By Brett Mayfield   When non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as nonprofits seek to make an impact and achieve goals, they need the organizational capacity to do so. In recent decades, capacity-building has become more and more popular among NGOs worldwide. With such a wide variety of social issues to be tackled and few reliable capacity measures available to NGOs, Shumate et al. developed the Nonprofit Capacity Instrument in 2017. They

By Brett Mayfield   Health inequalities continue to pose a significant public health problem, so nonprofit leaders often must intervene with this challenge head-on. However, these interventions are usually not widely practiced or not delivered as initially planned, even though effective evidence-based interventions are available today. Unfortunately, ongoing inequalities continue in the public health sphere because organizations often face significant barriers to implementing these interventions. To confront these health disparities,

By Brett Mayfield In 1996, a group of six foster agencies joined together to try something different. In the wake of funding threats and a scarcity of resources, these providers united to continue pursuing their missions toward foster youth advocacy. Thus was the birth of the Multi-Agency Alliance for Children (MAAC). Based in Atlanta, Georgia, MAAC arranges home options and coordinates additional services for over 1,000 foster care youth across

At NNSI, we have an ambitious goal – a scary ambitious goal for an academic research lab. But before I get to that, let me explain. We’ve been around eight years. Eight years – we’ve published groundbreaking research on networks for social impact. A sample includes research that: shows that collaboration is a lousy way to improve nonprofit capacity,  demonstrates how to scale-up evidence-based social interventions across interorganizational systems, and 

By Brett Mayfield  The collective impact model is increasingly common in the nonprofit sphere. Governments, nonprofits, and businesses partner to best handle resources and increase their social impact as they work toward common goals. At NNSI, our research focuses on these collaborative governance models, like collective impact in the nonprofit sector. This research primarily explores why particular interorganizational networks surface in a community, which consists of individual people, organizations, and

By Katelyn Zilke Interorganizational collaboration is crucial to addressing complex social problems.  Faith-based nonprofits are an essential part of the social service landscape, often providing human services and providing connections to hard to reach populations. But previous research suggests they are less likely to collaborate than their secular counterparts. A new study from the Network for Nonprofit and Social Impact at Northwestern University sheds light on the challenges FBOs face