Navigating Networks: How Nonprofit Network Membership Shapes Response to Resource Scarcity

Abstract

Central to the contemporary American welfare state, nonprofits are increasingly squeezed between declining resources and a simultaneous peak in demand for services. Scholars have outlined a number of ways that nonprofits strategically respond to resource scarcity. Why nonprofits select particular strategies, however, is less clear. This article motivates a network membership perspective via a mixed-methods study of one food bank and its associated food pantries, wherein actors navigate competing network demands that are emblematic of those faced by other nonprofits. Food banks source food from three types of networks – a cartel-like network orchestrated by a national coordinating body, a peer-to-peer inter-food bank network, and a bureaucratic network anchored by the USDA – that place overlapping and conflicting constraints on the organizations. In combination, network demands entangle the food banks within a web of tensions that prevent many forms of adaptation while enabling others, a predicament I refer to in this article as network entrapment. How organizations navigate network demands has implications for the vitality of the organizations and the wellbeing of their beneficiaries. My results suggest that entrapment can lead to organizational burden and the adoption of neoliberal-inspired efficiencies, but also innovations that prioritize citizen rights over cost-benefit ratios.

Six folding tables are arranged in a u-shape. The tables hold boxes of vegetables, neat lines of packaged foods, and bottles of juice arranged into rows. Under low ceiling tiles and fluorescent lights, volunteers hurry around the church basement preparing to serve the thirty to forty people waiting outside in the humid mid-August morning air. The pantry is late to open this morning because Betty, the unofficial manager, has again gone to the food bank to get bread and not yet returned. Frankie, another volunteer, tells me there was no bread yesterday, and soon Betty returns again without bread. The volunteers open the doors and the line files in. Household by household, beneficiaries check in, handing me an identification card or piece of mail with their name and address, and then proceed to get their allotted food. They are allowed one of everything. When an item on the table runs out, volunteers replace it with something different. There is not enough of each item for everyone. Some of the most coveted items, peanut butter and milk, are quietly tucked into the bags of volunteers, most of whom are themselves registered to receive food from the pantry.

The shortages described here are common in food pantries and are indicative of larger fissures and fractures within the broader effort to distribute emergency food. Behind the food doled out to needy households is a complex national infrastructure that operates through a hierarchical hub-and-spoke model supported by three key networks: a cartel-like network headed by a national coordinating nonprofit, a peer-to-peer inter-food bank network, and a bureaucratic network anchored by the USDA. Regional food banks procure food, either surplus, donated, or purchased, through these networks, which they use to supply the numerous food pantries within their regional markets. Beneficiaries then access the food through the food pantries at the community level. This carefully constructed infrastructure, however, is cracking. Surplus food is no longer readily available as a result of food retailers’ and distributors’ improved supply-chain technology, donations are waning due to a constricted economy, and obtaining funding for food purchases remains challenging. Simultaneously, demand for emergency food has reached historic highs. In response, food banks are scrambling to meet rising need.

But the inadequate supply within food pantries cannot be attributed solely to scarcity within the broader emergency food infrastructure. Efforts to meet rising need are additionally limited by competing institutional demands navigated daily by food banks like the State Food Bank¹ (SFB). The SFB Chief Operating Officer conveys the frustration of managing these demands: “Of what’s available, and a lot of it is… snacks and juice and things like that… that’s not the nutritional stuff that we’re looking for,” because “nutritional value [has become] much more significant throughout the network.” The COO is referring here to the increased focus on nutrition as a programmatic goal among donors and other infrastructural actors, a precondition that frequently excludes the distribution of “snacks.” The State Food Bank, like other food banks, is constrained by the often contradictory expectations of its operating networks and donors in ways that limit its ability to provide food, both healthy and unhealthy. These constraints complicate food banks’ efforts to adapt to the increasingly resource-scarce environment. This article examines the entanglement of one food bank, the State Food Bank, and its member pantries within a web of competing network demands amidst a constricting infrastructure that limits the organization’s ability to strategically adapt and ultimately leads to network entrapment.

The precariousness of emergency food distribution reflects the general state of nonprofit social service providers. As public benefits have systematically shifted from government responsibility to that of private nonprofits (Smith and Lipsky 1993), financial support for nonprofits has not kept pace (Grønbjerg and Salamon 2012) while demand for services has increased significantly (Salamon 2012). As poverty worsens and public benefits diminish (Danziger 2010; Edin and Kissane 2010), nonprofits struggle to meet historically high demands within a challenging and resource-deprived environment.

Scholars have identified numerous ways that nonprofits are adapting to this environment, including strategic and competitive positioning against rival organizations (Barman 2002; Frumkin and Kim 2001), forming and dissolving collaborative ties (MacIndoe and Sullivan 2014; Proulx, Hager and Klein 2014; Selden, Sowa and Sandfort 2006), lobbying policymakers and advocating for bigger budgets (Balassiano and Chandler 2010), gaming performance metrics or adopting business management techniques to solicit and satisfy donors (J. Alexander 2000; Eliasoph 2011, 2014), and cutting services or implementing client fees (McMurty, Netting and Kettner 1991). However, the reasons why organizations adopt some strategic responses and not others remain unclear. An important but underexplored contextual factor is the networks within which nonprofits operate. Organizational theory of networks tells us that network membership significantly influences actor behavior (Burt 1998; Granovetter 1985; Podolny 2001; Uzzi 1996, 1997; Uzzi and Lancaster 2004; Zuckerman 1999). Still, little research has considered how network embeddedness shapes nonprofit response to resource scarcity.

Using a mixed-method study of one regional food bank, the State Food Bank, and its associated food pantries, I investigate how network membership shapes and constrains organizational response to an increasingly resource-scarce environment. This article is organized as follows. I first situate my analysis against the rising centrality of nonprofits related to the neoliberalization of the welfare state, a driving force behind resource scarcity. I review existing scholarship on nonprofit adaptation to challenging environments and the related significance of organizational network theory. I then summarize the current state of emergency food distribution and its unique organizational structure. I find that SFB procures food from three different and differently structured types of networks that constitute the larger emergency food infrastructure: a cartel-like network, a peer-to-peer network, and a bureaucratic network. I assess the structure and characteristics of the three network types, finding that each network shapes and restricts the actions of SFB in particular and often competing ways.

