Research Results:
Indiana Nonprofit Survey

INDIANA NONPROFITS:
AFFILIATIONS, COLLABORATIONS & COMPETITION

Survey Report #5

Indiana University
School of Public and Environmental Affairs
Center on Philanthropy

Click here to read the press release for this study. Click here to access the full report Note: this is a large file (741 KB). You may wish to access separate sections of the report independently through links in the major sections below. Note, you will need a free copy of the Acrobat program to read any of these documents.

For information about the survey on which this report is based, please see Indiana Nonprofit Survey. For separate tables with data for selected Indiana regions, please see the Appendices at the bottom of this page.

Top | Introduction | Exec Summary | Key Findings | Regional Tables Acknowledgements

INTRODUCTION

Click here to access the full introductory section of the report.

Indiana nonprofits, like those elsewhere must necessarily focus their activities on a fairly narrow range of activities if they are to remain true to their mission. At the same time, changes in community conditions mean that needs are becoming more complex and often beyond the capacity of any single organization.

For these reasons - and also because key institutional funders, such as government agencies, foundations, and United Way organizations, strongly encourage (at times demand) it - nonprofits frequently form relationships with other organizations in order to expand their service capacity, coordinate their programs with those of other organizations, gain access to needed resources, share costs, and/or enhance their visibility.

These relationships may take a variety of forms, ranging from formal headquarter-chapter affiliations to collaborations and informal networks. Moreover, they often span sector boundaries, as nonprofits work in partnership with government agencies or for-profit organizations. Other relationships are of a more competitive nature. Indeed, many nonprofits compete with other nonprofits, government agencies, and businesses to obtain financial resources, deliver quality programs and services, or attract clients, new staff and volunteers

This report is the fifth in a series based on a major survey of 2,206 Indiana charities, congregations, advocacy, and mutual benefit nonprofits completed in 2002 as part of the Indiana Nonprofits: Scope and Community Dimensions project. No other study has examined such a variety of nonprofits or done so in such detail. The survey had a response rate of 29 percent. Details of how the sample was developed and the data collected are described in technical reports available upon request.

Chapter I examines formal allifiations, primarily headquarter-affiliate relationships, but also membership in federated funding organizations, such as United Way. Chapter II reviews the extent of formal collaborations and informal networks. Chapter III explores the purpose, size, and scope of the most important collaboration or network while Chapter IV considers the effects of these relationships. Finally, Chapter V examines the extent of competition, competitive arenas and the types of organizations involved. Three appendices contain supplemental information on nonprofit fields of activity (Appendix A), the survey questions on which the analysis is based (Appendix B), and regional variations in management challenges and organizational capacities (Appendix C).

Top | Introduction | Exec Summary | Key Findings | Regional Tables Acknowledgements

EXECUTIVE SUMMMARY

1. Formal affiliations: We asked Indiana nonprofits whether they are affiliated with another organization as a headquarter, local subsidiary, or in some other way. Click here to access Chapter 1 of the report which details these findings.1.

• More than half of Indiana nonprofits are affiliated in some way. This is especially the case for nonprofits in the public and societal benefit (e.g., advocacy, community development, philanthropy) and religion fields, older nonprofits, and medium-sized and large organizations. Besides religious bodies, with whom most religion nonprofits are affiliated, Indiana nonprofits in every field are most likely to be affiliated with various mutual benefit or membership associations (e.g., fraternal organizations, professional or trade associations and the like).
• Fourteen percent of all Indiana nonprofits received funds from federated funders during the most recently completed fiscal year. This is disproportionately so for nonprofits in the health and human services fields.

Top | Introduction | Exec Summary | Key Findings | Regional Tables Acknowledgements

2. Networks and collaborations: whether they participate in formal collaborations or informal networks with other organizations. Click here to access Chapter 2 of the report which details these findings.

• More than half (57 percent) of the nonprofits in the state are involved in collaborations or networks. Informal networks are more common than formal collaborations.
• Overall, participation in collaborations or networks relates most significantly to the nonprofits' size and their access to technology: larger nonprofits and those with basic information technology components are most likely to indicate that they participate in such relationships.

Top | Introduction | Exec Summary | Key Findings | Regional Tables Acknowledgements

3. Most important relationship We asked nonprofits that participate in networks or collaborations to focus on the most important one and to tell us how many and what types of organizations are part of the relationship.Click here to access Chapter 3 of the report which details these findings.

• The median number of organizations in Indiana nonprofits' most important network or collaboration is five, although the number is disproportionately higher for health nonprofits and for religion nonprofits that provide human services.
• Nonprofits that are small in size and lack technology are disproportionately likely to participate in small networks and collaborations.
• About half of the relationships are homogeneous in scope, involving only one or two different types of organizations. The variety of organizations involved is positively related to how many organizations are involved in the relationship.
• Generally, Indiana nonprofits are most likely to say that secular service organizations (42 percent) and religious bodies (41 percent) are involved in these relationships, although this varies according to the field of service in which they are active. Many nonprofits are also involved with governments (33 percent) or for-profit organizations (23 percent).

