Examining performance variables of non-governmental organizations

Over the past twenty years, there has been a significant increase of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) participating in development activities. However, there does not exist in the literature clear and agreed upon measures of performance of successful or high performing NGOs. This dissertation examines three organizational factors affecting NGO performance: characteristics, strategies, and functions. It employs a Delphi Method and a mail survey of 399 U.S.-based NGOs registered with the United States Agency for International Development as of October 1, 1996. Organizational variables, such as decision-making, organizational structure, span of control and hierarchy, communications, types of interactions, program areas, intervening strategies, and diversified funding are identified and rated as highly relevant to NGO performance by the executive officials of the responding NGOs. The study finds that: (1) specific variables related to the organizational characteristics of NGOs were perceived as more important to high performance than the variables related to the strategies and functions of NGOs; (2) responding NGO executives show a positive orientation (perhaps bias) towards both self-assessment of the level of performance of their NGOs and assessment of the importance of organizational variables identified by the Delphi group and the literature; (3) most executives considered their organizations as high performers, but the relationship between positive self-assessment of performance by NGO executives and the variables that define characteristics, strategies, and functions was found not to be statistically significant; (4) there is not a typical organizational pattern by which NGOs can be described because of their diverse and collaborative operational arrangements. This study provides to the field of public administration, organizational studies, public policy, and development administration a better understanding of organizational variables considered important to NGOs' performance from the viewpoint of NGO executives. It employs a methodology not typically associated with public administration research, and its findings take us one step further in the direction of explaining key organizational factors influencing high performance of NGOs and the variables that define these factors.