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Who Determines Where the Sun Shines? Understanding Stakeholder Influence in Nonprofit Reporting

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Juniper Katz¹, Todd L. Ely², and Thad D. Calabrese³

¹University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA, ²University of Colorado Denver, USA, ³New York University, New York City, USA

For nonprofits across the United States, IRS Form 990 serves as a crucial accountability tool. Not only does this form help ensure compliance and transparency, but it also provides valuable insight into nonprofit management, finances, and governance. Despite its central role, few have explored how this form has evolved, who shapes it, and why those changes matter.

In our recently accepted article, “Who Determines Where the Sun Shines: Nonprofit Sector Stakeholders and the IRS Form 990 Redesign,” published in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, my co-authors and I explored these important questions. We analyzed public comments from the most recent significant revision of Form 990 in 2007, uncovering a detailed picture of the interests and stakeholders influencing nonprofit transparency and regulation.

Fundraising Ethics: Toward an In-Depth Understanding of Individual Donors’ Perceptions

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Tine Faseur¹ , Tine De Bock¹ , and Glenn Timmermans²

¹KU Leuven, Belgium, ²Hogeschool PXL, Hasselt, Belgium

Why this study? What is it about?

Imagine receiving an email with a donation request from a charity you have never donated to before. The message is urgent, the images are emotional, and the request is clear: donate now. But as you hover over the “donate” button, questions arise. How did they get your contact information? Where exactly will your money go? Is this emotional appeal crossing an ethical line?

Fundraising ethics has become a growing concern as the professionalization of fundraising and the use of marketing techniques have expanded. To address these concerns, nonprofit organizations and professional associations have developed ethical codes that outline best practices for fundraisers. However, these guidelines are primarily created from the perspective of fundraising professionals, leaving a critical gap: how do individual donors—arguably one of the most essential stakeholders—perceive the ethics of fundraising? Despite the nonprofit sector’s dependence on individual donors, research on their ethical views remains scarce. This study fills that gap by exploring what drives donors to perceive fundraising practices as ethical or unethical.

Living in-between professional and caregiving identities – The experience of women working in rural development nonprofits in India

Poonam Barhoi¹, Manan Pathak² and Ranjeet Nambudiri³

¹Institute of Management Technology Ghaziabad, ² UPES Dehradun, ³ Indian Institute of Management Indore

Within rural development nonprofits in India, women professionals find themselves navigating the complex intersection of professional identity and traditional caregiving roles. While the unique socioeconomic conditions of the Global South have created opportunities for women to work in rural development nonprofits in India, obstacles exist in the form of gendered social expectations. Our recent study in NVSQ examines the experiences of such women professionals, who live in the liminality between ‘ideal professional identity’ and ‘traditional caregiving identity’. The study, which involved in-depth interviews with 21 women professionals working in rural development nonprofits across seven states in India, revealed that this liminal state is a source of significant identity conflicts. Our findings suggest that women professionals experience constant guilt due to the conflicting obligations of caregiving and professional worker identities and their inability to justify both roles to themselves.

How and Why Do Diaspora Give?

Satenik Papyan¹ & Susan Appe², ¹ Binghamton University, ²University at Albany, SUNY

Diaspora philanthropy is the transfer of resources (money, time, labor, knowledge) to countries of origin for the public good. Do you know any diaspora philanthropists, like Kalekeni, the founder of Banda Bola Sports Foundation?Kalekeni moved to the U.S. from Malawi with his family as a teenager. Kalekeni grew up in Chituka, a farming village in Malawi, and while spending his youth in the U.S., he fondly remembered playing sports in Chituka. Longing for that connection, Kalekeni created the Chituka Village Project to serve the children of his home village. This turned into the Banda Bola Sports Foundation, a non-profit organization that uses soccer to promote education and social change in Malawi. The organization is based in Upstate New York and is entirely volunteer-based, with Kalekeni leading its vision.

Diaspora philanthropists leverage collective action.Marcela, with a group of other Boston-based Colombian immigrants, started the New England Association for Colombian Children (NEACOL) to fundraise and support social programs for children in Colombia, for example. The first fundraising initiative was raffling off tickets for Colombian singer-songwriter and actor Carlos Vives’ concert in Boston in 2013. From there NEACOL was created and the next year it was legally incorporated. By 2023, the organization had channeled $350,000 to 33 projects serving 18,000 children in Colombia. Have you heard about the 2nd annual India Giving Day? U.S.-based donors – mostly (but not only) the large Indian diaspora – were called on for the second year in March 2024 to give time and money to India. It is spearheaded by the India Philanthropy Alliance which was created in 2019 by 14 nonprofit organizations in the U.S. that fund development and humanitarian projects in India. In 2024 their efforts raised $5,543,837, from almost 2000 donors to give to 35 organizations serving India.