What Were You Thinking? A Constructive Epistemology of Nonprofit Policy Development

Abstract

This paper examines the challenges of teaching management policy development in nonprofit organizations through a pan-disciplinary “constructive epistemology.” The elements of the epistemology encompass sequential elements that go beyond problem-solving heuristics, and apply well to managerial policy development in nonprofit organizations. Those elements include Issue Identification, Stakeholder Recognition, Normative Desires, Conceptual Framing, Empirical Observation, Scenario Envisioning and Prescriptive Recommendation. I argue that each of these helps to frame policy problems, and together they provide a firm basis for developing policy and for reviewing its effects. The constructive epistemology is illustrated with a discussion of how nonprofits might develop policy around the prospect of receiving donations from morally suspect sources, the so-called “dirty money” problem.