Sponsor
Hatfield School of Government. Public Affairs and Policy Ph. D. Program
First Advisor
Billie Sandberg
Term of Graduation
Spring 2025
Date of Publication
3-17-2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Public Affairs and Policy
Department
Public Affairs and Policy
Language
English
Subjects
Nonprofit bankruptcy, Nonprofit failure, Nonprofit financial distress, Nonprofit vulnerability prediction
Physical Description
1 online resource (viii, 179 pages)
Abstract
Studying nonprofit's risk factors for financial vulnerability and possible demise is important because of the negative social consequences for both the failed organization and its stockholders. Financial vulnerability is a concern shared by all nonprofit's stakeholders as poor financial health affects nonprofit's ability to fulfill its mission, sustain its operations, and in many cases may result in a nonprofit demise. Advance knowledge on financial vulnerability has significant implications for nonprofit's leaders to develop corrective strategies to prevent failure.
Nonprofit scholars such as Tuckman and Chang, Greenlee, Hager, and Searing have contributed notable benchmarks in the field of nonprofit vulnerability, by searching for associations between wide-ranging metrics and 'financial vulnerability' as defined by the individual researcher. Only few studies examined the association between financial metrics and the ultimate consequence of financial vulnerability - a nonprofit actual failure. This thesis aims to add to that knowledge by examining financial metrics and their association with failed or on-going nonprofits. It also examines which metrics, when combined in a statistical model, can predict future financial vulnerability which is useful information for nonprofit stakeholders when making funding and operational decisions. This study confirms that revenues, overhead ratio, and the ratio between Program Service Expense and Fund Surplus are associated with nonprofit failure, and that these metrics can be used to predict which nonprofits are financially vulnerable and susceptible to failure within the next 12 months. This knowledge may help reduce the hazard of funding a destine-to-fail nonprofit, increase funding to strengthen vulnerable nonprofits that are the sole providers of goods and services in a community, and put nonprofit management on notice so they can take corrective actions.
Rights
© 2025 Yossi Haimberg
In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/43190
Recommended Citation
Haimberg, Yossi, "Financial Metrics as Predictors of Financial Vulnerability and Nonprofit Failure" (2025). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 6796.
