Leadership in Hard Times: Are Nonprofits Well-Served?

Abstract

Resource shortages have stimulated a change in focus among leaders of social service agencies, moving them away from a mission and toward a professional orientation more concerned with self-preservation. This is manifested both in a greater concern about resource mobilization than mission and professional issues and in an inward orientation among administrators rather than an orientation to the environment. This represents a dramatic change since the 1970s, when organizational theory first came to recognize the environment us an important factor in organizational behavior, and when successful organizational strategy was understood to require moving beyond organizational boundaries. This article reports on a national survey of executive directors and board presidents of family service agencies in major cities. It shows substantial consensus between these two groups that resource issues are more important than mission and professional issues, and that solving resource problems involves strategies that emphasize organizational autonomy.