Who "Owns" AIDS Service Organizations? Governance Accountability in Non-Profit Organizations

Increased public funding for provision of social services by nonprofit organizations has inspired efforts to increase those organizations' accountability to government and the larger public. Yet, as this analysis of organizations providing services to HIV-infected individuals and AIDS sufferers in the Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse areas shows, those efforts weaken accountability to the groups who founded the organizations or are directly served by them. This loss was not simply the consequence of accepting state money; it also stemmed from leaders' desires to put their organizations on a more professional footing compatible with the prevailing social structures and organizational cultures of the areas they served.