The cartel-like network, headed by one national coordinating nonprofit, Feeding America, mediates competition by prescribing to each member food bank a non-overlapping market and formulaically distributing resources. The Feeding America network, however, also restricts donor solicitation and imposes costly administrative requirements. The peer-to-peer inter-food bank network supports collaboration, but only within the narrow boundaries of externally imposed accountability standards. The USDA bureaucratic network provides a steady supply of food, but is unresponsive to changes in need and requires organizations to negotiate for resources through time-intensive formal legal pathways with minimal returns. Combined, the restrictions and disincentives amount to network entrapment, a web of tensions in which organizations struggle under competing and often impossible demands.

Although the intricacies of food distribution might differ slightly between food banks, all food banks subscribe to an organizational structure similar to SFB because of the underlying infrastructure. The findings here, therefore, are applicable to food banks across the country. More broadly, nonprofits tend to operate within multiple networks (Froelich 1999). Therefore, the network entrapment identified here is applicable not only to food banks, but to the field of nonprofits more generally.

A. NONPROFIT RESPONSE TO RESOURCE SCARCITY

Nonprofit service providers, especially emergency food organizations, offer vital and often last-resort human services. Since the 1980s, the U.S. government has broadly and systematically defunded welfare as an institution and transitioned public services to the realm of private providers (Smith and Lipsky 1993). Despite their pertinence to the wellbeing of the American public, nonprofits occupy an increasingly precarious space between the state and the market and struggle to operate with dwindling resources. While the number of nonprofits has grown significantly over the past several decades from 300,000 in 1967 to just over 1.4 million in 2013 (McKeever 2015; Weisbrod 1998), resources to fund this growth have not kept pace (Grønbjerg and Salamon 2012). Yet, simultaneously, demand for services continues to escalate, a result of both the Great Recession and cuts to public benefits (Salamon 2012). The original impetus for the privatization of social services was to import neoliberal logic of competition into the public sphere, so that nonprofit service providers would be driven to foster innovation, improve efficiencies, and minimize costs (Harvey 2005; Smith and Lipsky 1993). Indeed, some nonprofits have aspired to competitive strategies (Barman 2002; Frumkin and Kim 2001), but many more have not.

Rather organizations have adapted in a number of decidedly noncompetitive ways. For example, nonprofits have cut services and introduced client fees among other tactics that detract from organizations’ social purpose (Evans, Richmond and Shield 2005; McMurty, Netting and Kettner 1991). Other organizations have been documented as forming strategic collaborative ties that benefit the organization’s perceived legitimacy or contribute to organizational innovation (Proulx, Hager and Klein 2014; Selden, Sowa and Sandfort 2006; Walker and McCarthy 2010). Conversely, organizations may also dissolve ties in the face of fiscal austerity because of unexpected costs associated with the relationship (MacIndoe and Sullivan 2014). Yet another adaptive strategy is the gaming of performance metrics to highlight specific successes in an effort to maintain current donors and solicit new ones (Eliasoph 2011, 2014) or the adoption of business-oriented practices to generate an image of effectiveness for funders (J. Alexander 2000). Lastly, nonprofits have also been documented engaging in advocacy work to influence policymakers and advocate for bigger budgets (Balassiano and Chandler 2010).

While this research documents the myriad ways nonprofits have sought to adapt to resource scarcity, what we still do not understand in full is why nonprofits select particular strategic responses and eschew others. Understanding the latter requires attention to nonprofits’ organizational environment. Scholars have considered the effects of the general ecological environment for organizational behavior and adaptation to challenging environments (V. Alexander 1998; Barman 2002). Nonprofit scholars have also examined the effects of and historical changes in funding streams, highlighting nonprofits’ resource dependence and the implications of this dependence on nonprofit behavior (Froelich 1999; Grønbjerg 1991; Guo and Acar 2005). Little scholarship, however, has considered the significance of nonprofit network membership, which I argue is especially significant. Economic sociologists have long maintained that actors are embedded in different patterns of relationship (Granovetter 1985), which alter their access to information and resources and their ability to influence others (Burt 1998; Granovetter 1985; Podolny 2001; Uzzi 1996, 1997; Uzzi and Lancaster 2004; Zuckerman 1999). Networks, however, may also restrict actor behavior through costly external demands (Domínguez and Watkins 2003; Walker and McCarthy 2010). I argue that of particular importance for nonprofits is the issue of multivocality (Padgett and Ansell 1993): that the same actions are interpreted differently by actors within the emergency food infrastructure, including donors, bureaucrats, pantry managers and beneficiaries, among others. Prior work has presented such cases as empowering, but they can also constrain actors by introducing incompatible demands (Pacewicz 2015). In what follows, I present evidence that multi-network embeddedness constrains nonprofits in a way that restricts their ability to respond and adapt. Combined, these network-affiliated restrictions amount to network entrapment.

A. CASE AND METHODS

I investigated one regional, medium-sized food bank, referred to in this paper as the State Food Bank, and its approximately 200 member food pantries. Its distribution operations reflect industry standards: The food bank receives or purchases food from national and regional sources and then distributes this food for free or at a reduced cost to member food pantries. Food banks also supply community soup kitchens and shelters. I restrict my study to food pantries because the majority of food is distributed through these outlets (Feeding America 2014). The emergency food infrastructure is mapped out in more detail below.

I preserve the anonymity of the state and the food bank so as not to jeopardize any participants. By omitting regional identifiers, I provide a baseline of protection to all participants, as the research will not be easily “searchable” online. Anyone interested in identifying the food bank would need strong incentives and pre-existing knowledge of this research project. My goal in this research was to understand the organizational structure and processes behind the distribution of emergency food, as well as how emergency food organizations are responding to an increasingly resource-scarce environment. Following the strategy outlined by Mario Luis Small (2009), I sought to uncover causal mechanisms and develop a conceptual model of organizational adaptation to rising austerity and how these efforts are shaped by network embeddedness by studying one regional organization.

I initiated my fieldwork at SFB with in-depth interviews of four key staff: the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), the Chief Operating Officer (COO), and the Agency Services Director. All interviews were recorded and transcribed. I selected each person based on her or his position within the organization. I sought to speak with SFB employees who are responsible for various functions to gain insight into the decision-making processes of the organization from several departmental perspectives. I gained a dynamic understanding of the organization and, through this process, was able to cross-reference testimonies. I frequently followed up with SFB staff over email as additional questions arose and I re-interviewed both the CEO and CFO. Supplementary to my interviews, I attended a workshop hosted by SFB for member pantries on the strategic use of statistics. At the workshop, I informally interviewed SFB’s Community Resource Manager and representatives of the attending member agencies.

