With limited resources and increased demand, efficiency is essential for nonprofits. However, there is minimal research into understanding nonprofit leaders' perceptions of efficiency. This study is based on interviews with Habitat for Humanity leaders across the United States. Applying a case study approach with qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics, two key findings emerge. First, some nonprofit leaders are conflating efficiency and effectiveness. Second, in more than half of the cases, nonprofit leaders' perceptions of their organizations' efficiency failed to align with a commonly accepted objective measure of efficiency applied to those organizations. These results raise concerns and have significant implications for nonprofit performance and communication with key stakeholders.

Nonprofit leaders face many challenges and would benefit from a typology that helps highlight the core issues organizations experience. The Nonprofit Studies Minor at North Carolina State University identified five nonprofit leadership challenges, through a combination of practitioner experience and academic research, that could serve as a typology. The challenges identified are earning the public trust; aligning mission, methods, and resources; capitalizing on issues associated with diversity; balancing individual interests and the common good; and moving beyond charity to systemic change. This research revisits the academic literature to assess whether these challenges encompass the research agenda of nonprofit and voluntary action academic studies. Using qualitative content analysis, we examined abstracts from three major nonprofit journals from 2005-2017. Results indicate that the five leadership challenges were present in the abstracts of all three journals. Chi-squared analysis showed statistically significant differences in the presence of leadership challenges based on journal, location of the study, and unit of analysis. Validating this typology strengthens the Institute’s efforts and inform research and practice throughout the field.