NVSQ Blog

Beyond Exit: Why Ending a Partnership Deserves More Attention

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Lea Stadtler¹

¹Grenoble Ecole de Management, France

Imagine a long running collaboration between government agencies and nonprofit organizations that, after years of coordination, funding, trust building, and shared effort, has delivered real progress on a stubborn social problem. As the main goal comes into view, attention begins to shift toward closing the initiative down. Reports are drafted, timelines are fixed, and exit plans are discussed. From the outside, it looks like a success story reaching its natural conclusion.

Inside the collaboration, however, things feel far more complicated. Partners worry about what will happen to the services, infrastructure, and relationships they have built together. Some organizations are ready to move on, while others depend heavily on what the collaboration has created. At the same time, the final steps are difficult to complete while staff are tired, additional funding is hard to secure, and the partnership’s legitimacy to act beyond its formal mandate is limited. What appears to be a neat ending on paper begins to feel more like a delicate balancing act in practice.

This scenario is far from rare. Yet in both research and practice, partnership termination is often treated as a technical afterthought, an administrative exit rather than a meaningful phase of collaboration. My study, published in NVSQ, challenges that view by showing that how partnerships end deserves much more attention, not least because it shapes whether hard won outcomes are sustained or quietly reversed.

Beyond Burnout: Building Sustainable Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations

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Jeffrey D. Frey¹, G. Breck Wightman², and James Gaskin²

¹Rice University, USA, ²Brigham Young University, USA

Nonprofit leaders often enter their roles because they care deeply about their organization’s mission. They want to combat urgent needs, mobilize people, and steward resources toward positive changes in their communities. That commitment by the leaders is one of the greatest strengths of the nonprofit sector.

It can, however, also become one of its greatest vulnerabilities.

When the work really matters, it is easy for leaders to absorb more responsibility. A delayed grant, a staffing crisis, a board concern, a donor relationship, a community emergency, or a struggling employee can all feel like personal obligations. Over time, the pressure placed on the leader builds. What begins as a deep commitment can gradually become a burdensome overextension.

What determines GenAI Adoption?

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Wanzhu Shi¹ and Lauren Azevedo²

¹University of North Florida, Jacksonville, USA, ²University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is a type of AI that can create new content. Common types of GenAI include ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. GenAI tools aren’t going anywhere, even for organizations like nonprofits who fulfill their missions in various ways and in all types of communities. Nonprofits can use GenAI tools for many organizational tasks, such as in fundraising and donor engagement, marketing and operations, and program delivery and impact. The potential for this technology is immense.

However, nonprofits don’t always have the resources to invest in new technology and these tools come with some significant ethical concerns for organizations already serving vulnerable groups. Reports of biases due to tools that draw on historical data have disproportionately flagged some groups, raising concerns about GenAI use in working with at risk groups. So how do nonprofits decide to use this technology? What determines GenAI use in nonprofits? And how important are these concerns for ethics and privacy?

What Do Volunteers Need to Thrive? Psychological Needs Behind Volunteer Well-Being and Ill-Being

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Olivér Lubics^1,2, Tímea Magyaródi², and Henriett Nagy²

¹Doctoral School of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary, ²Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

What does a volunteer need to experience their work as meaningful, feel satisfied, and stay engaged without burning out or leaving the organization? Many volunteer coordinators have probably asked themselves similar questions when facing the challenge of maintaining long-term volunteer engagement. There are many ways to approach this issue, but as a psychologist, I have always been especially interested in the underlying motivational factors: What are the fundamental needs of volunteers that, when satisfied, help them thrive and remain engaged, but when frustrated, contribute to distress and withdrawal?