zald 1977; Child and
Gronbjerg 2007). In the same vein we also hypothesize that the organizations that
employ a larger number of highly educated people will have more chances to fulfill
an expressive advocacy role as well because we expect that these functions will be
mainly performed by those employees that have the skills to do so (H3b). This is a
kind of organizational professionalization that is necessary for organizations to
fulfill an expressive role (DiMaggio and Powell 1991).
Research Method and Measurement of Variables
Data Collection
Our units of analysis are service-delivering NPOs active in four areas of current
welfare policy in Flanders that received increased governmental attention in recent
years: the field of poverty reduction, elderly care, youth care; and the integration of
ethnic-cultural minorities. For delineating our research population, we firstly limited
ourselves to those organizations that have a permanent and formal character. This is
reflected in the presence of paid staff. We recognize that the purely voluntary
organizations do play an important role in vitalizing contemporary civil societies.
However, we only selected the more professionalized service agencies that have
been able to develop long-term relationships with policy makers under the thirdparty government regime in Flanders. Secondly, the selected NPOs also have a
private character. This implies that all public service providers in the four policy
areas were deleted from the population. Thirdly, we only selected one particular
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legal type of organizations, the so-called ‘‘associations without for-profit motives’’
(known as VZWs—Verenigingen Zonder Winstoogmerk—in Flanders). This is the
dominant legal form in the Flemish nonprofit sector (and especially in the domain of
welfare), and implies that these organizations are legally bounded by the nondistribution constraint. Finally, we limited ourselves to organizations that are active
in one of the 13 biggest cities in Flanders, being the Dutch speaking region of
Belgium. It is important to acknowledge that, especially in a densely populated
region such as Flanders, these urban NPOs do not limit their activities to the city in
which they are established but also perform a pivotal role in attracting and serving
customers and citizens from surrounding areas as well. Furthermore, many of the
societal issues dealt within the selected policy domains, especially poverty
reduction and the integration of ethnic-cultural minorities, are predominately
typical urban phenomena in Flanders. Finally, and based on the above criteria, we
identified an initial research population of almost 800 private NPOs active in an
urban context and spread over the four policy domains being studied in this article.
For a more detailed view of the composition of these policy domains, we refer to
Table 4.
The data used in this study are collected via a questionnaire that was sent to the
CEOs of these organizations. A total of 255 organizations responded, resulting in a
sample of 44 in elderly care, 30 in ethnic-cultural minorities, 73 in special youth
care, and 108 in poverty policy care (also see Table 4). We acknowledge that we
only have a response of 33 % (255 responses from a population of 796
organizations to which the survey was sent). The relative distribution of the four
policy domains in the sample is similar to their relative distribution in the total
population (see Table 4), which makes our sample fairly representative. We also
analyzed for non-response bias. We compared (via ANOVA) the scores on the
dependent variable (index for role perception) between the early respondents and
the late respondents (those who responded after reminders). The analyses show that
there are no significant differences. Although care is needed, this could be an
indication that the group of non-respondents too would show a similar distribution
on the key variable, compared to the early and late respondents.
Measuring Independent Variables
As outlined in the theoretical framework, we selected three sets of independent
variables. First, resource dependence is measured by looking at variables related to
the relative share of funding from central (federal or regional) government and the
local government in the total NPO’s income. We, therefore, asked respondents to
indicate the relative share of these income sources in their total budget and then
recoded these scores into three categories: no share, a relatively smaller share
(\50 % of the NPO’s budget) or a large share (representing more than 50 % of the
budget). We also look at the accountability pressure exerted on these organizations
by the three governmental levels. Respondents were asked to indicate (yes or no),
whether they were held accountable by government at different parameters: the
quality of the services they deliver, the quantity or the number of services to clients,
the target groups to be reached through service delivery, the social effects to be
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achieved (e.g., reducing poverty, etc.), adherence to financial reporting standards,
and adherence to administrative reporting standards. Accountability pressure was
then measured by recoding these scores for each organization into three categories:
low pressure (adherence to maximum one accountability parameter), medium
pressure (two to four parameters) or high pressure (five or six parameters). Finally,
we look at the relative share of private gifts in the total NPO’s income because these
gifts and donations are the most important private source of income for most NPOs.
