Transnational NGOs from the Inside-Out

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Transnational NGOs from the Inside-Out

• The Power and Limits of Principled Activism

Hans Peter Schmitz
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Outline

• Rationale
• Increasing visibility and power of transnational
  activism
• Limits of the current academic literature
• Design
• Sampling and protocol and interview process
• Coding, data structure and data transformation
• Preliminary findings
• Contributions to the academic literature
• Results relevant to practitioners
• Future plans

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Rationale increased visibility

• Quantitative growth of TNGO sector
• At the United Nations (based on Global Policy
  Forum/UN Department on Economic and Social
  Affairs)
• In the United States (number of organizations and
  revenue)

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Global NGO Growth(based on Yearbook of
International Organizations, Vol. 1, 1997/98)
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UN consultative status
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Regional representation, 1996
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Regional representation, 2007
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Growth of US sector

• Growth in international not-for-profits
  (transnational NGOs).
• National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS)
• Based on 990 forms (revenue exceeding 25,000
  US-Dollar)
• Revenue base increased from 4.57bn (1997) to
  32bn in 2007.
• Number of organizations increased from 1,812 to
  6,500.
• Snapshot 2003 (Kerlin/Thanasombat) 5,600
  organizations and revenue of 17.7bn.

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Research motivation

• Literature primarily focuses on large and
  successful organizations/campaigns.
• Sectoral fragmentation.
• Disciplinary fragmentation (IR, PA, sociology,
  etc.)
• Organizational and leadership perspectives (from
  the inside-out) are rarely explored.

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Research motivation, ctd.

• Basic questions about TNGOs remain unanswered.
• What are their goals and the obstacles faced?
• How do they define effectiveness and
  accountability?
• To whom are they accountable?
• How do they view networks and partnerships?

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Objectives defined

• Study activism across major sectors
• Create data in a cross-disciplinary context,
  using quantitative as well as qualitative tools
• Add the perspective of TNGO leadership on their
  role in global governance
• Develop a research program integrated with
  teaching and practitioner engagement

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Design of study

• Selection
• Charity Navigator database of international
  nonprofits (2005) with 501(c)(3) status in the
  US
• Proportionate stratified random sampling based
  on size, sector and fiscal health
• Data collection
• Confidential interviews with 152 TNGO leaders
  across the US (average of 84 minutes)
• About 209 hours of interviews recorded and
  transcribed

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Limitations of the sample

• The claim of representativeness is limited to
  US-registered TNGOs, not global community of such
  orgs.
• Any bias of Charity Navigator selection is
  reproduced in our study.

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Interview protocol

• Changes in organizational goals and governance
  structures
• Effectiveness and its assessment
• Accountability
• Funding as related to effectiveness and
  accountability
• Communication, collaboration, networks and
  partnerships
• Leadership characteristics and preparation

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Interview process

• 68 response rate 81 interviewed were top
  leaders (President/CEOs)
• Researchers visited headquarters for interviews
• Interviews lasted an average of 84 minutes total
  of about 209 hours

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Data transformation

• Professional transcriptions
• Creation of a hierarchically organized codebook
  implemented in ATLAS.ti
• Designed to allow for both qualitative retrieval
  and quantification
• Intercoder agreement 0.80.

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Datasets created

• Qualitative dataset
• Coded transcripts organized in ATLAS.ti for
  efficient retrieval of quotations
• Frequency count report from ATLAS.ti exported to
  Stata
• Quantitative dataset
• Data transformed and labeled
• Primary and secondary data merged
• Dataset is 152 cases by about 400 variables

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Advantages of method

• Mixing qualitative and quantitative strengths
• For the primary data, each is connected to the
  qualitative quotation from which it is derived
• Statistics are easily contextualized and
  interpreted
• Retention of qualitative nuance obtained from
  open-ended questioning

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Emerging findings and working papers

• Motives and goals
• Effectiveness
• Accountability
• Leadership
• Networking and partnerships

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Effectiveness

• Monday Developments (InterAction) piece
• Limits of overhead-centered definition of
  effectiveness used by many rating sites (CN).
• Move towards more impact-driven measurements.
• How do we best understand TNGOs?
• Principled and interest-driven views compete in
  the current debates, in particular in IR.

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Accountability

• TNGO leaders primarily focus on three dimensions
  of accountability
• financial management,
• mandate, and
• transparency
• TNGO leaders are less likely to mention the
  following dimensions of accountability
• responsiveness,
• evaluation, and
• participation

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Governance structure

• We are also interested in how organizations like
  yours are structured. Would you please tell me a
  little bit about how your organization is
  structured?

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Governance Accountability
Sources of Accountability Pressures Unitary Federation Coalition Total (row)
Internal 41.0 (34) 21.1 (8) 25.0 (2) 34.1 (44)
External 21.7 (18) 39.5 (15) 37.5 (3) 27.9 (36)
Both 37.4 (31) 39.5 (15) 37.5 (3) 38.0 (49)
Total (column) 100.0 (83) 100.0 (38) 100.0 (8) 100.0 (129)
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Future plans

• Research collaboration
• Data sharing (Hauser Center)
• Other regions outside the United States
• Practitioner engagement
• Summer Institute
• Consultancies (example PLAN International)