Following these interviews, I worked recursively, alternating between follow-up communication with SFB staff and archival analysis (Lamont and Swidler 2014). Materials analyzed include financial reports, operations reports, and SFB annual reports, all generously provided by SFB. Financial reports date from FY2003 to FY2013 and include detailed information on revenue by source and expenses by category, as well as accounting of the total pounds of food distributed by SFB each year. Operations reports date from FY2006 to FY2015. Previous reports were unavailable because of a change in reporting function from 2005 to 2006. The reports provide data on total pounds of food received from each source. Annual reports dating from 1999 to 2013 were analyzed for changes in number of donors over time. Combined, these reports provide the foundational knowledge for reviewing SFB’s recent history. Archival analysis also served as confirmation for interview testimonies, as suggested by Small (2011).

To complement my work at SFB, I conducted fieldwork among nine urban food pantries and one suburban pantry over a period of eleven months. I began by selecting six pantries at random from a list provided on the SFB website. All pantries that belong to SFB and their contact information are included on this list. I selected the final four sites for targeted study of either well-run, well-funded pantries or pantries struggling financially and operationally. All four were recommended by SFB staff. At each site, I employed a range of techniques. I first observed for several days as a participant by either helping beneficiaries get their food or distributing food directly, checking in beneficiaries, or stocking food. To gain deeper insight into pantry operations, I interviewed the self-identified manager at each pantry. These interviews were recorded when possible and later transcribed. I also conducted informal interviews with a number of volunteers, employees, and beneficiaries while working at each site. Fieldwork at the pantries proved crucial for understanding how SFB supplies and manages member food pantries, as well as the impacts of changes in SFB’s day-to-day operations in recent years that may be less obvious to executive staff.

In this article, I focus on the networks that supply SFB’s food rather than on funding donors. Monetary donors within my study operate less as networks and more through dyadic and personal relationships. Outlining each donor-agency relationship would also be unnecessarily detailed. Funders in this case study all have similar demands that influence SFB and contribute to SFB’s entanglement – increased efficiency and programs that support specific nutrition-oriented goals. I will address these demands in more detail in the following sections.

Below, I briefly outline the organizational infrastructure of emergency food to place SFB within its structural context. I then summarize the current funding landscape to describe the austerity in which SFB currently operates.

B. Emergency Food Infrastructure

The emergency food infrastructure can be organized by scale: national, regional, and community. Food is distributed through a hub-and-spoke model (Figure 1), centralized among national and regional agencies before being distributed to food pantries where the food is disseminated to beneficiaries. The national organizations –Feeding America, wholesalers and distributors, and the USDA – supply the three networks through which food banks source the majority of their food, approximately 80% in the case of SFB. The remaining 20% comes from food drives or individual donations sent directly to the food bank or associated pantries. Food banks, which operate within regional non-overlapping markets defined by geopolitical boundaries provide food to all pantries within their market, averaging in the hundreds. Pantries, which are responsible for disseminating the food to beneficiaries at the community level, procure food from the food bank either for free or at a low cost; ten cents per pound is typical.

Figure 1:

Emergency Food Infrastructure

Feeding America, the national organization that orchestrates the cartel-like network, is a nonprofit with which nearly all food banks are affiliated.² Feeding America does not directly distribute food, but manages the distribution of national private donations to member food banks. National corporations such as Kellogg’s or Walmart donate food and funds to Feeding America. While the food never actually travels to Feeding America, the nonprofit essentially owns the relationship with the national donor, so that food banks must go through Feeding America to access donations from these corporations. These relationships are protected by a service contract instituted by Feeding America among all member food banks. Food banks receive the food for free but must pay shipping and freight costs. Funding makes up a smaller but increasingly important part of Feeding America’s operation. Feeding America collects monetary donations and then redistributes that money to food banks through a series of grants that support donor-oriented initiatives. I describe the network as cartel-like in organization because Feeding America prescribes to each food bank a protected market. This strategy, along with the service contracts, keeps operating costs low by mediating competition and distribution efficient, but prioritizes Feeding America, the head organization, and the network over individual food banks.

External to the Feeding America network, food banks frequently work with one another to share food and purchase food from wholesalers and national produce distributors. Produce is often donated and food banks pay only associated shipping and freight costs. Because of the fragility of produce, as compared to shelf-stable items, the food must be disseminated quickly, contributing to an increasingly complex and costly distribution system.

The USDA, around which the bureaucratic network has formed, operates federal nutrition programs, the largest of which is The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), commonly referred to as USDA food. As I will describe in the results section, TEFAP functions primarily as a price protection mechanism, managing oversupply in the agricultural market to protect farmers. The USDA also manages other nutrition programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly Food Stamps) and the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), which indirectly influence demand for emergency food.

B. State of Emergency Food

The landscape of emergency food has shifted over the past decade, with a dramatic increase in demand and equally dramatic decline in resources. My case selection contributes to these trends. SFB reports a 91% increase in clients from 2007 to 2014 (Figure 2), but is struggling with historically low levels of food donations.

Figure 2:

Number of Beneficiaries Served per Month, 2007–2014

Between 2006 and 2015, SFB’s total pounds of donated food declined by 25% (Figure 3). The majority of this decline was driven by drops in food sourced from Feeding America as well as that donated by local retailers (Figure 3). The decline in food donations can largely be attributed to improved market research and supply-demand technologies, according to SFB’s CEO. SFB’s number of food donors has also declined, by 39% between 2000 and 2013. The decline in food donations for SFB reflects trends at the national level. In 2013, the CEO of Feeding America cited the narrowing of donated food streams and the consequential impairment of food banks across the country in a statement of the record submitted to the Charitable/Exempt Organizations Tax Reform Working Group. Meanwhile, sharing between food banks has also declined and donations from food drives have increased only marginally. USDA food, too, has failed to respond to rising need and has remained steady over the past decade with only a brief spike in donations reflecting temporary increases in ARRA funds (Figure 4).

Figure 3:

Pounds of Distributed Donated Food by Source

Figure 4:

Pounds of Distributed Food by Source

The one significant increase in donated foods is from a newly identified source – produce wholesalers, mostly out of Canada. Although this is a positive development for SFB, it comes with additional costs as well. As with Feeding America donations, the wholesaler donates the food but SFB must pay for shipping expenses, so the food still costs SFB more than regional donations and SFB can only access produce from this source. As the CEO mentioned, “You can’t just hand people a bag of carrots.” SFB has stepped in to ensure the distribution of other vital foods by purchasing canned and other shelf-stable foods. Reflective of their losses in donated food, pounds of purchased food have increased by 230% from 2006 to 2015 (Figure 4). Network constraints, however, restrict the organization’s ability to solicit more donations to purchase incrementally more food so SFB has reached its capacity in purchased foods. If donations drop further or demand rises higher, it is unlikely that SFB will be able to make up the difference by purchasing more food.