This variable was also divided in three categories: no share, low share, and high
share. Descriptive statistics of these variables are presented in Table 5. Secondly,
the institutional field in which the NPO is active is measured by looking at the four
policy domains in our research sample (also see Table 4). Thirdly, organizational
capacity is measured by looking at the total number of full-time equivalents (FTE)
in 2009, the NPOs’ total budget and the amount of volunteers at their disposal. We
asked respondents to indicate the total number of VTE, the total budget, and the
total number of volunteers. For each variable these scores were then recoded into
three categories: small size, medium size, and large size. For an overview we refer
to Table 5. Furthermore, professionalization as a measure of organizational capacity
is assessed through the relative share of FTE with a master’s degree and the relative
share of FTE with a bachelor’s degree in the total staff population (FTE). The total
number of both masters and bachelors were then recoded into three categories:
small, medium, and large. These descriptive statistics are presented in Table 5.
Measuring Dependent Variables
In order to measure the extent to which NPOs are committed to an advocacy role,
we relied on a subjective interpretation of NPO managers on a 5-pointed scale about
how organizational time and efforts are divided between service delivery on the one
hand and advocacy on the other hand. For the NPOs’ role perception we recoded the
original value 1 (only focus on service delivery) in a score of 0; a score of 2 (more
service delivery than advocacy) then became 0.25; a score of 3 (equal efforts for
service delivery and advocacy) became a score of 0.50; a score of 4 (more advocacy
than service delivery) became 0.75, and finally a score of 5 (focus only on
advocacy) became a score of 1. Descriptive statistics of this variable are presented
in Table 6.
Next, we presented a list of ten advocacy strategies to our respondents (also see
Table 6). The scores in Table 2 reflect the relative amount of NPOs that specified
the use of each individual strategy.
Individual advocacy strategies have been clustered into categories (as shown in
Table 2); insider strategies, outsider strategies, and collective strategies (Page 1999;
Grant 2000). Insider strategies are characterized by providing a direct and privileged
access to policymakers such as politicians or civil servants (Binderkrantz 2005). In
this article we make a double distinction between the actors (politicians vs. civil
servants) that are targeted and the governmental levels (local vs. national) on which
these actors are active. These four insider strategies are grouped into two categories:
those exerted at the local level (targeting politicians and/or civil servants) and those
exerted at the central governmental level (targeting politicians and/or civil servants).
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In the case of outsider strategies NPOs try to exert influence those policymakers
through indirect strategies of pressure. We have grouped four outsider strategies into
two categories. These are, on the one hand, two so-called ‘‘non-conflictual’’
strategies (gaining mass-media coverage and developing information campaigns to
the public) and, on the other hand two rather ‘‘conflictual’’ outsider strategies
(taking issues into court and organizing protest actions). Finally, we also added two
other advocacy strategies, forging coalitions with other organizations which are
active in the same subfield and becoming a member of umbrella organizations,
which are clustered into a third main category of collective strategies. The original
values on the ten individual strategies had a score between 1 and 4. We first recoded
a score of 1 (this advocacy strategy is never used) into a score of 0; the original
score 2 (this advocacy strategy is rarely used) into 0.33; a score of 3 (this advocacy
strategy is used occasionally) into 0.66; and finally a score of 4 (this advocacy
strategy is very often used) became a score of 1. For each of the categories of
advocacy strategies we created, we then took the sum of these individual scores and
divided the result by the number of advocacy strategies within this category. Hence,
we obtained an index (ranging between 0 and 1) for all categories. Descriptive
statistics are shown in Table 6. In the last column we also added the Cronbach’s
alpha for each category as a measure for internal consistency of the scale.
