IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecl/harjfk/rwp05-002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Assessing Financial Vulnerability in the Nonprofit Sector

Author

Listed:
  • Keating, Elizabeth K.

    (Harvard U)

  • Fischer, Mary

    (U of Texas, Tyler)

  • Gordon, Teresa P.

    (U of Idaho)

  • Greenlee, Janet

    (U of Dayton)

Abstract

Effective nonprofit governance relies upon understanding an organization’s financial condition and vulnerabilities. However, financial vulnerability of nonprofit organizations is a relatively new area of study. In this paper, we compare two models used to forecast bankruptcy in the corporate sector (Altman 1968 and Ohlson 1980) with the model used by nonprofit researchers (Tuckman and Chang 1991). We find that the Ohlson model has higher explanatory power than either Tuckman and Chang’s or Altman’s in predicting four different measures of financial vulnerability. However, we show that none of the models, individually or combined, are effective in predicting financial distress. We then propose a more comprehensive model of financial vulnerability by adding two new variables to represent reliance on commercial-type activities to generate revenues and endowment sufficiency. We find that this model outperforms Ohlson’s model and performs substantially better in explaining and predicting financial vulnerability. Hence, the expanded model can be used as a guide for understanding the drivers of financial vulnerability and for identifying more effective proxies for nonprofit sector financial distress for use in future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Keating, Elizabeth K. & Fischer, Mary & Gordon, Teresa P. & Greenlee, Janet, 2005. "Assessing Financial Vulnerability in the Nonprofit Sector," Working Paper Series rwp05-002, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp05-002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/getFile.aspx?Id=151
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert C. Merton, 2005. "Theory of rational option pricing," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Sudipto Bhattacharya & George M Constantinides (ed.), Theory Of Valuation, chapter 8, pages 229-288, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "Financial Ratios, Discriminant Analysis And The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(4), pages 589-609, September.
    3. Lev, B & Thiagarajan, Sr, 1993. "Fundamental Information Analysis," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(2), pages 190-215.
    4. Santomero, Anthony M. & Vinso, Joseph D., 1977. "Estimating the probability of failure for commercial banks and the banking system," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 185-205, October.
    5. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy: A Discriminant Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(1), pages 193-194, March.
    6. Ohlson, Ja, 1980. "Financial Ratios And The Probabilistic Prediction Of Bankruptcy," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 109-131.
    7. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    8. Black, Fischer & Scholes, Myron S, 1973. "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 637-654, May-June.
    9. Abarbanell, JS & Bushee, BJ, 1997. "Fundamental analysis, future earnings, and stock prices," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(1), pages 1-24.
    10. Shumway, Tyler, 2001. "Forecasting Bankruptcy More Accurately: A Simple Hazard Model," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74(1), pages 101-124, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Qian Hu & Naim Kapucu, 2017. "Can Management Practices Make a Difference? Nonprofit Organization Financial Performance during Times of Economic Stress," Journal of Economics and Financial Analysis, Tripal Publishing House, vol. 1(2), pages 71-88.
    2. Berta SILVA & Ronelle BURGER, 2015. "Financial vulnerability: an empirical study of Ugandan NGOs," CIRIEC Working Papers 1515, CIRIEC - Université de Liège.
    3. Kim, Soo Y. & Upneja, Arun, 2014. "Predicting restaurant financial distress using decision tree and AdaBoosted decision tree models," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 354-362.
    4. Juan Alejandro Gallegos Mardones & Jorge Andrés Moraga Palacios, 2023. "Chilean Universities and Universal Gratuity: Suggestions for a Model to Evaluate the Effects on Financial Vulnerability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-21, June.
    5. Pamela Wicker & Svenja Feiler & Christoph Breuer, 2013. "Organizational Mission and Revenue Diversification among Non-profit Sports Clubs," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 1(4), pages 1-18, November.
    6. Soo Y. Kim, 2008. "Prediction of hotel bankruptcy using support vector machine, artificial neural network, logistic regression, and multivariate discriminant analysis," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 441-468, December.
    7. Cordery, Carolyn J. & Sim, Dalice & Baskerville, Rachel F., 2013. "Three models, one goal: Assessing financial vulnerability in New Zealand amateur sports clubs," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 186-199.
    8. Jaroslav Mazanec & Viera Bartosova & Patrik Bohm, 2022. "Logit Model for Estimating Non-Profit Organizations’ Financial Status as a Part of Non-Profit Financial Management," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(13), pages 1-18, June.
    9. Raghavan, Sunder & Yu, Chunyan, 2021. "Evaluating financial performance of commercial service airports in the United States," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    10. Sebastian Ion Ceptureanu & Eduard Gabriel Ceptureanu, 2019. "Community-Based Healthcare Programs Sustainability Impact on the Sustainability of Host Organizations: A Structural Equation Modeling Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(20), pages 1-18, October.