A third and related trend complicates SFB’s struggle to reconcile supply and demand: increasingly stringent monetary donor requirements. According to SFB staff, donors’ expectations are on the rise, particularly regarding organizational efficiency. Per the CFO:

Donors want to know that you’re efficient… and right now charities are getting really scrutinized. You have GuideStar and Charity Navigator and they’re rating charities… they’re looking at various aspects and they’re comparing you against other similar organizations or that’s where they’re trying to go. So we have to make sure that we’re always meeting those standards.

Donors are also increasingly concerned with the types of food being distributed. Donors want to sponsor programs that supply nutritious foods, often to specific populations such as children or the elderly. These demands further contribute to SFB’s increasingly challenging position.

A. NAVIGATING NETWORKS

SFB procures food through three networks: the Feeding America cartel-like network, the inter-food bank peer-to-peer network, and the USDA bureaucratic network. In this section, I outline the structure, rules, and dynamics of each network. In doing so, I present a typology of nonprofit networks. I then detail how network participation shapes, directs, and constrains SFB’s ability to respond to resource scarcity. Following, I summarize the tensions between networks to illustrate SFB’s entanglement and consequential predicament: an inability to locate incremental resources through adaptive strategies while being increasingly high standards of service.

B. The Feeding America Network: Cartel-like

The Feeding America network is structured as a cartel, with one lead organization and 200 member food banks (Figure 5). Cartels are highly effective and efficient at disseminating goods. Feeding America ensures this efficiency by mandating all network activity through a centralized, hierarchical, and brokered network structure. Each of the 200 member food banks distributes food to and sources donations from non-overlapping service areas delineated by Feeding America. These non-overlapping service areas function as protected markets and mediate competition, key characteristics of a cartel (Franko 1974). Importantly, cartels prioritize central lead actors and the network in its entirety over participant organizations. Network actions, therefore, protect Feeding America over individual food banks. Further, Feeding America imposes costly administrative standards on participant food banks that serve to support Feeding America’s funder requirements. Here, I describe the mechanisms – service areas and service contracts – through which Feeding America governs this network and how they impose considerable restriction on food banks, including SFB.

Figure 5:

Feeding America Network

Feeding America prescribes to each individual food bank a non-overlapping service area. Food banks then supply food pantries in this area. While these areas limit the food bank’s distribution requirements, the geographic restrictions also limit the food bank’s potential donors. Per Feeding America contracts, food banks can only seek donations from local businesses and individuals within their service areas. National corporations and individuals and regional businesses outside of a bank’s delineated service area are off limits. The service areas, therefore, constrict each food bank’s ability to source incremental amounts of food or funds once its market has been saturated.

Importantly for the overall network, the service areas also mediate potential competition between food banks. Because food banks are restricted to their own protected markets, there is no need nor are they contractually permitted to compete, a function that benefits some while compromising others. Subjective donor-food bank relationships, therefore, are neutralized and donors are directed to the geographically appropriate food bank. Without delineated markets, there would likely be substantial competition between food banks, as the COO reveals when discussing underlying tension with a neighboring food bank:

If you want [the food], come and get it; if you don’t want it, we’ll take it. If there were no service areas, I would say, ‘You know what, I realize that it’s in your territory, but it’s here, we’re just going to take it.’ And I would feel like I had the moral high ground.

By mediating competition between organizations, the network as a whole benefits because food banks do not use resources to compete for donors. It also supports the relative stability of the network by ensuring that each food bank has access to donors. However, the restricted geographies contribute to organizational immobility and a loss of strategic agency in the face of resource scarcity by eliminating one possible response.

A second feature of the Feeding America network is the service contract. The service contract contains several requirements for member food banks. Food banks that do not comply are in breach of contract and can be suspended from the network. One particularly significant requirement is the minimum distribution of food per county. Using a formula based on county population size and poverty rate, Feeding America determines how many pounds of food each food bank must distribute to each county within its service area. Any amount under this prescription is considered a gap and the food bank is in breach of contract. However, this requirement defies the way that beneficiaries access food and can, therefore, be costly for the food banks. For example, beneficiaries visit food pantries outside of their counties of residence because they use public transportation to get to pantries and bus routes do not necessarily follow county lines, explained the COO: “The buses in [the State] run up and down, they don’t run across. So people that live in County A, they’re more likely to be served in County B because it’s easier … to get on a bus and go to County B than it is … to go across County A.” The service contract is not adequately nuanced to accommodate these details, the COO continues: “For me to meet the County A requirement, I have to just send food. It’s almost like force feeding that county because I don’t think it’s underserved.” With resources on the decline, this is a costly imposition. It is important to point out that Feeding America does not necessarily provide the food that will be distributed to these counties, but only mandates that food is distributed. Food banks, if they do not receive the food from Feeding America, must find it elsewhere. Feeding America is able to report county-wide coverage as a measure of success to their donors, but without the expense of actually securing and distributing the food.

The service contract also enforces a number of costly administrative requirements. For example, Feeding America has recently mandated that food banks be American Institute of Baking (AIB) certified. AIB is the international authority on food safety in warehousing. According to SFB executives, Feeding America introduced this requirement in response to food donors’ increasing concern over food safety. AIB standards, though, are very high and costly to implement and many food banks are struggling to meet them. While SFB recently achieved the certification, it is only because of increases in the professionalization of the staff over the past decade. Obtaining this certification is time-intensive and expensive and must be done every two years, taking resources away from the central mission of food banking.

Benchmarks imposed by Feeding America, however, often do not originate with Feeding America. As with the AIB requirement, benchmarks and performance metrics are passed from Feeding America’s donors to the food banks through Feeding America. Again, because Feeding America does not directly distribute food to beneficiaries but manages the distribution of food through food banks, the organization’s success is reliant upon the cooperation of the food banks. The inheritance of funder influence is explained by the COO:

All the funders want to focus on health, kids, nutrition, sometimes seniors… it’s not just Feeding America’s choice. Feeding America works with national Walmart, national Target, all of these corporations and they’re looking for something a little more concrete than just general food distribution. They’re looking for, ‘Did you teach kids how to eat better’… You can do social media around a kids program, a senior program, or something like that. You can leverage that kind of stuff, whereas a truckload of food you can’t really leverage.

