The Difficulty of Easy Projects

We consider binary private contributions to public good projects that succeed when the number of contributors exceeds a threshold. We show that for standard distributions of contribution costs, valuable threshold public good projects are more likely to succeed when they require more contributors. Raising the success threshold reduces free-riding incentives, and this strategic effect dominates the direct effect. Common intuition that easier projects are more likely to succeed only holds for cost distributions with right tails fatter than Cauchy. Our results suggest government grants can reduce the likelihood that valuable threshold public good projects succeed. (JEL D71, H41, H81)

Financial Resource Mobilisation Strategies and Sustainability of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs): Evidence from Nigeria

Background The challenge facing NGOs in most developing countries is the need to emerge as valuable forces that affect development in order to improve the living conditions of the people in several communities. Funding is necessary for the survival and development of these NGOs. Research aims: This study, therefore, sought to find out the efect of financial resource mobilisation strategies on the sustainability of NGOs in Nigeria, with particular reference to the Minna metropolis. Research aims The purposive sampling technique was used to select 118 staf from 50 NGOs as a sample size for the study. Three alternative hypotheses were raised to be tested at P<.05 and a structured questionnaire was adopted for data collection. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson Correlation, and the Ordinary Least Square method of estimation. Methodology The result revealed the existence of a statistically significant and positive relationship between private contributions and the sustainability of NGOs, a positive but insignificant relationship between commercial activities and sustainability of NGOs, and an inverse relationship between government funding and sustainability of NGOs. Findings The study established that private contributions affect the sustainability of NGOs to a very large extent; government funding does not improve the sustainability of NGOs, and commercial activities do not have a significant impact on the sustainability of NGOs. Consequently, the study recommended that management and staf of NGOs should create more awareness about their operations in order to attract better contributions from private individuals and organisations.

Is “Overhead” A Tainted Word? A Survey Experiment Exploring Framing Effects of Nonprofit Overhead on Donor Decision

Nonprofit overhead ratios (i.e., proportion of funds spent on fundraising and/or management) have long been used as a proxy for nonprofit efficiency. Prior studies find that donors negatively respond to charities with higher overhead. Using a survey experiment, we explore whether providing different types of information about overhead alleviates this donor aversion. When asked to choose between two organizations as donation recipients, donors preferred the organization with lower overhead. However, when presented with information that described the purpose of higher overhead as building long-term organizational capacity, an increased proportion of donors chose to give to the organization with higher overhead. Omitting the word “overhead” further increased the proportion of donors choosing the organization with higher overhead. This study adds to our understanding of overhead aversion and has practical implications for nonprofits that rely on voluntary private contributions to achieve their missions.

Accountability in non-profit health care organisations: towards building online practices

Online accountability (OA) is an essential aspect of overall organisational accountability efforts in non-profit organisations. The research project on which this article is based aimed to: (a) explore variations in OA practices in non-profit hospitals in the United States; and (b) determine the factors that are associated with higher levels of OA practices. The findings suggest that the majority of hospitals had resources for well-developed websites as overall accessibility scores were very high. However, they were not utilising this medium to the fullest extent for accountability purposes, especially in the areas of performance and governance information. In addition, the study demonstrated that hospital capacity (specifically, size and volume) and total private contributions were robust predictors of OA practices.

Exploring Recipient Preferences and Allocation Mechanisms in the Distribution of Development Aid

This study uses incentive-compatible techniques to obtain valuations of 14 common poverty reduction interventions from (probable) aid recipients. Recipients’ valuations for these interventions are highly heterogeneous both across interventions and across recipients of the same intervention. Valuation for interventions does not correlate with overall poverty or with perceived need for specific interventions, suggesting that targeting individuals with high valuations based on recipient characteristics is difficult. Through simulations, this study assesses how various allocation mechanisms—cash transfers and voting—compare in generating recipient surplus in the allocation of aid. When markets function and constraints on joint private contributions to public goods do not bind, cash transfers generate considerably more recipient surplus than voting. Even when cash transfers cannot enable public goods and some services, they may still outperform voting at very low resource levels. However, as resource levels increase, voting dominates cash transfers from a surplus-maximization perspective.

Party Finance in Latin America

Modern representative democracy cannot function without political parties, however rudimentary. Parties in turn cannot function without money. The subject of party finance is therefore central to the construction of contemporary democracies. Latin American countries have attempted to meet the challenges of preserving democracy while providing for political parties across three main areas of financial regulation: provision of public finance, regulation of private finance, and limiting campaign spending. In all three areas, transparency (reporting), oversight, and enforcement of existing legal regulations remain important problems for the health of the political system. In the late 20th century, Latin American countries increasingly turned to public finance as a way of supplementing existing systems of private contributions. This trend seems to have been inspired both by a desire to reduce the inequalities inherent in Latin America’s socioeconomic structure and by efforts to contain and prevent episodes of scandal and undue influence generated by private contributors. Public finance particularly benefits small parties and parties with fewer connections to the wealthy sectors that tend to dominate private contributions. Public finance may contribute to the institutionalization of both party organizations and party systems, but it may also weaken the dependence of parties on their members and supporters in ways that undermine representation. Private finance in Latin America remains largely obscure. We know that relatively few private donors account for the lion’s share of party donations, but it is unclear in many cases exactly who donates, or what their money buys. It is therefore difficult for voters (and analysts) to determine the structure of party obligations to donors and to hold parties accountable. Partly as a result, drug money is believed to have penetrated the political systems of many Latin American countries, especially but not exclusively at the local level. Campaign spending limits, including limits on the duration of campaigns and campaign advertising, have been employed in some cases to try to contain costs and thus reduce the incentives of parties to seek out private donations, especially of questionable origin. Lax enforcement, however, limits the impact of these initiatives.

Estilos de atribución causal. Importancia para la investigación e intervención profesional en la etapa adolescente/Causal Attribution Styles. Importance for Research and Professional Intervention During Adolescence

<p><strong>Español</strong></p><p>Se describe el recorrido histórico que ha llevado a lo largo del tiempo la teoría de los estilos de atribución causal hasta llegar al punto que aquí se presenta. Se establecen cercanías y relaciones con otras teorías y paradigmas propios de la Psicología con el fin de ubicarla en este marco general y reconocer en él los particulares aportes que de ella se desprenden. Para ello, se reporta una serie de resultados de investigaciones realizadas donde se muestra no solo la validez de sus constructos, sino también su relación con diversas conductas, actitudes y patologías indagadas. Se discute, además, la importancia de contar con una teoría de este tipo para examinar y, sobre todo, apoyar la intervención psicológica, tanto clínica como social, en la población adolescente.</p><p><strong>English</strong></p><p>In this report, we describe the historical path that led over time to the present day theory of Causal Attribution Styles. Some similarities and relationships with other theories and paradigms in Psychology are established, in order to acknowledge the place of Causal Attribution Styles in this general framework and identify private contributions. We also discuss the importance of having such a theory to do research and, above all, support intervention in Clinical and Social Psychology, during adolescence. To do this, a number of research fi ndings are reported where they show the validity of their constructs, when they are correlated with other theories, as well as their relationship to various behaviors, attitudes and pathologies of various groups, including adolescent populations.</p>