    11. Saffet A. Uygur & Christopher J. Napier, 2024. "Understanding Fraud in the Not-For-Profit Sector: A Stakeholder Perspective for Charities," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 190(3), pages 569-588, March.
    12. Ghosh Moulick, Abhisekh & Alexiou, Kostas & Dowin Kennedy, Elena & Parris, Denise Linda, 2020. "A total eclipse of the heart: compensation strategies in entrepreneurial nonprofits," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 35(4).
    13. Sebastian-Ion Ceptureanu & Eduard-Gabriel Ceptureanu & Mihai Cristian Orzan & Irinel Marin, 2017. "Toward a Romanian NPOs Sustainability Model: Determinants of Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-26, June.
    14. Scott Dell & Meena Subedi & Maxwell K. Hsu & Ali Farazmand, 2022. "Social Capital and Financial Performance in Nonprofits," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 193-210, March.
    15. Elizabeth A. M. Searing, 2021. "Resilience in Vulnerable Small and New Social Enterprises," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-21, December.
    16. Canh Thien Dang & Trudy Owens, 2017. "What motivates Ugandan NGOs to diversify: Risk reduction or private gain?," Discussion Papers 2017-11, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Giesecke, Kay & Longstaff, Francis A. & Schaefer, Stephen & Strebulaev, Ilya, 2011. "Corporate bond default risk: A 150-year perspective," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 233-250.
    2. Kay Giesecke & Francis A. Longstaff & Stephen Schaefer & Ilya Strebulaev, 2010. "Corporate Bond Default Risk: A 150-Year Perspective," NBER Working Papers 15848, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Şaban Çelik, 2013. "Micro Credit Risk Metrics: A Comprehensive Review," Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(4), pages 233-272, October.
    4. Derrien, François & Kecskés, Ambrus & Mansi, Sattar A., 2016. "Information asymmetry, the cost of debt, and credit events: Evidence from quasi-random analyst disappearances," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 295-311.
    5. Li, Yuanzhi, 2013. "A nonlinear wealth transfer from shareholders to creditors around Chapter 11 filing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(1), pages 183-198.
    6. Ke Wang & Darrell Duffie, 2004. "Multi-Period Corporate Failure Prediction With Stochastic Covariates," Econometric Society 2004 Far Eastern Meetings 747, Econometric Society.
    7. Ahsan Habib & Mabel D' Costa & Hedy Jiaying Huang & Md. Borhan Uddin Bhuiyan & Li Sun, 2020. "Determinants and consequences of financial distress: review of the empirical literature," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(S1), pages 1023-1075, April.
    8. Cangemi, Robert R. & Mason, Joseph R. & Pagano, Michael S., 2012. "Options-based structural model estimation of bond recovery rates," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 473-506.
    9. Agarwal, Vineet & Taffler, Richard, 2008. "Comparing the performance of market-based and accounting-based bankruptcy prediction models," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1541-1551, August.
    10. Duffie, Darrell & Saita, Leandro & Wang, Ke, 2007. "Multi-period corporate default prediction with stochastic covariates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 635-665, March.
    11. Marta Gómez-Puig & Simón Sosvilla-Rivero & Manish K. Singh, 2018. "“Incorporating creditors' seniority into contingent claim models:Application to peripheral euro area countries”," IREA Working Papers 201803, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Feb 2018.
    12. Li, Tangrong & Lin, Hui, 2021. "Credit risk and equity returns in China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 588-613.
    13. Andreou, Christoforos K. & Lambertides, Neophytos & Panayides, Photis M., 2021. "Distress risk anomaly and misvaluation," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(5).
    14. Mark Clintworth & Dimitrios Lyridis & Evangelos Boulougouris, 2023. "Financial risk assessment in shipping: a holistic machine learning based methodology," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 25(1), pages 90-121, March.
    15. Viral Acharya & Sergei A. Davydenko & Ilya A. Strebulaev, 2012. "Cash Holdings and Credit Risk," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(12), pages 3572-3609.
    16. Kevin Aretz & Chris Florackis & Alexandros Kostakis, 2018. "Do Stock Returns Really Decrease with Default Risk? New International Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(8), pages 3821-3842, August.
    17. Charitou, Andreas & Dionysiou, Dionysia & Lambertides, Neophytos & Trigeorgis, Lenos, 2013. "Alternative bankruptcy prediction models using option-pricing theory," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 2329-2341.
    18. Mohammad Mahdi Mousavi & Jamal Ouenniche & Kaoru Tone, 2023. "A dynamic performance evaluation of distress prediction models," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(4), pages 756-784, July.
    19. Chia-Ling Chao & Shwu-Min Horng, 2013. "Asset write-offs discretion and accruals management in Taiwan: the role of corporate governance," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 41-74, January.
    20. Abinzano, Isabel & Gonzalez-Urteaga, Ana & Muga, Luis & Sanchez, Santiago, 2020. "Performance of default-risk measures: the sample matters," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp05-002. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ksharus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.