What is the role of NPOs?

While this week’s reading are all about leadership in NPOs, it interested me to think about: “what are the leaders’ perspectives in understanding the role of the NPOs they are governing”?

I recently read an article called “Complexity and Instability: The response of Nongovernmental Organizations to the Recovery of Hurricane Katrina Survivors in a Host Community”, the authors collected and analyzed data about Katrina-specific funding, and focus their findings on two limitations that NPOs have when handling the needs of citizens after a devastating natural disaster: high time and overhead cost, and failure to fully meet beneficiary’s needs. Based on the findings of the Katrina case study, the authors lead a discussion that the system of NPOs was complex and often unstable, and thus “any local social service system is likely to be too fragile to handle the needs of citizens on its own”. Furthermore, the authors think that NGOs “function best as an adjunct to the state and benefit from state oversight, support, and monitoring” (Gajewski et al, p.13, 2010).

Although I would personally doubt whether NPOs function as an “adjunct” to the state, I understand the importance to listen based on my last blog posting. It is interesting to hear from opinions from professionals that are not non-profit concentrated. So while we are talking about leadership in a nonprofit, are we really taking the lead? Or are we just acting as an adjunct to the state?