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COVID-19 has been regarded as environmental disruption that catalyzed a multitude of organizational changes in nonprofit organizations. This study centers on the nonprofit workers' experience of change. Specifically, this study investigates to what extent and how negative appraisals in the midst of the pandemic are related to intentions to leave the organization about a year after the start of the pandemic, at a point in time when the initial shock had settled into a sense of the "new normal." Findings indicate that harm but not threat appraisals predict psychological contract violation and that psychological contract violation is related to behavioral resistance to change as well as intentions to leave. Unexpectedly, neither threat appraisal nor resistance to change was related to turnover intentions. We discuss contributions to theory, research, and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given increasingly crowded education marketplaces, an emerging perspective views education as a marketable product and seeks to explain what drives loyalty of alumni. Satisfaction has been used as an indicator of education quality and resides in a complex relationship of factors pertaining to students and institutions. The nonprofit graduate education marketplace has a competitive field of offerings, and this study engages alumni from three programs to help make sense of the value alumni attach to their degree. The findings confirm a nuanced relationship between alumni satisfaction of university and program reputation and competencies derived from the degree. The analysis draws insights for nonprofit graduate education program administrators and points to directions for future research.

The field of nonprofit education is rapidly growing, but the nonprofit literature has a noticeable gap about the impact of nonprofit education degree programs on their graduates, the organizations that employ them, and the wider nonprofit sector. This article reports findings from a study investigating the profile and motivations of students completing these nonprofit-related degrees. A survey was deployed to alumni from three different nonprofit graduate programs (i.e., nonprofit management and philanthropic studies), and findings indicate that students are largely similar across schools and primarily drawn to the degree for its nonprofit nature. Differences are noted about the appeal of nonprofit graduate programs between in-service and pre-service students. These findings are rich with implications for students, researchers, and most of all the administrators and faculty of these graduate programs.

Critical incidents often have significant impacts on workers, sometimes causing disruptions to career pathways and a re-evaluation of past career decisions. This article seeks to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on nonprofit workers and their commitment to the sector using a critical incidents lens. In-depth interviews with nonprofit workers provided insights on the pandemic's impact on workers' personal and professional lives and how they made sense of these. Changes to work including flexibility and work-from-home options were often viewed positively, yet workers expressed a loss of connection with their colleagues, mental health and well-being challenges, as well as challenges to adapt to new ways of working. In making sense of these changes, commitment to the sector was mostly sustained; however, respondents also noted a shift in priorities and expressed a desire for better balance between their personal and professional lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demographic shifts, economic restructuring, online-giving platforms, and growing competition threaten traditional models of community philanthropy. Responding to these pressures, philanthropy thought leaders have supported "a new way forward" for community foundations—community leadership. However, change is difficult, and little research examines organizational processes of moving toward community leadership. This study uses a simultaneous qualitative mixed methods design to describe organizational paths to community leadership while considering field-level aspiration toward such change. To confirm previous research, we examine community foundation mission descriptions from 2011 to 2016, finding limited evidence that the field is aspiring toward the community leadership model. Using interviews with leaders of organizations that have begun to shift toward community leadership, we unpack how such transformation occurs. We find that change, even amid field-level pressures, unfolds through localized improvisation and bricolage as community foundations adapt their work to demands in their community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that parents tend to pass educational advantage or disadvantage on to their children. However, little is known about the extent to which the intergenerational transmission of education involves children's agency. In this study we drew from two traditions in sociological and social psychological theorizing--the theory of cultural and social reproduction and the theory of human agency--to examine whether agency influences children's educational performance, and if so, whether this influence can be observed among children across social classes. We used data from the Spanish sample of the Program for International Student Assessment (N = 25,003 15-year-olds). Results indicate that the level of child agency was weakly positively related to social class, that child agency impacted on a child's educational performance, and that the positive effect of agency on educational performance did not vary by social class. This suggests that strategies to enhance disadvantaged children's agency may prove useful in reducing social gradients in educational performance. More generally, our findings may ignite a debate about the role that social structure and human agency play in shaping social inequality and mobility.

Being strategic and intentional in the management of volunteers is increasingly important to tackle volunteer retention and improve other volunteer outcomes. Drawing on strategic human resource management (SHRM), this inductive study utilizes qualitative data from interviews to explore how volunteers in a large youth organization perceive HR practices of training and recognition. Volunteer accounts are supplemented with focus group data from front-line staff to capture how HR practices are implemented. Findings indicate a disconnect between implemented and perceived HR practices in some, but not all, areas. Inconsistent and unintentional communication was the main driver for negative volunteer perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 has presented unprecedented challenges to the nonprofit sector, and while evidence is accruing about its impact on nonprofit finances and operations, less is known about how nonprofit workers are faring. With so many organizations in the increasingly professionalized nonprofit sector reliant upon their paid staff, this study assesses how COVID-19 has changed the way nonprofit workers think about their current and future work. We use a survey of nonprofit workers who have a nonprofit graduate degree to describe pandemic-related work changes and to explore the impact of these changes on their commitment to the sector. Our findings reveal that nonprofit workers are nuanced in how they approach their work and commitment to the sector. We distill our findings considerate of how future research should endeavor to unpack the degree to which workers' personal and professional circumstances affect how they think about their work in the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]