The need for nonprofits to foster legitimacy within their communities has led to growing calls for mechanisms of sound governance based on the engagement of stakeholders in organizational activities. Previous studies have investigated the mix of governance mechanisms used by nonprofits to manage legitimacy, without paying attention to the different challenges of legitimacy these organizations face. Aiming to fill this gap, this article employs a multiple case study methodology to explore how mechanisms for engaging stakeholders in governance can be shaped by the need to gain, maintain, or repair legitimacy. The findings show that formal mechanisms based on the direct designation of board members by local stakeholders play a pivotal role in repairing legitimacy. Gaining legitimacy requires actual participation of stakeholders, while maintaining legitimacy calls for formal mechanisms that balance representativeness and competencies of the leadership.

Background: Knowledge opportunities lie ahead as everyday activities, social participation, and psychological resilience might be important predictors for frailty state transitioning in the oldest old. Therefore, this article aims to examine whether changes in basic-, instrumental-, advanced- activities of daily living (b-, i-, a-ADLs), social participation, and psychological resilience predict both a transition from robustness to prefrailty or frailty and vice versa among community-dwelling octogenarians over a follow-up period of one year. Methods: To evaluate worsened and improved frailty transitions after one year in 322 octogenarians (M_age = 83.04 ± 2.78), the variables sex, ADLs (b-ADL-DI, i-ADL-DI, a-ADL-DI as baseline and as difference after 6 months values), the CD-RISC (Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, as baseline and as difference after 6 months), the social participation variables (total participation score, being a member, total number of memberships, level of social participation, being a board member, volunteering, and formal participation as baseline and as difference after 6 months values), were included in a logistic regression analysis. Results: Limitations in a-ADLs at baseline (OR: 1.048, 95% confidence interval, 1.010–1.090) and an increment of limitations in a-ADLs after 6 months (OR: 1.044, 95% confidence interval, 1.007–1.085) were predictors to shift from robust to a worsened frailty state after one year follow-up. Additionally, being a woman (OR: 3.682, 95% confidence interval, 1.379–10.139) and social participation, specifically becoming a board member in 6 months (OR: 4.343, 95% confidence interval, 1.082–16.347), were protectors of robustness and thus related to an improved frailty transition after one year. Conclusions: Encouraging healthy lifestyle behaviors to help the maintenance of ADLs, possibly leading to more social participation, could be promising in the prevention of frailty.

This article describes the accountability features of confraternities in Verona during the “Long Seventeenth Century”. These charities, driven by a common and deep Christian spirit, played a pivotal role in a period of great depression, helping the local community. The accounts relating to their activities display precision and are rich in analytical detail, enabling the painting of a portrait of Verona’s confraternities and their economic and charitable actions as strictly bound by a spiritual aim. Using the stakeholder theory lens to analyse the archival documents of the 53 confraternities revealed by the Appraisal Book of 1682, this article highlights a complex network of relationships among these organizations and their stakeholders in light of their power, legitimacy and urgency attributes. We conclude that these confraternities’ accountability was the result of the most powerful stakeholders’ influence, and underlines confraternities’ pivotal role in supporting the poor in the local community and encouraging the salvation of souls, supporting their entrance into heaven.

Nowadays, non-profit organisations (NPOs) face growing pressure to involve the community in their governing boards. Nevertheless, few empirical studies have been conducted on how they selfregulate community engagement in their governance. With the aim of filling the research gap on this topic, this article provides new insights into community engagement in non-profit governance, considering the case of Italian bank foundations (IBFs) in which community representation on the board is required by law, and self-regulation plays a pivotal role in defining mechanisms of engagement. Applying Guo and Musso‘s (2007) framework, a content analysis of IBFs‘ statutes highlights that detailed attention has been paid to formal procedures and descriptive representation mechanisms, while participatory arrangements are lacking. The analysis of the IBFs‘ case reveals additional mechanisms that are useful for better ensuring community representation within governance, and provides new mechanisms that could be considered by regulatory activity in NPOs where the community is on board by law.

Nonprofit organizations operating in the environmental protection and conservation sector face challenging fundraising issues in collecting from individual donors the money needed to accomplish their goals. The purpose of this study was to investigate which organizational factors can play a role in influencing the ability of these organizations to collect charitable contributions. By applying an extended version of the economic model of giving to a sample of 142 environmental nonprofits from the United States, the results of the regression analyses show that the following factors allow these organizations to attract more donations: devoting a high percentage of donations to programs, promoting the organization’s image through fundraising activities, having a large amount of assets that ensures a sustainable financial structure, and providing online information that demonstrates how the organization has dealt with its mission. Moreover, the study reveals that providing high amounts of disclosure on the organization’s website can have a conditional effect on fundraising expenses by boosting the positive effect of these expenses on donations. The results of this study contribute to the debate on the effectiveness of organizational factors in attracting funds from donors willing to support environmental nonprofits.