The public service motivation literature has helped scholars and practitioners better understand who is attracted to public service and why. However, little is understood about how public service motivation in individuals may be cultivated or how it changes over time. This article uses panel data collected by the Corporation for National and Community Service to track the longitudinal effects of participation in the AmeriCorps national service program on participants’ public service motivation. Findings reveal that participation in AmeriCorps programs had positive effects on participants’ levels of commitment to the public interest and civic awareness immediately after the program; many of these program effects were sustained seven years later. However, when observed in isolation, the comparison group showed significant declines in levels of commitment to public interest and civic awareness over an eight‐year period, suggesting that public service motivation may initially decline upon entry into a public service career.

This article details the development and implementation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Corps program, a federal interagency partnership. While many federal agencies partner through fee-for-service arrangements and contracts, few contemporary examples of interagency program creation and implementation are available. This article develops an interagency collaboration framework by drawing from the collaboration literature, as well as literature on institutions, to examine the development of this unique partnership. This research draws on key informant interviews and content analysis of documentation, including the interagency agreement (IAA), historical records, memos, meeting minutes, and participant observations. Findings suggest that even in formal IAAs, a strong history of informal institutional collaboration may be an important antecedent of forming and implementing collaborative arrangements. Similarly, the presence of a champion may play an important role in cultivating and developing both informal and formal institutions that create an opportunity to collaborate. Finally, the rules-in-use and the rules-inform may vary at different levels of management. As the federal government increasingly employs interagency partnerships, this article provides lessons for developing relationships, identifying and understanding roles, crossing organizational boundaries, and merging both agency cultures and administrative processes.

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget and other federal government stakeholders have been encouraging federal agencies to partner and collaborate to solve increasingly complex public problems. However, developing and implementing performance measures in collaborative or partnership arrangements adds complexity to an already complex process. In the case of one interagency partnership, the FEMA Corps, implementing a mechanism to collect and report data demonstrating accomplishments has presented both challenges and opportunities. Through this research, the practitioner‐scholar research team uses the partnership between FEMA and a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) as a case study demonstrating what it takes for two federal agencies to successfully collaborate on data collection and reporting. Despite the challenge, findings demonstrate that the process of developing and implementing joint performance measures may facilitate important conversations relating to the mission, vision, and goals of the partnership.

Although considerable research has developed exploring effective management of nonprofit boards of directors, there is limited understanding of the motivations of nonprofit board members to serve on boards. Using a sample of nearly 700 nonprofit board members, this study examines antecedent conditions and dimensions of public service motivation (PSM) as they apply to nonprofit board members and the differences in levels of PSM between board members who have worked primarily in the nonprofit, public, or private sectors. Board members with primary employment in the public sector show the highest levels of PSM. This study illustrates that nonprofit board members who work in the private sector exhibit fewer values associated with public service motivation. Other variables that predict public service motivation among board members include gender, level of education, and formal volunteering activity, among several others.

While public policy scholars are gaining a better understanding of the nonprofit sector's impact on the policy process, the sector's role in lobbying efforts has only been studied in a limited manner. Currently, nonprofit organizations' lobbying activities and expenditures are limited by federal regulations, which are often misunderstood by nonprofit leaders. This article uses 2003 IRS Form 990 data for all nonprofit organizations in the United States to examine the organizational determinants of 501(c)3 nonprofits taking the Internal Revenue Service's 501(h) election and whether organizations use h-election in a manner consistent with patterns of strategic behavior. Results show that nonprofit organizations that are reliant on direct public support are more likely to take the h-election, while those reliant on government grants are less likely to take the h-election. Examining lobbying expenditures, we find nonprofits associate with 501(h) election in a pattern consistent with strategic behavior. The findings suggest that nonprofit organizations with certain revenue streams and in specific subsectors respond differently to this election decision, and that organizations may respond strategically to mechanisms regulating their political activity.