Nonprofit Boards in Pursuit of Innovation for Growth: Views From the Frontline

Abstract

Conventional thinking holds that for-profits need to innovate for growth to be financially viable. Nevertheless, to date, we have not recognized the importance of nonprofit growth and innovation’s function here. Yet despite “innovation for growth” being an even greater imperative for nonprofits in their quest to resolve societal challenges, prior sector research has, at most, only superficially investigated this construct new to nonprofits. In this first-in-field conceptual project, we weave together a comprehensive literature review with findings from 26 interviews with nonprofit directors. In doing so, we advance the scattered nonprofit-innovation and organization-performance research by describing nonprofit innovation for growth and why it matters. And we originally conceptualize that nonprofit boards seem to prioritize particular factorial determinants new to nonprofit-innovation research in their effective pursuit of innovation for growth.