Date of Award

1-1-2016

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Public Administration and Policy

Content Description

1 online resource (iii, 208 pages) : illustrations (some color)

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Judith Saidel

Committee Members

Christine Bozlak, Erika Martin, Stephen Weinberg

Keywords

Capacity, Emergency food program, Food pantry, Nonprofit organizations, Soup kitchen, Food relief, Food banks, Charities, Organizational effectiveness, Industrial capacity

Subject Categories

Public Administration

Abstract

Scholars generally agree that organizational capacity influences a nonprofit’s sustainability and overall effectiveness. Identified challenges include defining capacity, operationalizing it and understanding how capacity affects effectiveness. This research project seeks to explore these challenges and examine the construct of capacity from the perspectives of 195 emergency food program practitioners across eleven counties in upstate New York. The qualitative study aims to understand “what” capacity is; the quantitative study aims to understand “how” capacity is operationalized and the mixed method study examines the “why this matters”, through asking how capacity influences effectiveness.

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