Voluntary Regulation of NGOs and Nonprofits: An Accountability Club Framework

323 Pages·2010·1.48 MB·English

by  Mary Kay Gugerty

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Voluntary Regulation of NGOs and Nonprofits
HowcannonprofitorganizationsandNGOsdemonstrateaccountability
to stakeholders and show that they are using funds appropriately and
delivering on their promises? Many nonprofit stakeholders, including
funders and regulators, have few opportunities to observe nonprofit
internal management and policies. Such information deficits make it
difficult for “principals” to differentiate credible nonprofits from less
credible ones. This volume examines a key instrument employed by
nonprofits to respond to these challenges: voluntary accountability
clubs.Theseclubsarevoluntary,rule-basedgovernancesystemscreated
and sponsored by nongovernmental actors. By participating in
accountabilityclubs,nonprofitsagreetoabidebycertainrulesregarding
internalgovernanceinordertosendasignalofqualitytokeyprincipals.
Nonprofit voluntary programs are relatively new but are spreading
rapidly across the globe. This book investigates how the emergence,
design,andsuccessofsuchinitiativesvaryacrossarangeofsectorsand
institutionalcontextsintheUnitedStates,theNetherlands,Africa,and
CentralEurope.
mary kay gugerty is Associate Professor in the Daniel J. Evans
SchoolofPublicAffairsattheUniversityofWashington,Seattle.
aseemprakashisProfessorofPoliticalScienceandtheWalkerFamily
Professor for the Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington,
Seattle.

Voluntary Regulation of NGOs
fi
and Nonpro ts
An Accountability Club Framework
Editedby
Mary Kay Gugerty
and
Aseem Prakash
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore,
São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521763141
© Cambridge University Press 2010
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the
provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part
may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in print format 2010
ISBN-13 978-0-511-90214-7 eBook (NetLibrary)
ISBN-13 978-0-521-76314-1 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy
of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
For Dan and Aidan
M.K.G.
For Nives and Alexander
A.P.

Contents
Listoffigures pageix
Listoftables x
Notesoncontributors xi
Preface xv
Theclubframework
1 VoluntaryregulationofNGOsandnonprofits:an
introductiontotheclubframework
mary kay gugerty and aseem prakash 3
PartI Clubemergence
2 Fillingthegapsinnonprofitaccountability:applying
theclubperspectiveintheUSlegalsystem
dana brakman reiser 41
3 Trendsandpatternsinthird-partyaccreditationclubs
woods bowman 64
4 Self-regulationatthestatelevel:nonprofitmembership
associationsandclubemergence
mary tschirhart 85
PartII Clubsponsorshipandclubdesign
5 Nonprofitinfrastructureassociationsasreluctantclubs
dennis r. young 101
6 Foundationaccountabilityclubsandthesearchfor
philanthropicstandards
peter frumkin 125
vii
viii Contents
7 Doself-regulationclubswork?Someevidencefrom
Europeandsomecaveatsfromeconomictheory
andreas ortmann and katarina sv(cid:2)tkovÆ 152
8 NGOaccountabilityclubsinthehumanitariansector:
socialdimensionsofclubemergenceanddesign
maryam zarnegar deloffre 169
PartIII Clubdesignandeffectiveness
9 Theimpactofsponsorshiponclubstandards
anddesign
angela bies 203
10 TheemergenceanddesignofNGOclubs
inAfrica
mary kay gugerty 228
11 Thebenefitsofaccreditationclubsforfundraising
nonprofits
renÉ bekkers 253
Futureresearchandconclusions
12 Conclusions:nonprofitaccountabilityclubs
aseem prakash and mary kay gugerty 283
Index 303