Funders want their donations to be leverage-able. Feeding America, therefore, requires or encourages member food banks to participate in programs or adopt practices that promote funder desires. Food banks receive grants when they demonstrate a commitment to “health, kids, nutrition, sometimes seniors,” because this is what Feeding America donors want. This is not necessarily where the need lies, though. Targeted programs often do not provide for as many people as general food distribution might. Donors, however, want their donations to have legs. This finding is not especially new. Past research has documented how funding sources and stakeholders shape nonprofit practices and reporting (Eliasoph 2011; MacIndoe and Barman 2012; Pfeffer and Salancik 1978). What is new here is that all member organizations are subject to the lead organization’s funder requirements. The funder’s influence spans two generations of nonprofits, leaping from funder to lead organization to member organization, imposing incremental costs on food banks.

In exchange for contract compliance, member organizations receive food and grants from Feeding America. And although these resources are diminishing, they continue to be important donation streams for the food banks, so that leaving the network would risk placing the food bank at an even greater disadvantage in meeting demand. The COO provides a scenario:

So here is where it gets tricky. CVS calls us directly, but CVS is a national donor. Feeding America includes those pounds in their count. This is the question – if we were not a part of Feeding America would Feeding America instruct CVS to channel that [food] somewhere else? So if we pulled out of Feeding America, we would be looking at the possibility of losing 1.2 million pounds if their relationship with Feeding America is that their donations go only to Feeding America.

Because of the conflicting trends in supply and demand, food banks are unlikely to put significant donation streams at risk. Through their relationship with Feeding America, food banks have greater and more secure access to the remaining available donation streams. It is a catch-22, though, because as national donations decrease food banks become increasingly protective over existing donation streams, but protecting these streams comes at a cost to alternative sources of food and funds.

In sum, the same features that ensure the success and efficient operation of the Feeding America network become demands that constrain individual organizations’ abilities to respond to the resource-scarce environment. Service areas restrict food banks from seeking incremental donors outside of their service area and minimize competition between organizations. Service contracts impose costly and often inefficient requirements upon food banks, but network membership is imperative to organizational survival. Together, these limitations constrain how SFB is able to strategically respond to a challenging environment.

B. The Inter-Food Bank Network: Peer-to-Peer

SFB belongs to a network of food banks that also operates outside of and independently to the Feeding America network (Figure 6). I classify this network as a peer-to-peer network because of the decentralized and horizontal structure. There is no apparent hierarchy and organizations act collectively and collaboratively, both giving and receiving benefits. Membership is fluid and informal.

Figure 6:

Inter-Food Bank Network

This peer-to-peer network emerged largely as a result of the restrictions and waning relevance of the Feeding America network. Because the amount of food SFB has been able to source from Feeding America has declined so significantly in recent years, SFB has had to find alternative sources that do not conflict with its Feeding America service contract. One of the few options remaining is to purchase food from wholesalers. To purchase this food, SFB partners with other food banks to take advantage of economy of scales, per the CEO:

Say you’re getting cereal. The price of the box of cereal will go down and down and down the more you purchase. Say it’s something that we don’t need the whole truckload. We will split it with another food bank locally. And that way we get the really good price and we only get the amount that we actually need.

Upon collaborating, SFB or another food bank will engage in a series of bidding and negotiating with various wholesalers in an effort to bring down the price farther. When food banks collaborate and purchase incremental amounts of food, the organizations increase their power relative to the wholesalers and therefore gain increased negotiating power. Because SFB must purchase a growing portion of its total distribution, working with other food banks better positions SFB to haggle with wholesalers and has become a central strategy for procuring food.

Food banks also partner with one another by sharing food. This happens when a food bank has more food than it is able to distribute to its own network. Because the availability of food is increasingly desperate, food banks no longer share as much food. Per the COO, food banks can no longer afford to share as much. The hesitancy to share is reflected in the numbers. The pounds of food that SFB received from other food banks declined from nearly 600,000 pounds of food in 2006 to just over 145,000 in 2014. The drop, however, is not only fueled by the declining availability of foods, but also by SFB’s increasing resistance to accept food from other banks. The shared food is often not the “good stuff” or healthy core foods, according to the COO, but is more likely to be items like snacks and beverages, classified as non-core food by SFB, meaning it is not considered healthy. Refusing non-core food signals the rising focus on metrics and accountability, which are important to funders. As quoted earlier from the COO: “Funders want to focus on health… nutrition.” Funders also want to be assured that the organization is operating efficiently, according to the CFO. Accepting non-core food would not move important metrics on the distribution of healthy foods and would increase distribution costs for the organization, thus detracting from the potential efficiency of the organization. So in addition to food banks not having enough food to share and resisting sharing the food they do have, SFB is turning down food offered from other food banks if the food does not meet its criteria of healthy. These findings support existing literature on nonprofit survival that documents the shift from success being measured as process to success being measured as outcome metric (Alexander, Brudney and Yang 2010). This shift has been largely fueled by the insertion of private and external demands into nonprofit operations (Barman 2007).

Unfortunately, non-core food includes some of the very items most coveted by beneficiaries according to one pantry manager: “I tend to make sure that there are snacks. You’ll get a pack of Oreos, you’ll get a family pack of chicken, macaroni and cheese, juice, cereal. I try to get the good stuff and word of mouth will spread across the city.” The items viewed by the pantry manager and beneficiaries as the “good stuff” are some of the exact items categorized as non-core and thus unwanted by SFB staff.

Membership within a peer-to-peer network imposes fewer constraints than a cartel network, but still shapes the organization’s response to resource scarcity. My results first suggest that a peer-to-peer network inspires collaborative strategies, such as partnering and sharing. Second, food banks rely on one another to develop strategies for procuring food that work within the confines of Feeding America network membership. Third, there are limits to these relationships and food banks prioritize their own sustainability over the survival of other network organizations, as suggested by the conditional sharing of food. The final finding supports existing work suggesting that organizations are less likely to collaborate when financially vulnerable because of the costs associated with collaborative ties (MacIndoe and Sullivan 2014). Here we begin to see the web of tensions forming. Food banks, already restricted by their Feeding America memberships and funder demands, must seek alternative ways of obtaining enough food to feed beneficiaries while ensuring the survival of the organization.

B. The USDA Network: Bureaucratic

Weber (1922) described rational legal authority as that which stems from an impersonal and legal legitimacy based on rational grounds. The third network (Figure 7) in which SFB operates, bureaucratic and rational, embodies these characteristics. It is governed by rules that derive authority from legal legitimacy and that exist outside of those who administer them. Made up of the USDA, politicians, and SFB, the bureaucratic network operates through the implementation of technical rules and can only be influenced through legal legitimate pathways.

