Transnational NGOs from the Inside-Out

1. The Power and Limits of Principled Activism Transnational NGOs from the Inside-Out Hans Peter Schmitz

2. Outline • Rationale • Increasing visibility and power of transnational activism • Limits of the current academic literature • Design • Sampling and protocol and interview process • Coding, data structure and data transformation • Preliminary findings • Contributions to the academic literature • Results relevant to practitioners • Future plans

3. Rationale: increased visibility • Quantitative growth of TNGO sector • At the United Nations (based on Global Policy Forum/UN Department on Economic and Social Affairs) • In the United States (number of organizations and revenue)

4. Global NGO Growth(based on: Yearbook of International Organizations, Vol. 1, 1997/98)

5. UN consultative status

6. Regional representation, 1996

7. Regional representation, 2007

8. Growth of US sector • Growth in international not-for-profits (transnational NGOs). • National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) • Based on 990 forms (revenue exceeding $25,000 US-Dollar) • Revenue base increased from $4.57bn (1997) to $32bn in 2007. • Number of organizations increased from 1,812 to 6,500. • Snapshot 2003 (Kerlin/Thanasombat): 5,600 organizations and revenue of $17.7bn.

9. Research motivation • Literature primarily focuses on large and successful organizations/campaigns. • Sectoral fragmentation. • Disciplinary fragmentation (IR, PA, sociology, etc.) • Organizational and leadership perspectives (“from the inside-out”) are rarely explored.

10. Research motivation, ctd. • Basic questions about TNGOs remain unanswered. • What are their goals and the obstacles faced? • How do they define effectiveness and accountability? • To whom are they accountable? • How do they view networks and partnerships?

11. Objectives defined • Study activism across major sectors; • Create data in a cross-disciplinary context, using quantitative as well as qualitative tools; • Add the perspective of TNGO leadership on their role in global governance; • Develop a research program integrated with teaching and practitioner engagement;

12. Design of study • Selection • Charity Navigator database of international nonprofits (2005) with 501(c)(3) status in the US • Proportionate stratified random sampling based on size, sector and fiscal health • Data collection • Confidential interviews with 152 TNGO leaders across the US (average of 84 minutes) • About 209 hours of interviews recorded and transcribed

16. Limitations of the sample • The claim of representativeness is limited to US-registered TNGOs, not global community of such orgs. • Any bias of Charity Navigator selection is reproduced in our study.

17. Interview protocol • Changes in organizational goals and governance structures • Effectiveness and its assessment • Accountability • Funding as related to effectiveness and accountability • Communication, collaboration, networks and partnerships • Leadership characteristicsand preparation

18. Interview process • 68% response rate; 81% interviewed were top leaders (President/CEOs); • Researchers visited headquarters for interviews; • Interviews lasted an average of 84 minutes; total of about 209 hours;

19. Data transformation • Professional transcriptions; • Creation of a hierarchically organized codebook implemented in ATLAS.ti; • Designed to allow for both qualitative retrieval and quantification; • Intercoder agreement: 0.80.

20. Datasets created • Qualitative dataset • Coded transcripts organized in ATLAS.ti for efficient retrieval of quotations • Frequency count report from ATLAS.ti exported to Stata • Quantitative dataset • Data transformed and labeled • Primary and secondary data merged • Dataset is 152 cases by about 400 variables

21. Advantages of method • Mixing qualitative and quantitative strengths • For the primary data, each is connected to the qualitative quotation from which it is derived • Statistics are easily contextualized and interpreted • Retention of qualitative nuance obtained from open-ended questioning

22. Emerging findings and working papers • Motives and goals • Effectiveness • Accountability • Leadership • Networking and partnerships

23. Effectiveness • Monday Developments (InterAction) piece • Limits of overhead-centered definition of effectiveness used by many rating sites (CN). • Move towards more impact-driven measurements. • How do we best understand TNGOs? • Principled and interest-driven views compete in the current debates, in particular in IR.

24. Accountability • TNGO leaders primarily focus on three dimensions of accountability: • financial management, • mandate, and • transparency • TNGO leaders are less likely to mention the following dimensions of accountability: • responsiveness, • evaluation, and • participation

25. “We are also interested in how organizations like yours are structured. Would you please tell me a little bit about how your organization is structured?” Governance structure

26. Governance & Accountability

27. Future plans • Research collaboration • Data sharing (Hauser Center) • Other regions outside the United States • Practitioner engagement • Summer Institute • Consultancies (example: PLAN International)