Results
Advocacy by Flemish NPOs
Results for the total population’s role perception are shown in the first two columns of
Table 1. We see that more than one-third (36.5 %) of all NPOs seems to be only
engaged in service delivery. In addition, for approximately four out of five
organizations (78.6 %) these service-delivering tasks are dominant over the expressive functions. This leaves us with no more than 20 % of the NPOs which dedicate at
least half of their organizational resources to their expressive advocacy function
(categories 3, 4, and 5). Finally, only 5.4 % of the organizations claim that advocacy
activities are dominant over service-delivering activities (categories 4 and 5).
Table 1 Levels of advocacy behavior of Flemish NPO’s measured in terms of role perception
Tot pop
%
Cum %
1. Only service delivery
36.5
36.5
2. More service delivery than advocacy
42.1
78.6
3. About the same levels of service delivery and advocacy
16.0
94.6
4. More advocacy than service delivery
3.2
97.8
5. Only advocacy
2.2
100
N
252
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Table 2 Advocacy strategies
used by Flemish NPO’s
Tot pop
Insider
Insider local
Politicians
62.7
Civil servants
70.7
Insider central
Politicians
34.0
Civil servants
58.7
Outsider
Outsider non-conflictual
Mass-media
42.0
Information campaigns
50.7
Outsider conflictual
Protest
9.3
Court
4.0
Collective
Coalitions
Umbrella organizations
N
73.3
72.7
150
Strategy: How do Flemish NPOs Fulfill Their Advocacy Role?
We analyzed the use of advocacy strategies of those organizations that confirmed of
dedicating at least some of their resources to advocacy work (positions 2, 3, 4 or 5 in
Table 1). As shown in Table 2, the total N for this analysis has reduced to 150 (instead
of 250) due to the fact that a part of the organizations indicated that they do not dedicate
organizational time or effort to advocacy work. As a consequence, these organizations
were not questioned about the use of particular advocacy strategies.
Results for the total population show that the Flemish NPOs mainly look at
advocacy as a collective effort. More than 70 % of all NPOs are eager to build
coalitions with other organizations which are active in the same subfield. These
coalitions most often have a temporary character and concentrate organizational
time and resources on issues of shared interest, while working through umbrella
organizations has a more formal and permanent character. We might assume that,
by working together in coalitions or by playing an active role in umbrella
organizations, NPOs seek to maximize their influence to an extent which would be
simply impossible to reach individually.
Secondly, we may conclude that insider strategies are more frequently used than
outsider strategies by Flemish NPOs. Especially local civil servants (70.7 %) and local
politicians (62.7 %) are targeted. At the central level, we see that almost 60 % of all
NPOs are working together with civil servants, but only 34 % indicates of having
direct access to politicians at these higher (Flemish or federal) governmental levels.
Finally, when we turn to the use of outsider strategies, we see that the ones with a rather
conflictual nature do occur very rarely. In concrete, only 9.3 % of the NPOs have
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organized in recent times a protest manifestation, while only 4 % has taken issues into
court. On the contrary, approximately half of all NPOs regularly tries to influence
policymakers in an indirect but non-conflictual way through gaining mass-media
coverage (press releases, press conferences, etc.), and through launching information
campaigns which aim at educating and influencing the public opinion.
Correlations Between Strategies
Still, when looking at the correlation matrix presented in Table 7, we notice that these
conflictual outsider strategies do correlate with the NPOs’ role perception as being an
advocate. Although insider and collective strategies are by far the most used, we did
not found a correlation between these two categories and the NPOs’ role perception.
Finally, when looking at the relationship between the categories of advocacy
strategies, we notice that especially the use of insider strategies (at the central level) is
correlated to all other categories. Furthermore, we also found correlations between the
use of both categories of insider strategies (central level vs. local level) and also
between both groups of outsider strategies (conflictual and non-conflictual). This
implies that the use of these strategies is not mutually exclusive, and that most NPOs
do not limit themselves to one sole strategy to perform their advocacy role.
