Describing the Feasibility of Using Public Records to Determine a Nonprofit Organization's Readiness to Engage in Partnership with Government Entities

Abstract

The purpose of this applied research project is to first describe the challenges that government entities face when assessing the readiness of nonprofit organizations to engage in government-nonprofit partnerships and second, to offer recommendations to improve how a nonprofit's readiness for government-nonprofit partnerships is determined. A comprehensive review of scholarly literature about nonprofits was used to develop a conceptual framework comprised of nine characteristics about nonprofit organizations that government entities can independently research that signal a nonprofit’s readiness for government-nonprofit partnerships. Content analysis of publicly available online documents for a sample of twenty-five nonprofit organizations was used to determine the feasible of obtaining information about these nine characteristics using only the internet. The research findings showed that it was feasible to utilize publicly available information, accessible through the internet, to determine the readiness of most nonprofit organizations for government-nonprofit partnerships. Public administrators that are interested in establishing effective partnerships with nonprofits should consider utilizing this research to improve their processes for determining a nonprofit organization’s readiness to engage in partnerships with government entities.