The Decision-Making Context and Its Impact on Local Human Service Nonprofits

One significant factor affecting an organization's functioning is the decisions made by other organizations that are important to it. We examine decision‐making in three local human service delivery nonprofits, focusing on the level (local versus national) of the actors making decisions as well as the degree of horizontal or vertical coordination among decision makers. The findings show that the decision‐making context affects nonprofit structure and operations and suggest that providers may have to make significant trade‐offs as they seek to restructure in response to policy changes such as devolution.