Which Factors have an Impact on the NPOs’ Advocacy Activities
Table 3 shows the result of the one-way Anova analyses, whereby, the impact of three
theoretical models (rows) is tested on two sets of dependent variables (columns): the
role perception of NPOs and the advocacy strategies used by these NPOs. All
significant variables are marked in bold. First, we will consider the NPOs’ role
perception as an advocate for the interests of their clients and constituents. As shown in
Table 3 we found support for a resource dependence framework but results are mixed
depending on the governmental level that provides the public support. While federal
income does have a negative impact on the NPOs’ advocacy role perception (as it was
hypothesized—H1a), the amount of income received from local government is
positively linked to this role perception as being an advocate. Although local
government primarily is a supplementary funder (providing\10 % of the total budget)
for most NPOs, this result is not in line with what we had hypothesized. Furthermore,
we notice that the Flemish income (being the dominant funding source for more than
half of the NPOs in our sample) does not have a negative (nor positive) impact on the
role perception as being an advocate. Considering the impact of private sources of
income (gifts), we found support for our initial hypothesis (H1b): the higher the
relative share of gifts and donations in the NPOs’ total budget, the more likely they will
be to perform an advocacy role. Next, contrary to what we had hypothesized (H2), we
found no significant differences between the four policy domains in our sample
concerning their commitment to their advocacy role. Finally, when looking at
organizational capacity, we expected that larger organizations would be more
committed to this advocacy role (H3a). On the contrary, however, we found that the
smaller NPOs, both in terms of total budget and in number of paid workforce, are the
ones that are more likely to perform this role. The only measure of capacity that was
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Institutional
theory
Public income
Resource
dependence
high [ low
Policy domain (4 catg)
0.078
high [ low
0.000**
Accountability pressure Local
Field of activity
0.000**
0.354
poverty [ youth care
poverty [ elderly
0.002**
0.047
high [ low
Accountabilitypressure Flemish
0.006**
0.628
high [ low
0.027
high [ low
0.002**
0.000**
high [ low
0.819
0.632
high [ low
0.000**
0.095
0.123
0.412
high [ low
0.010*
0.018*
low [ high
0.174
Insider
central
0.004**
high [ low
low [ high
0.335
0.003**
Insider local
0.035*
Role
perception
Dependent variables
Anova (sign)–post hoc Scheffe
Accountability pressure federal (3 catg)
Accountability pressure
Income gifts (3 catg)
Local Income
Private income
Flemish income
Federal income (3 catg)
Independent variables (factors)
Theoretical
frameworks
Table 3 Testing the impact of three theoretical framework on the NPOs’ role perception (one-way Anova analysis)
0.793
0.255
0.879
0.581
0.429
0.595
0.175
0.718
Outsider nonconflictual
0.871
0.362
0.543
0.244
0.034
0.265
0.298
0.360
Outsider
conflictual
0.374
0.958
high [ low
0.024
0.469
0.245
0.477
high [ low
0.005
0.313
Collective
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Size
Resource
mobilization
0.017*
Number of bachelor degrees (VTE)
(3 catg)
** p \ 0.05 , * p \ 0.10
All significant values are highlighted in bold
0.129
Number of master degrees (VTE)
(3 catg)
low [ high
0.021*
high [ low
low [ high
0.000**
low [ high
0.000**
Role
perception
0.843
0.711
0.762
0.958
0.148
Insider local
Dependent variables
Anova (sign)–post hoc Scheffe
Volunteers (FTE)
Professionalization
Total budget (3 catg)
Paid workforce (FTE) (3 catg)
Independent variables (factors)
Theoretical
frameworks
Table 3 continued
0.795
high [ low
0.009*
0.743
0.640
0.500
Insider
central
low [ high
0.044*
0.358
0.238
low [ high
0.047*
0.099
Outsider nonconflictual
low [ high
0.040*
0.035
0.177
low [ high
0.045*
0.208
Outsider
conflictual
0.055
0.176
0.854
0.388
0.301
Collective
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positively related to the advocacy role was the number of volunteers that are active
within an organization. Furthermore, professionalization, in terms of the number of
bachelor degrees, was also negatively related to the advocacy efforts of the NPOs
(H3b). This effect was not found when using the number of master degrees as a
measure for organizational professionalization.
