Corporatizing Nonprofits: Emergency Food Organizations Under the Neoliberal Welfare State

• In Event: 256 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 10. Non-Profit Rationalization

Abstract

Emergency food providers struggle to serve a growing number of clients with diminishing resources. Under the neoliberal welfare state, the emergency food network, like other nonprofit service providers, has had to adapt to the increasingly austere fiscal environment despite escalating need. Funding mechanisms and network processes, however, complicate the network’s ability to balance supply and demand. The emergency food network has responded by turning inward, establishing a neoliberal monopoly and adopting a number of corporate strategies. The strategies employed permit the network to maximize efficiencies while mitigating competition and maintaining vital outcome measurements. This response differs from existing accounts of nonprofit adaptation to resource scarcity, which emphasize intensified competition between service providers. Drawing on an ethnographic study of emergency food providers complemented by an analysis of archival materials, I present an alternative perspective to how nonprofit service providers are adapting to the neoliberal welfare state.

Author

• Jennifer Woltil Bouek, Brown University