This study attempts to assess the degree of influence interest groups can exert on the state policy process, specifically via their lobbying activities. The analysis uses data from the 2005–06 Wisconsin Legislative Session to assess the association between lobbying activity and legislative outcomes in one state legislature. The study finds a direct association between lobbying activities and bill outcomes, while also exploring the potential influences of both key political actors and public attention. Public attention is found to reduce the effects of lobbying efforts, suggesting that lobbying is most effective when focused on less salient issues.

Recent literature on the governance of communities reveals a great deal of divisiveness and conflict among governmental and other political actors over questions of policy. In this study, the authors measure and explain the perceived level of policy conflict on city councils. The authors use data from a survey of approximately 1,430 municipal officers representing 92 Michigan municipalities with populations greater than 10,000 to measure conflict. This research focuses on the perceptions of city council members and mayors. Using multivariate statistical techniques, the authors find that respondent demographic characteristics, citywide conditions, and structural factors influence council member and mayoral perceptions of policy conflict.

In this study we aimed to provide a better understanding of executive compensation in nonprofit organizations. We examined factors including organizational size, market, subsector, organizational type, staffing level, and organizational performance as potential influences driving variation across the nonprofit sector. The models utilize data on the population of nonprofit organizations required to file Form 990 returns with the Internal Revenue Service in order to broadly examine compensation. The results indicate associations between various measures of performance and compensation in nonprofit orga‐nizations and also suggest that different types of nonprofits may be sensitive to different measures of performance.

This study examines the revenue structures of nonprofit organizations in the arts subsector to identify theoretically ideal revenue portfolios by examining the risk, return, and covariance of revenue streams. This article examines four major sources of revenue for arts organizations and builds on Kingma's work on nonprofit revenue portfolios by carrying out the theoretical modeling suggested in his seminal work. Beyond identifying the efficient frontier, this approach can also reveal the composition of theoretically efficient portfolios found along the frontier. These portfolios are optimal in that they maximize revenue growth and minimize variability. This study has practical implications for the understanding of revenue diversification in the nonprofit sector, which has been identified as one mechanism by which nonprofit organizations can mitigate risk and increase survivability. This research also suggests that a commonly used measure of diversity, the Herfindahl-Hirshman index, may not always correspond with theoretical efficiency.

The literature on the relationship between government funding and private donations finds evidence of both crowd-out (a reduction in private donations due to the receipt of government funding) and crowd-in (increased donations rather than a reduction). This study uses organizational-level data and information regarding funding from multiple levels of government in Canada to provide an important contribution to the literature, which has traditionally relied upon aggregated measures of government funding. Results from dynamic panel estimations suggest that effects vary by type of charity and level of government funding source, with some subsectors displaying crowd-in, some crowd-out, and some both phenomenon depending on the level of government providing funding. These findings encourage more research into the context and variation involved in crowd-out, raising practical and theoretical questions about whether a uniform effect across subsectors or level of government funding should be expected.