Integrating Theory and Practice to Identify Contemporary Best Practice Factors in USA Not-for-Profits

Abstract

This chapter used a critical analysis of the current NFP literature followed by a practitioner activity analysis using a purposive nonprobability sample of 880 NFP institutions. The current literature was integrated with the practitioner activity data to identify contemporary best practices. Eight categories emerged from the text analytics. Several insightful recommendations were provided to guide future NFP research as well as to overcome the limitations of this study. The results of this research should generalize to the key stakeholders of NFP organizations, namely to the managers and the board of director members, as well as to their volunteers and to other researchers focused on studying these entities. In particular, this research will be of interest to government social assistance agencies to inform policy development as well as to higher educational institutions for curriculum content.