Nonprofit Density and Distributional Equity in Public Service Provision: Exploring Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Public Park Access across U.S. Cities

Abstract

Existing research on the distributional impacts of nonprofits and philanthropy focuses on how different groups directly benefit from nonprofit service providers. Given the increasing roles nonprofits play in public service provision and urban governance, it is critical to examine how the nonprofit sector may influence the distribution of public services. Combining the literature from urban affairs and nonprofit studies, we propose a theoretical framework to articulate various pathways through which communities with a larger nonprofit sector may create favorable conditions for public services to be distributed to certain racial/ethnic groups. We further test this framework using a unique geospatial dataset of public park access by different racial/ethnic groups in 2,392 U.S. cities. Our findings indicate that communities with a higher density of parksupporting nonprofits generate better park access for all racial/ethnic groups. However, more benefits accrue to whites than to other racial/ethnic groups.

Government‐nonprofit partnerships outside the contracting relationship and public funding allocation: Evidence from New York City's park system

“…Consistent with past research in homeless services (Mosley, 2012), these partnerships make it undisguisable between nonprofits' participation in funding advocacy and their involvement in collaborative governance. We need to pay special attention to the distributional consequences of these arrangements as nonprofits get more involved in the collaborative governance or co‐governance of public service provision (Cheng et al, 2022; Nisbet & Schaller, 2020).…”

“…Third, our study complements existing scholarship on the distributional consequences of the nonprofit sector by extending the focus from where nonprofit organizations are located to how they may impact the allocation of public funding (Brecher & Wise, 2008; Cheng et al, 2022; Gazley et al, 2020). This question has important social equity implications when nonprofits play important roles in financing and supporting public services.…”

“…As Marwell (2004) spells out in her machine politics model, it is often in the interest of the nonprofits to bring more public resources to the constituency and community they serve, in exchange for their own financial or human resource support via their donors and volunteers. Similar dynamics can also play out in the context of public parks as these nonprofits get involved in the planning and design of these services and play an instrumental role in raising charitable support for these services (Cheng et al, 2022). Based on the exchange mechanism, we develop the following hypothesis for the relationship between government-nonprofit partnerships outside the contracting relationship and public funding allocation in parks.…”

“…Drawn from the existing literature on government-nonprofit relations (Cheng, Yang & Deng, 2022;Fyall, 2016;Marwell, 2004), we summarize two theoretical mechanisms through which government-nonprofit partnerships outside the contracting relationship can influence public funding allocation in public service provision: the substitution mechanism and the exchange mechanism. We use mechanism instead of model here to distinguish from the supplementary and complementary models of government-nonprofit relations.…”

Reckoning With Race and Gender in Public Administration and Public Policy: A Substantive Social Equity Turn

“…Yuan (Daniel) Cheng, Lang (Kate) Yang, and Shuyi Deng (2022) examine differences in impacts on communities' access to public services divided by race and ethnic backgrounds related to the role of nonprofit service providers. They note that since nonprofits are increasingly involved in the financing and planning of public services, it is critical to examine how the nonprofit sector may influence the distribution of public services.…”