Secondly, concerning the use particular advocacy strategies, we found support for
our initial hypothesis (H1c) as we saw a positive relationship between the use of insider
strategies and the amount of income public income received, and the accountability
pressure from that same governmental level. This was the case both at the local and the
central governmental levels. Next, we found that the policy field in which the NPOs are
active is related to the use of insider strategies. This is especially the case at the local
governmental level as poverty organizations do report more direct contacts with policy
makers at this local level. Furthermore, the use of outsider strategies, both the
conflictual and non-conflictual ones, seemed to be negatively related to organizational
size (in terms of total budget) and to degree of professionalization (in terms of number
of bachelor degrees). Last finding concerns the positive relationship between the use of
collective strategies and the relationships the NPOs develop, both financially and in
terms of accountability, with the regional Flemish government.
Discussion and Conclusion
A first conclusion is related to the commitment of these service-delivering NPOs to
fulfill a role as an advocate for the needs and demands of their constituents. As
outlined before, this is important as advocacy is an essential component of their
social mission as civil society organizations and for promoting economic and social
justice, and strengthening democracy and equality of opportunities (Berry and
Arons 2003; Bar and Schmid 2013). We found that the overall commitment of
service-delivering NPOs in Flanders to this role was rather low (see Table 1). While
still more than 60 % of the NPOs are involved in some form of advocacy, only
20 % of them also dedicate significant organizational resources (time, money, staff,
etc.) to these tasks. These results correspond well with recent studies among, for
example, Spanish or Israeli NPOs (Fuertes-Fuertes and Maset-Llaudes 2007;
Schmid et al. 2008). Hence, we notice that the Flemish NPOs do engage in some
form of expressive work, but likewise only few organizations have these activities
as their primary focus (Anheier 2005; Child and Gronbjerg 2007).
The above finding should, however, not be considered as an insuperable problem
in terms of protecting client’s well-being and the improvement of public policies, as
we notice that most Flemish NPOs are especially eager to adopt insider strategies to
influence government’s policies (see Table 2). The relatively high use of these
‘‘softer’’ advocacy strategies reveals that the Flemish NPOs are primarily willing to
position their individual organization as a complement, rather than an adversary, of
government. We argue that this could especially be the case for NPOs that are active
under a third-party government in which they developed strong ties with the public
sector for implementing social services. Hence, the consistent strategic approach of
many NPO is to create a set of relationships that enhances the position of their
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organization within governmental processes. The key is then to understand what
governmental bureaucracies want, and to build those capacities that make
interaction with the relevant policy makers effective. Hence, by working together
with government for implementing services, a certain level of trust could be
established, which allows them in the longer run to work alongside of policy makers
and steer policies in a desired direction through the framework of these historically
grown contacts and channels (Berry and Arons 2003). This could also help us to
explain why the relative share of Flemish income, although it represents in most
cases more than half of the NPOs’ budget is not negatively linked to the
commitment to advocate. Hence, within the context of the third-party government
regime in Flanders, the resource dependence framework should be rather understood
as a two-way street (Chavez et al. 2004): although NPOs are heavily dependent
upon public funding, they also control some resources (e.g., expertise, production
capacity) that are scarce and highly valued for governmental agencies. As a result,
government becomes less likely to ‘‘punish’’ unwelcome advocacy behavior and
also have clear incentives for developing trustworthy and deepened (in)formal
contacts with these NPOs. Hence, this finding provides valuable insight to
government officials that are seeking to establish or revise their relationships with
the private nonprofits.
Secondly, we stated that, although overall commitment to fulfill an advocacy role
might be rather moderate, NPOs do rely on a set of different strategies to advocate.
Or, in other words, the use of one strategy does not prevent NPOs to rely on
additional strategies given the particular situation in which they find themselves.
Moreover, we notice that especially collective strategies are a ‘‘popular’’ instrument
to influence public policies. We argue that this could also be considered as softer, or
at least ‘‘safer,’’ variant of advocacy work. Previous studies have revealed that
building and maintaining strong coalitions with similar organizations are a key
factor for successful advocacy work (Rees 1999; Hoefer 2001; Andrews and
Edwards 2004; Gormley and Comrot 2006; Nicholson-Crotty 2007; Onyx et al.
