Exploring the Dimensions of Nonprofit Competition through its Supplementary, Complementary, and Adversarial Relationships with Government

Abstract

Nonprofits contribute to communities and society through service delivery, innovation, knowledge-building, and civic engagement. They frequently partner with and push government to better serve its citizens through relationships that have been characterized as supplementary, complementary, and adversarial (Young 2006). In all of these roles and relationships, nonprofits must compete for resources, time, and attention with other nonprofits, government entities, and for-profit organizations within communities, nationally, and internationally. Competition sometimes shapes and sometimes is shaped by public policies that affect the rules of the game. In this conceptual paper, we explore the dimensions of nonprofit competition and the implications for the nonprofit-government supplementary, complementary, and adversarial relationships.