Figure 7:

USDA Network

Unlike the Feeding America network or the food bank network, SFB does not interact with the USDA directly and, therefore, cannot directly influence resource procurement from the USDA. Rather, SFB must seek to influence the rules that govern the entire network. SFB does this by going through politicians to change laws and policies. This strategy is explained by the COO when discussing the example of the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), a nutrition program for seniors:

The [senator] was the key person who made sure that funding was there for this program. Knowing us and knowing the impact of [CSFP] was critical to [the senator] continuing to fight for it. The program was authorized in 2010, but not funded, so [the senator] fought from then until now to make sure it actually got funded and now we have it.

The USDA administers CSFP, along with other federal nutrition programs such as TEFAP and SNAP. However, the USDA does not directly control the programs. Rather, the rules are external to the agency, prescribed by the Farm Bill. These programs, however, significantly impact SFB. What federal nutrition programs do not provide to individuals in need, SFB has to make up and cover the difference. The only way SFB is able to increase or maintain support from the USDA is through formal legal pathways navigated by politicians on behalf of SFB.

Food banks influence these pathways through advocacy work targeting politicians. Often, this work requires gaming strategies, including the particular presentation of particular metrics. In other words, seemingly objective numbers can be subjectively interpreted and presented to achieve a specific goal (Espeland and Sauder 2007; Porter 1995). When asked why a specific metric was used, the COO offered the following:

[The metrics] are targeting different people. I mean they are targeting funders, obviously, as one of the biggest users of those. But they’re also targeting your legislators, politicians, folks who are able to impact policy, so sometimes for them, they need the bigger number. For them, it’s like, ‘Give me the big number so that I can put up a chart. People aren’t going to think that much about it, but I can show them this.’

The number referred to here is the number of people served by SFB. However, the actual metric seems to matter less than the dramatic appeal the metric will have. Use of numbers in this way reflects the authoritative and persuasive nature of numbers (Espeland and Stevens 2008). Politicians are interested in influencing peoples’ beliefs and attitudes so that they will vote in favor of, or against, allotting more money to federal hunger programs. For this, they need to game the numbers. That is, display big numbers that can generate an equally big response. Because bureaucratic decisions, including the funding of social services, increasingly rely upon quantifiable measures, the way those numbers are produced and displayed is paramount for the success of an organization (Espeland and Sauder 2007).

Bureaucratic barriers are not the only reason SFB is unable to directly influence resource procurement through the USDA. SFB is also restricted by the very purpose of the USDA network. TEFAP, the program that provides food banks with the majority of their food through this network, is a market mediating mechanism. It is not a hunger solution. Rational to its core, the USDA network does not exist to serve the needs of food banks and their beneficiaries, but to support the agricultural industry. For example, in years of drought, farmers may slaughter chickens early because of the increased price of feed. This gluts the market. Rather than allowing the price of chicken to go down, the USDA steps in to support farmers by purchasing the oversupply of chickens. The chickens are then sent to food banks. SFB, therefore, has little leverage with which to seek more resources. Rather, the organization is at the whim of politicians, bureaucrats, and Mother Nature.

Simultaneously, however, SFB is increasingly reliant on the USDA network because other sources of donated food have declined so dramatically, as documented earlier in this article. Not only TEFAP but all federal food programs are pertinent to SFB’s survival, as expressed by the COO:

We’re close to our capacity in terms of funding and what we can provide. So unless we had a lot more money … which probably won’t happen, we’re sort of stuck. So it’s important to us that none of the other support systems fail because if they do they’re going to put enormous strain on our food network. If the WIC program rolled up and ended, if the SNAP program gets cut in half, or if unemployment changes, any one of those impacts we feel in a huge way because we don’t have any way to absorb those losses in funding.

While SFB may not be successful in increasing the resources procured through the USDA network, as indicated in Figure 3, the organization must continue to engage in advocacy work to at least maintain the current level of funding.

The inherently political nature of bureaucratic networks presents limitations to how an organization can respond to resource scarcity. In the current case study, SFB influences the USDA indirectly through the help of politicians. These politicians strategically present numbers, a gaming strategy of sorts, that will garner the greatest public support. Organizations may be limited in their actions because the network itself is rule-bound. Organizations must change these rules first to receive incremental amounts of food. Further, the bureaucratic network may or may not be constructed to serve the goals of the organization. It is highly likely that bureaucratic networks have alternative and potentially political goals that may detract from network support for member organizations. The USDA needs food banks as a source of distribution to maintain agricultural markets; hunger relief, though, is not the primary purpose of the network.

Notably, the advocacy work identified here focuses on increasing funding for USDA nutrition programs rather than on addressing the root causes of need for emergency food. Food banks have recently been criticized for this arguably superficial approach (Lindenbaum 2015). However, given the severity of resource deprivation, the focus on budget over root cause may be understandable.

A. WITHIN THE WEB OF TENSIONS

“If [Feeding America] had enough food to meet the need for all food banks, clearly that would make life easier. And I think that was the original idea. Then the world changed. There’s not enough food through donated streams,” per the SFB CEO. As the funding landscape has constricted, organizations must adapt. How organizations are able to and do adapt, however, is shaped and constrained by network embeddedness, as I have shown. Below, I summarize the web of tensions in which SFB currently operates (Table 1) before examining how SFB is operating within it.

Table 1.

Network Restrictions and Disincentives

Feeding America	Service areas restrict donor solicitation
	Contracts require potentially unrealistic or unnecessary food distribution
	Costly administrative requirements for membership
	Funding restricted to donor-oriented programs
Inter Food Bank	Collaboration discourages competition for resources outside of Feeding    America
	Shared food is generally non-core, which negatively contributes to donor-    oriented performance metrics
USDA	Time-intensive legal pathways with little return
	Bureaucratic structure unresponsive to changes in need
Donors	Importance of operational efficiency discourages SFB from accepting non-    core foods and contradicts Feeding America service requirements
	Emphasis on health programs discourages acceptance of non-core foods

In the present case, the Feeding America network presents SFB with the most as well as the most significant restrictions. Service areas mean that SFB cannot seek donors from outside of its delineated region. SFB is unlikely to procure significantly more food within its market or raise much more money from donors in its service area to purchase incrementally more food. Service contracts, however, mean that SFB must continue to distribute a minimum amount of food. To get food and funds from Feeding America, SFB must adhere to costly administrative requirements. These requirements stem not only from Feeding America, but also from Feeding America’s funders, making SFB accountable to multiple agencies. These costs detract from the organization’s central mission.