2010). Coalitions are valued as important sources of information regarding policy
and program changes and as providers of political cover to organizations that want
to dispute government positions (Plitt-Donaldson 2007). In sum, as we found that
the Flemish NPOs do rely on a set of different strategies, we argue that this analysis
(see Table 2) provides fertile ground, for scholars, government officials, and also for
NPO managers themselves, to reflect on how advocacy activities are carried out in
practice.
A final conclusion is related to the way advocacy work is planned, organized, and
carried out within these NPOs. As noted before, we found little support for a
resource mobilization framework. The size of an organization, measured in terms of
budget and total number of FTE, was negatively related to the NPOs’ commitment
to perform an advocacy role. This implies that the larger Flemish NPOs become,
and the more professionalized staff they hire for serving their clients, the more they
seem to adopt a single focus on delivering services. Furthermore, we found that the
larger the amount of volunteers within an NPO, the higher the commitment to an
advocacy role will be. This could imply that the advocacy activities are, to a
significant extent, also carried out by the organization’s volunteers. This could be
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related to the fact that, as professionalized staff members primarily focus on the core
business of serving clients, the organization’s volunteers are the ones who especially
contribute to the advocacy work. We might refer to two arguments to explain this
finding. On one hand, these volunteers might have particular skills to perform this
task due to their professional or social background or might even been recruited for
this purpose. On the other hand, it could be equally argued that these volunteers are
highly motivated by the socially inspired mission and values of the organization,
and aim at enhancing the overall well-being of their clients, not only by providing
services to them but also by influencing public policies toward these target groups.
In sum, we conclude that advocacy is becoming a more common practice of
NPOs and is increasingly recognized as a means by which NPOs cope with the
uncertain and complex environments in which they operate. Under a third-party
government, as it has been established over the years in Flanders, NPOs tend to
apply a whole range of advocacy strategies, but especially through the use of
collective and insider strategies. These softer or safer forms of advocacy primarily
aim at maintaining and utilizing the relationships with government as their main
funding source. Hence, in a modern welfare state such as Flanders, the advocacy
work of NPOs must be rather considered as a matter of cooperation with
government, instead of conflict (Salamon 1995). As outlined before, these findings
are especially relevant for scholars interested in the (evolving) nature of the
relationships between both sectors, but also for government officials and NPO
managers that are involved in concrete advocacy practices.
Appendix
See Tables 4, 5, 6, and 7.
Table 4 Composition of research sample of Flemish NPOs
N population
%
population
N sample
%
sample
Total
sample
796
100
255
100
Reducing
poverty
322
40.5
107
42.2
This policy domain consists of
organizations for general welfare;
organizations where poor raise their
voice; social economy; social
housing; and organizations which
provide material and social services
Elderly
care
184
23
45
17.6
This policy domain consists of rest
houses; organizations that deliver
nursery services at home; and
organizations which organize leisure
activities for elderly people
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Table 4 continued
N population
%
population
N sample
%
sample
Special
youth
care
189
24
73
28.5
This policy domain consists of
residential services for minors
(shelters, etc.); educational support;
organizations that promote welfare of
vulnerable children
Ethniccultural