Top | Introduction | Exec Summary | Key Findings | Regional Tables Acknowledgements

4. Effects of networks and collaborations: We asked Indiana nonprofits to indicate whether their involvement in networks and collaborations makes it easier, harder, or has no impact on maintaining key organizational capacities. Click here to access Chapter 4 of the report which details these findings.

• Respondents are most likely to say that participation in networks or collaborations makes it easier for them to enhance their visibility or reputation, meet client or member needs, and obtain funding.
• Arts organizations stand out as most likely to indicate that they benefit from their involvement in networks and collaborations.

Top | Introduction | Exec Summary | Key Findings | Regional Tables Acknowledgements

5. Competition: We asked Indiana nonprofits to identify the arenas in which they compete with other organizations, as well as the different types of organizations with which they do so. Click here to access Chapter 5 of the report which details these findings.

• Two-fifths of Indiana nonprofits compete with other organizations (both in and outside of the nonprofit sector) for a variety of resources.
• They compete most extensively with secular nonprofits (29 percent), followed by religious nonprofits (22 percent), businesses (13 percent), and governments (10 percent).
• Generally, the prevalence of competition with other organizations increases with size and access to technology. Nonprofits that participate in formal or informal relationships are also more likely than those that are not involved in any such relationships to compete.
  

Top | Introduction | Exec Summary | Key Findings | Regional Tables Acknowledgements

KEY FINDINGS

Five key findings stand out from our analysis:

1. Most Indiana nonprofits interact with other organizations: They do so collaboratively through vertical headquarter-subsidiary affiliations or horizontally through informal networks or formal collaborations. They also interact competitively with other organizations when they seek to secure funding or new staff and volunteers. While these interactions occur primarily within the nonprofit sector, they cut across sector boundaries. Indeed, many Indiana nonprofits collaborate and compete with organizations in the government and for-profit sectors.

2. Mixed effects of collaborations: For some nonprofits, involvement in networks and collaborations help them maintain certain organizational capacities. Yet many, and in some instances, a majority of Indiana nonprofits say that their participation in networks and collaborations has no such effect. Nearly 20 percent of the nonprofits in the state that are involved in these relationships say that their participation has no impact, makes it harder, or is not applicable to accomplishing any of the fundamental tasks about which we asked, such as obtaining funding, meeting client or member needs, or recruiting and retaining staff, volunteers, and board members.

3. Importance of technology in understanding interorganizational relations: At nearly every point in this analysis, access to basic information technology plays an important role. Nonprofits with basic technological components in place, such as computers, access to the Internet, e-mail, and a website are significantly more likely than those without these resources to receive certain types of federated funding, participate in collaborations or networks, be involved in disproportionately large networks and collaborations, benefit from these relationships, and compete with other organizations.

4. Importance of organizational size in understanding interorganizational relations: Large nonprofits also show distinctive interorganizational relations. They are disproportionately more likely to receive federated funding, participate in both formal collaborations and informal networks, be involved in large networks and collaborations, and compete with other organizations for various reasons.

5. Variations by field: In most instances, certain nonprofit fields stand out in the way that they interact with other organizations even after controlling for various organizational characteristics, such as size, age, primary funding source, and access to technology. For example, a significantly high percentage of religion nonprofits are affiliated with other organizations, health nonprofits are disproportionately likely to participate in informal relationships, while nonprofits in the arts, culture and humanities field are the most likely to participate in formal ones. Moreover health nonprofits are the most likely to participate in large networks and collaborations, while human services nonprofits indicate their most important relationships are large in scope (i.e. include many different types of organizations). Arts nonprofits are disproportionately likely to benefit from their participation in these relationships and nonprofits in the religion and public benefit fields are the least likely to compete with other organizations.

Top | Introduction | Exec Summary | Key Findings | Regional Tables Acknowledgements

APPENDICES

Our report includes several appendices with supplementary information. Click here to access the full set of appendix tables (NOTE: The first four pages of Appendix B had incorrect row labels; these were corrected on September 13, 2004). These appendices include:

• Appendix A: Major nonprofit fields as defined by the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE).
• Appendix B: Survey questions that form the basis for the analysis.
• Appendix C: Tables reporting on regional patterns in survey responses for selected Indiana communities: seven metropolitan regions (Indianapolis, Gary/Northwest, Fort Wayne, Evansville, South Bend, Bloomington, and Muncie) and five nonmetropolitan counties (Bartholomew, Cass, Dubois, Miami, and Scott).
• List of project publications and reports.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We express our deep-felt gratitude to the many Indiana nonprofits that completed our survey. Without their cooperation, we would have nothing to report. This report was prepared as part of an ongoing project on the Indiana Nonprofit Sector: Scope and Community Dimensions made possible by a grant from the Aspen Institute's Nonprofit Sector Research Fund and by support for the Efroymson Chair in Philanthropy by the Indianapolis Foundation at the Central Indiana Community Foundation and the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy's Indiana Research Fund, supported in part by Lilly Endowment Inc. Additional funding and in-kind support has been provided by WBH Evansville, Inc.; The Center for Urban Policy and the Environment at I.U.P.U.I.; the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University on the Bloomington, Indianapolis, South Bend, Northwest, and Fort Wayne campuses; Ball State University; and the University of Southern Indiana.

Top | Introduction | Exec Summary | Key Findings | Regional Tables Acknowledgements

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