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Connected and Benevolent: The Positive Impact of Social Connections in Reducing Economic Concerns for Volunteering (open access)

Connected and Benevolent: The Positive Impact of Social Connections in Reducing Economic Concerns for Volunteering

This dissertation attempts to answer how social and economic mechanisms operate in individual, community and state levels to impact volunteering. Both social processes and economic factors significantly impact the amount of volunteering. However, researchers have a tendency to explain volunteering only by one of these factors. As both theories are equally important in explaining volunteerism, the development of a coherent theory is necessary to combine economic and social theories. This dissertation suggested that, when evaluated together, the influences of the economic factors on volunteering diminish as individuals get more connected with the other members of the society. The three-level analysis of the volunteering largely supports the primary hypothesis of the dissertation that economic concerns for volunteering are crowded out when individuals or the society is highly connected. This finding can help practitioners design better strategies to enhance volunteering such as creating opportunities for the members of the society to interact with each other.
Date: May 2018
Creator: Baktir, Yusuf
System: The UNT Digital Library
Demand and Supply Explanation: Nonprofit Size in Homeless Service Area (open access)

Demand and Supply Explanation: Nonprofit Size in Homeless Service Area

This study explores the demand and supply oriented factors that may contribute to the size of nonprofit organizations in the U.S. communities. This research tests demand theory, which indicated that nonprofit organizations grow more in communities where large service demand exists and when there is a service gap between community demand and government service supply. On the other hand, supply theories contend that nonprofit organizations are prevalent where a community carries the supply of human capital and financial resources and these supply of human and economic capital will mobilize nonprofit organizations to fulfill civic duties. For the scientific test of demand and supply theories, this study employs hierarchical linear model (HLM) and develops a longitudinal data set from multiple sources such as Department of Housing and Urban Development and National Charitable Center for Statistics, and Census. The proposed model analyzes how demand and supply indicators explain homeless serving nonprofit organizations size. The size of homeless service nonprofit was measured by three indicators: number of nonprofits, revenue of nonprofits and number of shelter beds. The findings of HLM analyses confirmed some of demand and supply factors that contribute homeless service nonprofit size. The communities with higher level of chronic homeless population …
Date: December 2018
Creator: Kilic Gorunmek, Hediye
System: The UNT Digital Library