A framework for understanding how nonprofits shape our physical environment: Identifying allies in making spaces

• Author: Anne‐Lise K. Velez,Emily B. McCartha
• Date: 01 March 2019
• Published date: 01 March 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21341

RESEARCH ARTICLE

A framework for understanding how nonprofits

shape our physical environment: Identifying allies in

making spaces

Anne-Lise K. Velez

1

| Emily B. McCartha

2

1

Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg,

Virginia

2

Department of Public Administration, North

Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina

Correspondence

Anne-Lise K. Velez, Virginia Polytechnic

Institute, 133 Hillcrest Hall, 385 West Campus

Drive, Blacksburg, VA 24061.

Email: aknox@vt.edu

Research exists on the role of nonprofits directly shaping

open spaces and preserving elements of the built environ-

ment, but the larger landscape of nonprofits that directly

and indirectly shape the larger physical environment is

less well understood. Although legislation exists to help

protect and preserve natural spaces, nonprofits play a cru-

cial role in carrying out work to protect and shape the nat-

ural and built components of the physical environment.

Furthermore, nonprofit work that shapes public spaces is,

by default, an attempt to reshape social environments and

values through interventions in the physical environment.

This is particularly important as the relationship between

the physical environment and societal outcomes related to

public health, human behavior, and sustainability is clear.

Using past research by the authors, a review of related lit-

erature, and a localized case study, we refine a theoretical

framework to better describe and understand the breadth

of nonprofits that are shaping the physical environment.

In doing so, we create a tool to help nonprofit managers

identify and better engage allied stakeholders.

KEYWORDS

frameworks, nonprofit management, nonprofit sector,

placemaking, practitioner tools

1|INTRODUCTION

Although the number of actors that work to shape the physical environment is large, ranging from

government and private landowners (Carmona, De Magalhaes, & Hammond, 2008) to private citi-

zens undertaking their own efforts at small-scale interventions (Douglas, 2014; Finn, 2014), nonprofit

Received: 9 November 2017 Revised: 1 September 2018 Accepted: 10 September 2018

DOI: 10.1002/nml.21341

Nonprofit Management and Leadership. 2019;29:419–435. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/nml © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 419

organizations play an equally important role in shaping the environments in which we live and work.

Here, we focus on the physical environment inclusive of both natural spaces that are preserved (wild)

or managed as well as features of the built environment. In addition, well-established literature exists

relating nonprofit advocacy work to decisions that influence elements of the physical environment

and the management of open spaces (e.g., Connolly, Svendsen, Fisher, & Campbell, 2013; Joassart-

Marcelli, Wolch, & Salim, 2011; Velez, 2018; Zahran, Brody, Maghelal, Prelog, & Lacy, 2008).

However, despite the presence of these bodies of literature, a gap remains related to understanding

the role nonprofits play in placemaking and in tools to help leaders at nonprofits seeking to shape the

physical environment better understand and identify other groups that may be working in the same

physical and policy-related spaces.

Placemaking lacks a singular definition but can be understood as a collaborative process “by

which we can shape our public realm …to maximize shared value”by promoting better urban

design; creative use patterns; and considering physical, cultural, and social identities that “define a

place and support its ongoing evolution”(Project for Public Spaces, 2016). Palermo and Ponzini

(2015) note that “the concept alludes to an important topic—the production of livable and sustainable

places—that should be included in the missions of the various disciplines that address the organiza-

tion and management of the built environment. It also refers to a set of practices for achieving this

goal through the application of rules and the use of appropriate tools”(p. 2).

Here, we identify activities undertaken by “placemaking nonprofits”and nonprofit subsectors

engaging in this work to create a tool that nonprofit managers can use to help them think through

potential allies in areas of their work related to the physical environment. We use placemaking non-

profits as an umbrella term to refer to nonprofits with diverse missions, mainly 501c(3)s,

1

that may

result in them working to shape the physical environment, including through advocacy and policy

work. The placemaking activities considered here have implications for the physical environment

comprising the built environment (buildings, bridges, and monuments) and natural environment (both

managed spaces and wild spaces). As a function of the public-focused missions of the organizations

doing the work, results are also tied closely to considerations of the social environment. Enacting,

implanting, and monitoring environmental and preservation issues related to the physical environ-

ment increasingly falls under the purview of the nonprofit sector. As organizations performing this

work often operate with limited resources, better understanding potential allies regarding shaping

public spaces will be of increasing importance to practitioners.

The nonprofit placemaking typology presented here provides one such tool for organizational

managers and decision-makers to use. Placemaking as a concept has its roots in “a series of mostly

local experiences concerning the quality of the urban settlements and the meaning of the urban

condition,”but attempts to understand placemaking often suffer from “oversimplification”and

“underestimating the connections between emerging experiences…fields, and the non-contingent

difficulties of any project whose goal is to the quality of urban life”(Palermo & Ponzini, 2015, p. 3).

The framework we propose is intended to serve as a tool for practitioners in placemaking nonprofits

to think through organizations that may be potential allies in their work of shaping built and natural

public spaces and to consider the range of programming priorities and practices potentially present in

allied organizations to help in identifying them. In using the tool this way, nonprofits can “seek more

appropriate responses to long-term and still-unresolved problems”in their communities, as called for

by Palermo and Ponzini (2015, p. 5). The majority of extant literature focuses on the work of non-

profits with missions clearly related to advocacy or stewardship of the built or natural physical envi-

ronment, like land conservation groups. Svendsen and Campbell (2008) note that this vein of

research calls for further studies on the “universe of civil society groups for which environmental

420 VELEZ AND MCCARTHA