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Racial diversity in nonprofit leadership presents a variety of benefits crucial for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, leadership remains predominately white. Practitioner-oriented studies decry racial disparities in nonprofit funding, but academic literature offers mixed conclusions on how diversity influences resource acquisition. This article examines associations between racial composition of nonprofit leadership and organizational resilience to the pandemic, based on a survey of New Orleans-based nonprofits in winter 2021. Logistic regressions assess whether leadership diversity increases the likelihood of organizational resilience in both service delivery and financial health, finding that greater board diversity is associated with targeted programming and advocacy to support racially diverse communities, and expanded service delivery. However, greater Black board representation is associated with lack of reserves, threatening financial sustainability. The analysis uncovers disparate effects of racial diversity on resilience for service delivery versus finances, suggesting diverse nonprofits are “doing more with less” in response to the pandemic.

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Research has long established nonprofit organizations’ vital role advocating for the needs of vulnerable populations before legislative policymakers. In the best of times, it is difficult for 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofits employing grassroots advocacy to mobilize vulnerable constituencies to compete with 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) advocacy and special interest groups. The latter organizations inherently have greater flexibility and resources to lobby lawmakers directly, permitting greater access to influencing the policy agenda. Through a multi-method case study of the 2020 regular session of the Louisiana State Legislature, this article demonstrates how the COVID-19 pandemic’s unique contextual conditions made legislative advocacy more difficult than usual for charitable nonprofits promoting a progressive policy response to the pandemic within a politically conservative state. Conducted through interviews with nonprofit leaders and an analysis of legislative records and committee hearings, the case study reveals specific barriers that hampered charitable nonprofits’ access to the legislative process, including physical capacity restrictions and health concerns, as well as issues with virtual legislative protocols and conservative committee chairs’ discretion to ignore remote testimony. The article analyzes how these barriers negatively impacted charitable nonprofits’ ability to advocate for vulnerable populations and explores potential implications for equitable political participation and response to the pandemic.

This method note presents Q methodology as a useful tool for evaluators to add to their practice toolbox. Q methodology, which involves both quantitative and qualitative techniques, can help researchers and evaluators systematically understand subjectivity and the communicability of opinions and perspectives. We first provide an overview of Q methodology, followed by a brief summary of how evaluators are using Q, and an explanation of the steps for implementing Q methodology. Either by itself or with other methods, the potential uses of Q methodology in evaluation are diverse. For practical demonstration, we describe how Q methodology was used in a recent evaluation in the UK to understand stakeholder subjectivity within the program. We then reflect upon the pros and cons of using Q in program evaluation, concluding that it constitutes a worthwhile tool for evaluating complex programs.