SFB is further limited by its relationship with other food banks. SFB relies upon collaboration with other food banks to purchase food at a low cost, while competing too aggressively with other food banks for the few unrestricted resources might harm these relationships. Further, SFB turns down non-core food from both Feeding America and peer food banks, food which is perceived as unhealthy by the organization and funders, to support important performance metrics. Lastly, although the USDA network does not impose notable restrictions, SFB is limited to formal legal pathways through politicians to communicate with the USDA, a strategy that is time intensive and marginal in returns. Donor demands compound these complexities. As donors increasingly require evidence of organizational efficiency and publicly leverage-able programs, food banks are forced to decide between pounds of food and performance metrics. The combination of these constraints results in network entrapment.

Nearly out of options, SFB has both turned inward and sought to redirect rising need. First, SFB has implemented a number of cost-saving practices as a result of network tensions. To illustrate, I highlight two recently adopted tactics intended to improve internal efficiencies: the externalization of costs to volunteers and the concentration of resources. Second, SFB has stepped up efforts to redirect beneficiaries toward federal nutrition programs, namely SNAP, to ameliorate growing need for emergency food.

B. Cost-Saving Practices

C. Externalizing costs.

SFB has recently implemented a program that displaces food procurement costs onto volunteers by initiating relationships between local retail donors and nearby pantries. After being introduced via SFB, retailers and pantry volunteers then work together, without the aid of SFB, so that volunteers pick up donated food from the retailers on an ongoing basis, typically weekly. Prior to this program, SFB sent trucks to pick up all grocery donations. The donations would be taken to the SFB warehouse and placed on the online ordering system to which all pantries have access. However, the SFB CEO told me that these trips were perceived as inefficient because there was often not enough food to necessitate an entire truck. To cut costs, SFB removed itself as the middleman and connected pantries directly to the retailers. These relationships are beneficial to multiple parties, as stated by the CEO: “It helps us so that we don’t have to send a truck out for a couple of cases of meat. But it helps the agency since it goes directly to them.” Pantries with retailer relationships have access to incremental amounts and selections of food, the majority of which is meat, that would not otherwise be available to them. However, it also exacts a price on the volunteers using personal time, vehicles, and money to get the food. In addition, not all pantries have the resources – plenty of volunteers, volunteers with cars, storage capacity – to participate in the program. In fact, only three of the ten pantries I visited had relationships with retailers; the managers of the other seven pantries were not aware that such an opportunity existed.

This tactic additionally has consequences for the equitable distribution of food. Only well-resourced pantries are matched to retailers. This is because SFB believes that only pantries with high amounts of human and financial capital can maintain retailer relationships. Per the Agency Services Director, pantries must have access to enough volunteers and vehicles to consistently pick up donated food. As volunteers often come sporadically and in waves, consistency is key because retailers rely on the pickup. The majority of SFB member pantries, though, do not have organizationally owned vehicles and rely on the resources of their volunteers (Feeding America 2014). This means that only the beneficiaries of pantries with well-resourced volunteers who can help on a consistent basis will have access to the incremental amount and selection of food that comes from the pantry-retailer program. Significantly, the food from retailers is most often meat and is highly coveted by beneficiaries. From my fieldnotes:

At least three of the five clients that came in asked about meat and one called asking about meat. Carla said that the person calling wasn’t going to come in because there was no meat. She said people sometimes do that.

Geographic restrictions and the spatiality of volunteerism reinforce unequal access to this food. Catchment areas, enforced by most pantries, restrict pantry use to those who live in the pantry service area. Volunteers are likely to come from the same area. Proximity to the charity location influences whether or not one volunteers (Mohan, Twigg, Jones and Barnard 2011). Further, those of higher socioeconomic status are more likely to volunteer (Mohan et al. 2011). Beneficiaries living in or near neighborhoods with wealthier residents who have the human and financial capital to sustain retailer relationships are more likely then to have access to more and better foods, including the meats and cheeses and even ice cream that comes from the pantry-retailer program but that is rarely, if ever, available directly through SFB. More importantly, beneficiaries who do not live in such neighborhoods will not have access to the coveted foods.

C. Concentrating resources.

A second way that SFB has increased internal efficiency is through the concentration of resources. As demand has increased and supplies have declined, SFB has had to be increasingly strategic about where and how they distribute food and funds. In the past couple of years, the organization has begun to channel more resources to urban food pantries in highly populated areas that serve the most people. According to the Agency Services Director, “A couple years before, it was like everybody – whether you were a smaller food distribution program up to a large one – everybody got support. This year we concentrated on the largest.” This decision is motivated by finances, per the COO: “While all of the agencies are important on one level, if it comes down to, ‘I can only afford to deliver to so many agencies,’ well, it’s going to be to the bigger ones.” With a growing gap between supply and demand, SFB staff are making difficult decisions about how to allocate resources. Struggling, the organization has decided to centralize their distribution and channel food to the largest pantries, meaning those that serve the most people. This does not necessarily mean that other pantries no longer receive food. SFB is still held to the Feeding America service contract to distribute food to all counties. Rather, some food pantries receive preferential treatment and support, including more and better food as well as supplies such as freezers. Favored pantries are selected based on how many people the pantries serve.

This tactic is beneficial in some ways to SFB, its member pantries, and arguably, beneficiaries. However, the concentration of resources is also based on a subjective and unreliable way of discerning need – counting clients. Counting clients is a complicated way of measuring need because food pantries decide how often they are willing to serve people and what restrictions they impose, such as income or whether they will serve the homeless (many do not), as well as their catchment area. Some pantries do not enforce residential catchment areas, many use zip codes, and others draw arbitrary boundaries. There is also considerable variation in how pantry managers count clients, whether the monthly count is duplicated or unduplicated, with many mangers unaware of the correct method. The point is: Pantries without catchment areas or with larger catchment areas, pantries willing to serve more people more frequently, and pantries incorrectly counting clients may be considered “larger” because of their higher client count. However, this count does not necessarily reflect greater need. Concentrating resources within densely populated urban communities potentially leaves suburban and rural residents at a loss. This is especially troubling as suburbs are more likely to be service-deprived (Allard 2009; Murphy and Wallace 2010), even though suburban poverty and hunger has risen dramatically in the past decade (Holliday and Dwyer 2009; Elliot and Inglis 2014).

