Voluntary Regulation of NGOs and Nonprofits

How can nonprofit organizations and NGOs demonstrate accountability 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. These clubs are voluntary, rule-based governance systems created and sponsored by nongovernmental actors. By participating in accountability clubs, nonprofits agree to abide by certain rules regarding internal governance in order to send a signal of quality to key principals. Nonprofit voluntary programs are relatively new but are spreading rapidly across the globe. This book investigates how the emergence, design, and success of such initiatives vary across a range of sectors and institutional contexts in the United States, the Netherlands, Africa, and Central Europe.

The Club Framework: 1. Voluntary regulation of NGOs and nonprofits: an introduction to the club framework Mary Kay Gugerty and Aseem Prakash Part I. Club Emergence: 2. Filling the gaps in nonprofit accountability: applying the club perspective in the US legal system Dana Brakman Reiser 3. Trends and patterns in third-party accreditation clubs Woods Bowman 4. Self-regulation at the state level: nonprofit membership associations and club emergence Mary Tschirhart Part II. Club Sponsorship and Club Design: 5. Nonprofit infrastructure associations as reluctant clubs Dennis R. Young 6. Foundation accountability clubs and the search for philanthropic standards Peter Frumkin 7. Do self-regulation clubs work? Some evidence from Europe and some caveats from economic theory Andreas Ortmann and Katarina Svítková 8. NGO accountability clubs in the humanitarian sector: social dimensions of club emergence and design Maryam Zarnegar Deloffre Part III. Club Design and Effectiveness: 9. The impact of sponsorship on club standards and design Angela Bies 10. The emergence and design of NGO clubs in Africa Mary Kay Gugerty 11. The benefits of accreditation clubs for fundraising nonprofits René Bekkers Future Research and Conclusions: 12. Conclusions: nonprofit accountability clubs Aseem Prakash and Mary Kay Gugerty.