Date of Completion
2019
Document Type
Honors College Thesis
Department
Political Science
Thesis Type
Honors College, College of Arts and Science Honors
First Advisor
Pablo Bose
Keywords
Vermont, nonprofit, public policy, street level bureaucracy, grant
Abstract
Much of modern state and federal government social services are provided through contracts and grants with human service nonprofit organizations (NPOs). Significant research has explored how government bureaucrats alter and effectively create public policy through their implementation choices. I argue that NPOs also alter public policy through their implementation of government contracts and grants. Through an in-depth single case study of a Vermont New American-serving NPO[1], I explore how the organization both conforms to government standards of accountability and alters or resists government policy restrictions that would have a negative effect on the community. I find that the case study NPO alters public policy by integrating new grants into existing programming and by using information asymmetry to expand program scope and client eligibility standards. However, the NPO is limited in their autonomy to negotiate changes in programs regardless of the quality of the relationship with a government funder and there is trend towards increasingly strict accountability requirements that may further limit NPO policy influence.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Klofft, Emily Victoria, "Non-Profits as Creators of Public Policy in Public-Private Partnerships" (2019). UVM Honors College Senior Theses. 309.
https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/hcoltheses/309