Past, present and future of voluntary board members in French non-profit organisations: a community-engaged research

Voluntary organisations are essential to the social, economic and democratic vitality of French society. However, they are facing major challenges, one of which is the renewal of their bodies of governance. This phenomenon, which has been little studied, is reflected in two strands of literature. The first focuses on the individual careers of non-profit leaders, examining their paths to leadership positions and their motivations. The second, more francophone and critical, analyses the professionalisation of non-capitalist organisations and sees the changing profiles of managers as a symptom or factor of this professionalisation, manifested in increased demands for managerial skills and the complexification of management functions. Few studies have attempted to link these two dimensions by looking simultaneously at the paths of managers and the characteristics of the organisations concerned. This 'community-engaged research', conducted in partnership with Recherches & Solidarités and Le Mouvement Associatif Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, aims to fill this gap. An online survey involving 1,352 NPOs leaders from the region led to a quantitative analysis of the data, which enabled the selection of 91 relevant characteristics useful for a qualitative analysis using factorial correspondence analysis (FCA) and hierarchical ascending classification (HAC). The aim of the collective analysis of these profiles is to interpret each profile obtained, to identify its main characteristics and to understand the trends revealed by the axes. The partners have thus explained 6 specific profiles in the presentation of the FCA and HAC (produced using the Anaconda software, a component of the Catalyse method - ©Université de Franche-Comté). A regression was also used to model the factors influencing the maintenance, reduction or end of leaders' involvement.