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NGO mission design

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  • Heyes, Anthony
  • Martin, Steve

Abstract

NGOs compete in mission statements. Opportunities for impact vary across issues—NGOs with broader missions expect to execute higher-impact projects but provide less precision to donors as to the sorts of projects that will be funded. This matters if donors have preferences amongst issues. The mission-design problem faced by an impact-motivated NGO is analyzed. Interestingly, expected donations are non-monotonic in mission-width. A monopoly NGO engages in “donor-stretching,” choosing a mission statement that includes issues not preferred by any of its donors, but still narrower than socially desirable. Under free entry, issue-widths are strategic complements amongst NGOs. In equilibrium there are too many NGOs, each with too narrow a mission. The issue-space is exactly donor-covered (all donors will have an NGO they wish to give to) but issue over-covered (mission statements overlap). Expected NGO impact is higher for issues at the periphery of any particular NGO's issue-domain, which is socially inefficient.

Suggested Citation

  • Heyes, Anthony & Martin, Steve, 2015. "NGO mission design," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 197-210.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:119:y:2015:i:c:p:197-210
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2015.08.007
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    Cited by:

    1. Kopel, Michael & Marini, Marco A., 2022. "Mandatory disclosure of managerial contracts in NGOs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 65-85.
    2. Gani Aldashev & Marco Marini & Thierry Verdier, 2017. "Samaritan Bundles: Inefficient Clustering in NGO Projects," Working Papers 6/17, Sapienza University of Rome, DISS.
    3. Heyes, Anthony & Lyon, Thomas P. & Martin, Steve, 2018. "Salience games: Private politics when public attention is limited," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 396-410.
    4. Dorothée Brécard & Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline, 2020. "The market for "harmful component-free" products under pressure from the NGOs," PSE Working Papers halshs-02878337, HAL.
    5. Michael Kopel & Marco A. Marini, 2020. "Mandatory Disclosure of Managerial Contracts in Nonprofit Organizations," Working Papers 2020.26, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    6. Poret, Sylvaine, 2019. "Label wars: Competition among NGOs as sustainability standard setters," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 1-18.
    7. Anthony Heyes & Andreas Marcel Oestreich, 2018. "A theory of social license when regulatory pressure is jointly produced by an EPA and an NGO," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 219-243, December.
    8. Sylvaine Poret, 2017. "Label Battles: Competition among NGOs as Standard Setters," Working Papers hal-01512229, HAL.
    9. Aharon Mohliver & Donal Crilly & Aseem Kaul, 2023. "Corporate social counterpositioning: How attributes of social issues influence competitive response," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(5), pages 1199-1217, May.
    10. Anthony Heyes & Marcel Oestreich, 2017. "The Optimal NGO Chief: Strategic Delegation in Social Advocacy," Working Papers 1701, Brock University, Department of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    NGOs; Donations; Mission statement design;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • H8 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues
    • L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies

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