minorities
101
12.5
30
11.7
This policy domain consists of
organizations that learn ethniccultural minorities to integrate in civil
society and learn Dutch language;
organizations that provide material
and social services
Table 5 Descriptive statistics for independent variables
Categories
N within tot pop
% of tot pop
Income (N = 236)
Income federal government
152
64.4
\50 % (low)
No share
65
27.5
More than 50 % (high)
19
8.1
Income Flemish government
No share
40
16.9
\50 % (low)
76
32.2
120
50.8
More than 50 % (high)
Income local government
No share
\50 % (low)
More than 50 % (high)
97
41.1
117
49.6
22
9.3
Gifts and donations
No share
124
52.5
\50 % (low)
103
43.6
9
3.8
More than 50 % (high)
Accountability pressure (N = 245)
Accountability pressure from federal government
Maximum 1 parameter (low)
179
73.1
Between 2 and 4 parameters (medium)
35
14.3
5 or 6 parameters (high)
31
12.7
Maximum 1 parameter (low)
38
15.5
Between 2 and 4 parameters (medium)
28
11.4
Accountability pressure from Flemish government
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Table 5 continued
Categories
5 or 6 parameters (high)
N within tot pop
% of tot pop
179
73.1
Accountability pressure from local government
Maximum 1 parameter (low)
132
53.9
Between 2 and 4 parameters (medium)
45
18.4
5 or 6 parameters (high)
68
27.7
\€ 100,000 (low)
36
18.2
€ 100,000–1,000,000 (moderate)
84
42.4
More than € 1,000,000 (high)
78
39.4
Size
Total budget 2009 (N = 198)
Total FTE 2009 (N = 236)
\5 FTE (low)
5–50 FTE (moderate)
More than 50 FTE (high)
82
34.7
120
50.8
34
14.4
Number of volunteers (FTE) (N = 207)
No volunteers
85
41.1
\5 volunteers (FTE)
88
42.5
More than 5 volunteers (FTE)
34
16.4
Maximum 1 FTE with master (low)
93
42.1
1–5 FTE with master (moderate)
90
40.7
More than 5 FTE with master high)
38
17.2
Maximum 1 FTE with bachelor (low)
55
24.7
1–5 FTE with bachelor (moderate)
79
35.4
More than 5 FTE with bachelor (high)
89
39.9
Professionalization
Number of master degrees (N = 221)
Number of bachelor degrees (N = 223)
Table 6 Descriptive statistics for dependent variables
N
Minimum
Maximum
Mean
Standard
deviation
Cronbach’s
alpha
Role perception
252
0
1
0.2302
0.2278
/
Insider local
150
0
1
0.6268
0.2761
0.699
Insider central
150
0
1
0.4668
0.2688
0.621
Outsider non-conflictual
150
0
1
0.4620
0.2373
0.378
Outsider conflictual
150
0
1
0.1144
0.1493
0.200
Collective strategies
150
0
1
0.6624
0.2497
0.441
123
123
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
Insider central (3)
Outsider non-conflictual (4)
Outsider conflictual (5)
Collective strategies (6)
Income federal (7)
Income Flemish (8)
Income Local (9)
Income gift (10)
FTE 2009 (11)
Masters in total FTE (12)
Bachelors in total FTE (13)
Volunteers (FTE)
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
1
-009
(2)
* p \ 0.05, ** p \ 0.001
All significant values are highlighted in bold
1
_
Role perception (1)
Insider local (2)
(1)
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
1
0.265**
0.144
0.248**
(4)
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
1
0.243**
-0.061
(3)
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
1
0.360 **
0.185*
0.094
0.251**
(5)
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
1
0.093
0.154
0.283**
0.041
0.054
(6)
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
1
0.007
-0.122
0.035
0.096
0.062
-121
(7)
Table 7 The correlations (Pearson’s) between the dependent and independent variables
_
_
_
_
_
_
1
-0.385**
0.243**
-0.109
-0.080
0.194*
-0.125
-0.121
(8)
_
_
_
_
_
1
-0.209**
-0.089
-0.035
0.124
0.007
-0.024
0.516**
0.259**
(9)
_
_
_
_
1
0.049
-0.194**
-0.161*
-0.154
0.188*
0.106
-0.230**
-0.220**
0.186**
(10)
_
_
_
1
-0.302*
-0.028
0.237**
0.241**
0.140
0.138
-0.154
0.113
0.137
-237**
(11)
_
_
1
-325**
0.034
-0.091
0.087
-0.109
0.042
0.044
0.180*
0.197*
-0.059
0.106
(12)
_
1
-0.222*
-235**
0.129
-0.016
0.172*
-0.175*
0.042
0.022
-0.102
-0.034
-0.160
0.003
(13)
1
0.118
0.124
0.138
0.330**
0.165*
-0.116
0.087
-0.051
0.117
0.152
-0.021
0.024
0.169*
(14)
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