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20 - Nonprofits as Agents of Moral Authority

from Part III - New Directions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2024

By
Robbie Waters Robichau  and
Kandyce Fernandez
Edited by
Eva Witesman  and
Curtis Child
Eva Witesman
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University, Utah
Curtis Child
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University, Utah
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Summary

Civil society has been lauded for its ability to act as a social glue that is critical to healthy and functioning democracies. Despite their centrality to US society, nonprofits have lacked legitimacy commensurate with the criticality of their civic purposes. Drawing upon the publicness debate in which government functions under a political authority and business operates within a market authority, Robichau and Fernandez propose a normative “Nonprofitness Framework” that accounts for the moral authority by which nonprofits operate, which is necessary for contributing to a vibrant democracy. A Nonprofitness Framework considers charitable and voluntary organizations in terms of degrees of moral authority and their expression of nonprofit ethos and missions in which some organizations move closer to public or private orientations. Understanding how nonprofits and their agents are conditioned by history and values in turn preserves and cultivates a thriving sector, generating the flexibility to enhance society and provide balance among a dominant private sector and an influential public sector.

Keywords

nonprofitnessmoral authorityethosnonprofit-likevaluespublicnesssectorsorganizationsdemocracy
Type
Chapter
Information
Reimagining Nonprofits
Sector Theory in the Twenty-First Century
 , pp. 394 - 410
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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