Delivering public services to the underserved: Nonprofits and the Latino threat narrative

• Published date: 01 January 2023
• Author: Joannie Tremblay‐Boire,Aseem Prakash,Maria Apolonia Calderon
• Date: 01 January 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13499

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Delivering public services to the underserved: Nonprofits

and the Latino threat narrative

Joannie Tremblay-Boire

1

| Aseem Prakash

2

| Maria Apolonia Calderon

1

1

School of Public Policy, University of Maryland,

College Park, College Park, Maryland, USA

2

Department of Political Science, University of

Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

Correspondence

Joannie Tremblay-Boire, School of Public Policy,

University of Maryland, College Park, 3111AA

Van Munching Hall, College Park, MD 20742,

USA.

Email: jboire@umd.edu

Abstract

Some politicians employ harsh rhetoric demanding that government deny public ser-

vices such as food, housing, and medical care to immigrants. While nonprofits assist

immigrants in this regard, their work is sustainable only if private donors support them.

Using a survey experiment, this article examines whether donors’willingness to sup-

port a charity depends on the legal status of its beneficiaries, and the region from

which they have come. We find that, in relation to a charity that serves low-income

families (control group), donors are less willing to support a charity serving immigrants,

but the region from which beneficiaries emigrated is irrelevant. Donor willingness

diminishes substantially when beneficiaries are undocumented or face deportation.

While shared ethnicity between donors and beneficiaries does not increase charitable

support, bilingualism does. In addition, support for the charity rises substantially among

Latinx donors who were born outside the US and do not speak English at home.

Evidence for practice

•Nonprofits function in an ecosystem that, to some extent, is shaped by political

rhetoric. Political rhetoric can affect the donor support they receive.

•Nonprofits should think about the benefits and drawbacks of highlighting their activi-

ties, as opposed to highlighting the demographic characteristics of their beneficiaries.

•Terms such as “undocumented migrant”can be triggers for certain individuals.

Including immigrants’legal status in nonprofit fundraising campaigns can lead

to a reduction in the number of individuals willing to donate to the cause.

•Given the importance of language spoken at home in motivating donor support

in this experiment, nonprofits may benefit from running their fundraising cam-

paigns in multiple languages, especially if they serve immigrant communities.

•Nonprofits serving immigrant communities should target Black donors.

INTRODUCTION

Governments often cannot provide adequate and timely

support to underserved groups. Private charity plays an

important role in supplementing governmental efforts, be

it by operating food banks in response to COVID-19, provid-

ing medical relief to hurricane victims, or operating shelters

for abused and battered women.

Scholars note that nonprofits arise in response to the fail-

ures of both markets and governments (Hansmann, 1980;

Weisbrod, 1988) to address a pressing policy need. Sources

of government failure are many, including budget constraints

and responding to the median voter, thereby ignoring het-

erogeneous constituent preferences. In this article, we pro-

pose that political officials (as well as the media amplifying

their message) may influence nonprofit viability in a different

manner: through their rhetoric. If political leaders portray cer-

tain groups (e.g., formerly incarcerated people, immigrants)

as undeserving of government resources in their speeches

Human subjects permission: IRB approval 1474252-1 from the University of

Maryland.

Received: 1 December 2020 Revised: 15 March 2022 Accepted: 23 March 2022

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13499

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium,

provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

© 2022 The Authors. Public Administration Review published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Public Administration.

78 Public Admin Rev. 2023;83:78–91.

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar