Stanford Social Innovation Review: “The Movement for Nonprofit Social Responsibility”

From an interesting essay in the Stanford Social Innovation Review:  

Nonprofits worldwide have come under a sweeping movement for social responsibility. They are now engaging in all manner of prosocial activities that go well beyond their primary missions. Diversifying their boards by gender and race, paying their suppliers a fair wage, reducing their environmental footprint, and lending their voice to social causes from #MeToo to Black Lives Matter are just a few trappings of this surprising development.

As the movement has taken off, some nonprofits have formally broadened their missions to incorporate new concerns for social responsibility. In 2022, the American Hospital Association, which represents nearly 5,000 organizations in the health-care sector, revised its vision statement to insert language about justice and equity. Likewise, the Sierra Club is no longer focused narrowly on environmentalism; its “2030 Strategic Framework” also touches on antiracism, sexism, economic justice, and achieving work-life balance for its employees. Similarly, Goodwill Industries, which has a heritage statement from its founder, Rev. Dr. Edgar J. Helms, that acknowledges its history of creating employment opportunities for those who are disabled, now stresses in its core values the broader objective of being “socially, financially, and environmentally responsible.”

This development is surprising, not only because of its reach and depth but also because nonprofits are already supposed to be good actors. Advocates of corporate social responsibility typically justify it as a corrective to the social ills created by the pursuit of profit. But nonprofits’ very purpose is to contribute to the public good. In the United States, this is a legal matter: The Internal Revenue Service grants tax-exempt status only to organizations that provide public benefit. The goodness of nonprofits is also implicit to the main theory of their existence: They provide services (feeding the poor, caring for the sick) that society needs but that are undersupplied by governments and not lucrative enough for traditional investors.

In this article, we address the causes, contemporary characteristics, and consequences of this puzzling movement for nonprofit social responsibility. The phenomenon has profound implications for our understanding of nonprofit mission and for the demands that are placed on nonprofit leadership. Nonprofits that incorporate a broader view of responsibility into their work may gain legitimacy, and the expansion of purpose could spark innovation. However, leaders will also be challenged as the mission becomes less singular and will need greater skill in navigating multiple, sometimes competing goals.

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Dimensions of the Contemporary Movement

As the movement for nonprofit social responsibility has evolved, its character has also changed. It emerged against a backdrop of high-profile scandals and rapid growth in the number, size, and reach of nonprofits and, perhaps as a result, initially operated by a logic of social control. The initial movement was animated by the push for external oversight and standardization, in the form of certifications, accreditations, watchdogs, and codes of conduct.

By contrast, the contemporary movement is driven by nonprofits taking proactive steps to incorporate an expanding array of social issues into their core values. It goes beyond a narrow conception of the nonprofit mission and beyond the baseline responsibilities of being lawful and ethical to stress responsibility to a wide array of stakeholders, including the sector as a whole, and practicing leadership on emergent social issues.

darryll jones