Beyond Cans and Capacity: Nonprofit Roles and Service Network Objectives in an Emergency Food Network

Many essential public services are provided through networks of community-based nonprofit organizations. Previous research has demonstrated that simply providing additional resources to these organizations is insufficient to better address demands for public services. We also know little about how and why these organizations adopt network-level objectives related to service provision. In this analysis, we expand the focus of service provision beyond capacity to incorporate the unique roles that define the very existence of nonprofit organizations, and how these roles affect organizational behavior with respect to service network objectives. We use focus group, survey, and administrative data from one hundred community-based nonprofit organizations in an emergency food service network to explore the relationships among capacity, roles, and specific program objectives.