The implementation of internal efficiencies is additionally motivated by rising funder accountability standards. The more clients served, the bigger the number to demonstrate need and the more efficient the organization appears. As discussed throughout, SFB is increasingly vulnerable to donor demands, among which the most important are demonstrations of efficiency and leanness. Internal efficiencies, therefore, serve the dual purpose of saving money while improving performance metrics.

B. Redirecting Need

In addition to internal efficiencies, SFB has recently begun redirecting need to the federal government. By enrolling beneficiaries in SNAP and other government programs, such as housing assistance, job-training programs, and healthcare, SFB is attempting to reduce beneficiary burden while continuing to support those in need. Since 2008, SFB has aggressively pursued its SNAP outreach program. As explained by the Agency Services Director, receiving benefits could provide incremental relief to both SFB and the beneficiary:

If one person gets SNAP, that might be one less visit to the food pantry… But with SNAP you also get other benefits… So even though it’s just $16, it’s not just about that dollar value. It’s about other services that you’re now eligible for which will hopefully cut the costs in that household to free up money for some other things, like food or prescriptions.

To spread awareness of public benefits and bring down internal costs of the outreach program, SFB solicits help from pantry employees and volunteers in educating people about and registering people for SNAP.

Unlike the implementation of internal efficiencies, SFB’s attempt to promote federal nutrition programs is highly beneficial to those reliant on emergency food. By helping beneficiaries exercise their social rights, SFB acts as public advocate while lessening its own mounting burden. The CEO summarized the repositioning of the organization in response to drops in surplus food: “Food pantries can provide critical help to people but less and less it’s about the food and more it’s about connecting people with other resources.” Although a significant investment that includes two full-time staff members, SFB’s outreach programs present one of the few strategic options available within the narrow restrictions associated with the organization’s multi-network membership. Outreach programs also serve as one of the few remaining ways SFB can continue to support those most in need.

A. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

This article illustrates how network membership influences nonprofit strategic response to resource scarcity. More specifically, it examines how multi-network embeddedness and network demands constrain nonprofit behavior when considered in sum. Building upon a significant foundation of literature that outlines nonprofit adaptation to challenging external conditions (V. Alexander 1998; J. Alexander 2000; Barman 2002; Evans, Richmond and Shield 2005; Froelich 1999; Frumkin and Kim 2001; MacIndoe and Sullivan 2014; McMurty, Netting and Kettner 1991; Walker and McCarthy 2010), I draw on insights from economic and organizational sociological theories to explain why nonprofits adopt or eschew particular responses. In this analysis, I introduce the three networks through which food banks procure food: a cartel-like network, a peer-to-peer network, and a bureaucratic network. Each of the networks, differently structured and characteristically unique, imposes various constraints which together shape the organizational adaptation of the nonprofit.

My results suggest that multi-network embeddedness leads to network entrapment when competing network demands restrict an organization’s adaptability to external challenges. In the struggle to survive, organizations may embrace tactics less beneficial for beneficiaries, for example, by redirecting and concentrating resources or externalizing costs onto volunteers. The findings here support prior observations. The prioritization of internal efficiencies is both a reflection of SFB’s entrapment as well as nonprofits’ increasing orientation to the market (Clemens and Guthrie 2010). As nonprofits are scrutinized by and held accountable to public and private funders, they are also driven away from value-oriented strategies and social goals towards efficiency-centric operations that may or may not best serve their beneficiaries (Frumkin and Andre-Clark 2000; Hasenfeld and Garrow 2012). On the other hand, SFB’s difficult position has also inspired creative and courageous responses to current external challenges, for example, advocating for beneficiaries’ rights to access public benefits, a use of resources that belies encroaching neoliberal standards.

Network entrapment is likely a common occurrence among a range of nonprofit organizations. Particularly vulnerable because of their reliance on external funds (Froelich 1999), nonprofits must be forever and at all times cautious of their image, their actions, and their message, careful not to offend or otherwise put off any donors. This vulnerability also means that nonprofits are likely to seek out multiple sources of capital through different networks; indeed, nonprofits that belong to multiple networks may be more stable than those reliant on only one (Froelich 1999). However, this places nonprofits in a complicated position of catering to multiple network demands simultaneously. Here, multivocality may not be a strength but a hazard.

The food bank’s predicament described in this article – high and rising demand, few and declining resources, and increasingly stringent competing institutional demands – likely applies to other types of nonprofit organizations. More explicit focus on network entrapment in other organizational settings may therefore shed light on the operational barriers faced by nonprofits in contemporary society and consequently the role that nonprofits can and cannot play. For instance, social service providers that accept Medicaid payments and are funded by federal, state, and local grants, as well as private philanthropy or even private investment, such as halfway houses, present promising field sites. It would be worthwhile to more clearly outline how organizations like halfway houses simultaneously manage governmental requirements and corporate networks, among other potentially conflicting network combinations. Membership in a myriad of networks is likely to entangle social service providers within a web of competing demands, which, as I have demonstrated, has consequences for both organizations and beneficiaries, particularly under the context of resource scarcity. In the case of halfway houses or similarly significant service providers, such consequences may extend to a beneficiary’s personal safety and even future life course trajectory. Thus, multi-network embeddedness and subsequent network entrapment presents an opportunity to study the role of organizations and institutions in the production and reproduction of social inequality.

Secondly, it is possible that particular types of networks require particular adaptation strategies. For example, cartel-like networks may necessitate greater organizational acquiescence while bureaucratic networks respond more adequately to advocacy work. While uncovering the potential patterning of network strategies is beyond the scope of the current study, future studies could catalogue the multitude of responses to resource scarcity according to a typology of nonprofit networks.

Finally, we may also consider network entrapment in different contexts, for example different historical periods. Whereas some nonprofits once relied largely on local charitable contributions, contemporary nonprofits operate in a more complex environment defined by multiple and shifting funding sources (Smith and Lipsky 1993). Examining the conditions under which nonprofits join incremental networks or relinquish network membership may yield additional insight into how organizations become entangled within overlapping and competing network requirements. Existing research suggests that the contemporary state of the field has implications for how a nonprofit adapts to resource scarcity (Barman 2002). It is likely to also matter in how nonprofits manage their network memberships.

As nonprofits struggle under the conflicting trends of rising beneficiary demand and declining resources, efforts should be made to identify excessive and unnecessary organizational constraints. Already nonprofits are burdened with the weight of the State and the needs of its people. Superfluous network demands may prevent nonprofits from meeting these needs, inhibiting the wellbeing of the American population.