Structures, Challenges, and Successes of Volunteer Programs Co‐managed by Nonprofit and Public Organizations

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21206
• Author: Maria Cseh,Jeffrey L. Brudney,Joe Follman
• Published date: 01 June 2016
• Date: 01 June 2016

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N M  L, vol. 26, no. 4, Summer 2016 © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/nml.21206

Journal sponsored by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University.

Structures, Challenges, and Successes

of Volunteer Programs Co-managed by

Nonprofi t and Public Organizations

Joe Follman, 1 Maria Cseh, 1 J e ff rey L. Brudney 2

1 George Washington University

2 University of North Carolina at Wilmington

This article presents a mixed-methods, multicase study and comparison of volunteer pro-

grams in US national parks that have evolved, in response to growth and fiscal pressures,

to be co-managed by national park staff and their nonprofit support partners. Findings

detail why and how the expanded partnerships were formed; how they operate; challenges

they face; ways in which they adhere to, stretch, and depart from theories of nonprofit

management, collaboration, and program institutionalization; and the significant—even

exponential—volunteer program growth that resulted in each case.

These nonprofit−public volunteer program partnerships—at Acadia, Arches and

Canyonlands, Cuyahoga Valley, Golden Gate, the National Mall, and Yosemite national

park sites—employ many standard forms of interorganizational relations, even though in

these cases the nonprofits give money to the government organization instead of the reverse.

Their volunteer program and management structures also share similar elements because

of coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures. At the same time, each volunteer program

partnership is a distinct blend of collaboration and management practices because of the

unique natural features, climate, needs, adjacent populations, and personalities of leaders

at each site. The cases employ innovative strategies to substantially increase the number of

staff who lead volunteer programs. Recommendations are offered for nonprofit manage-

ment research and practice, and findings are instructive for organizations that utilize

volunteers either as a single entity or as part of a collaboration.

Keywords: volunteers , nonprofit , leadership , management , multicase study , research

ONGOING FINANCIAL, INFRASTRUCTURE, and other needs are driving new forms of col-

laboration between US National Park Service (NPS) sites and nonprofit organizations that

traditionally focused on providing financial support to their park partners. Throughout the

twentieth century and continuing through this writing, the number of NPS sites has grown

steadily, from 37 in 1916, to 137 in 1933, to 239 in 1964, to 409 units in 2015 (Lee 1972 ;

Correspondence to: Joe Follman, George Washington University, Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service, 800

21st NW, Suite 505, Washington, DC, 20052. E-mail: jfollman@gwu.edu.

Nonprofi t Management & Leadership DOI: 10.1002/nml

454 FOLLMAN, CSEH, BRUDNEY

NPS 2015 ). Unit designations include national parks, forests, trails, monuments, memorials,

seashores, wildlife refuges, historic sites, and other categories. The number of visitors to NPS

sites has also increased dramatically: from 314,000 in 1915, to 118 million in 1965, to an

estimated 293 million in 2015 (NPS 2015). Approximately 200 NPS sites (49 percent) have

nonprofit “Friends Groups” (NPS 2011 ).

A solid history and accompanying literature surround collaborative management of natural

resources (Armitage et al. 2008 ; Coughlin et al. 1999 ; Kenney et al. 2000 ; Koontz et al.

2004 ; Schuett, Selin, and Carr 2001 ; Wondolleck and Yaffee 2000 ). For generations Volun-

teers in Parks (VIPs) have helped NPS sites meet their needs and missions. In 2014 the NPS

had 229,000 VIPs (NPS n.d.). Volunteers in national parks, however, have traditionally been

led solely by NPS staff. The parks’ nonprofit partners traditionally focused on fundraising.

Co-management of volunteer programs at NPS sites represents a growing, but previously

unexamined, phenomenon.

Throughout most of its histor y the NPS has struggled to meet its mission with the money

appropriated to it (Connally 1982 ; Rettie 1995 ; Runte 2010 ). Decades of insufficient fund-

ing, combined with burgeoning numbers of NPS units and visitors, have negatively affected

NPS site functioning in personnel, resource management, visitor safety, construction, resto-

ration, planning, and land acquisition (Leinesch 1982 ; NPS 2013 ; Rettie 1995 ; Ridenour

1994 ). In 2013 the NPS had a maintenance backlog of $12 billion (NPS 2013 ). The total

number of park rangers fell by 10 percent from 2003 to 2013 (Wilderness Society 2013 ),

despite the addition of seventeen new NPS units during that period (NPS 2013 ).

Nonprofit fundraising does not cover fiscal shortfalls even for the parks with dedicated

fundraising partners. Inadequate budgets mean NPS sites increasingly depend on volunteers,

yet insufficient NPS staffing renders parks less capable of managing volunteers. As a result,

neither the nonprofits nor the NPS sites meet their congruent missions of preserving “the

natural and cultural resources and values of the national park system for the enjoyment, edu-

cation, and inspiration of this and future generations” (NPS 2013 , para. 1). In response, a

handful of nonprofit organizations have expanded support of their NPS partners by becom-

ing directly engaged in volunteer planning, funding, design, coordination, and evaluation.

The leadership, structures, and functioning of these co-managed NPS−site volunteer pro-

grams are the subject of this article.

Since the 1980s interorganizational collaboration has become an increasingly prevalent

strategy for organizations operating under changing circumstances and expanding diversity,

technological advancement, and globalization. Such collaboration, says Gray ( 1989 ), repre-

sents “emergent interorganizational arrangements through which organizations collectively

cope with the growing complexity of their environments” (236). Cross-sector social partner-

ships (CSSPs) have also burgeoned, in which nonprofits, government, businesses, or civil

society jointly address complex social or environmental issues (Austin 2000a ; Clarke and

Fuller 2010 ; Cropper et al. 2010 ; Googins and Rochlin 2000 ; Selsky and Parker 2005 , 2010 ;

Waddock 1989 , 1991 ; Young 2000 ).

Although a significant body of research treats collaboration between organizations to improve

output and profitability, as well as relations within and between sectors, co-managed NPS−

nonprofit volunteer program partnerships have not been examined. Many studies examine

collaborative management (Ansell and Gash 2008 ; Koontz et al. 2004 ), collaboration on

conservation lands (Armitage et al. 2008 ; Coughlin et al. 1999 ; Kenney et al. 2000 ; Koontz