Growing regulatory attention has extended to charity service performance reporting and its external audit, yet little is known about how charities respond when both are mandated. Drawing on a documentary analysis of 120 reports from large New Zealand charities and interviews with preparers and auditors, we examine the responses to these mandates. Using the decoupling theory, we find substantial formal compliance, but the audited statements of service performance were dominated by verifiable quantitative outputs, while qualitative outcome- and impact-oriented information was less prevalent. The audit process strengthened reporting routines, reducing policy-practice gaps, but contributed to means-ends tensions by encouraging reliance on quantitative information and shifting qualitative information to voluntary reporting mechanisms. By demonstrating charities’ emergent and deliberate responses to the mandates, we reveal how audit shapes reporting practices and the intentionality of responses.
If volunteering is associated with higher well-being, why might this be? Published correlations may reflect the influence of volunteering on well-being or the influence of well-being on volunteering, or both directions of influence. Moreover, volunteer motivation may serve as a boundary condition, with other-oriented goals more positively associated with well-being than self-oriented goals. However, motive fulfillment has yet to be examined in this context. We surveyed 406 current volunteers, registered with Prolific, from selected English-speaking nations, 3 months apart, assessing volunteer motivations, personality, and four types of well-being at T1 and motive fulfillment and well-being at T2. We found that greater fulfillment of important other-oriented motives was significantly more positively associated with well-being at T2 than greater fulfillment of important self-oriented motives; results remained significant when controlling for personality and, largely, T1 well-being. We conclude that fulfilling important other-oriented goals in volunteer work is associated with higher subsequent well-being.
Universities are increasingly expected to integrate civic and social goals into their curricula, yet it remains unclear how to engage students whose motivations are primarily professional. Service-learning experiences (SLEs), which combine academic study with community service, are one strategy, but student self-selection complicates design and evaluation. Because SLEs help cultivate the voluntary sector’s future volunteers and donors, who gains access is a question for the sector, not only for educators. This study examines how prosocial and pre-professional identities shape students’ interest in SLEs and whether course framing influences engagement. In a preregistered survey experiment, students evaluated SLEs framed as descriptive, volunteer-focused, or career-focused. Altruistic values and pre-professional identity modestly but significantly predicted interest; volunteer identity did not. Course framing had no effect. These findings suggest civic and professional orientations may be more compatible than assumed, and engagement depends less on framing than on integration within broader curricular and developmental pathways.
Despite growing expectations for Nonprofit Organizations to implement performance measurement, empirical research on its actual use remains limited. To address such a gap, this study investigates the decision-facilitating use of performance information focusing on environmental complexities, the role of the board of directors, and organizational culture. The empirical setting is provided by Nonprofit Organizations located in the province of Bergamo (Italy) to which a survey was administered. The analysis shows that environmental complexity does not directly increase the use of performance information. Rather, it operates indirectly through an externally oriented board and a flexible culture, both serving as bridges that connect external pressures to internal systems.
