Racial Disparities in Nonprofit Funding: Bringing BIPOC Nonprofits into Focus

Abstract

The dissertation examines racial disparities in nonprofit funding, by focusing on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) nonprofits. The first chapter sets the stage by reviewing the theoretical background and empirical challenges to quantitatively study racial disparities in nonprofit funding. Chapters 2-4 are three independent yet interconnected papers. Chapter 2 reviews the commonly used referents to identify BIPOC nonprofits and demonstrates that how BIPOC nonprofits are defined and identified matters for the presence and magnitude of racial disparities in nonprofit funding, based on a sample of Minnesota nonprofits. Chapter 3 estimates and decomposes revenue disparities between nonprofits with race-conscious missions and those with race-neutral missions, using data from Minnesota nonprofits that filed their tax forms electronically between the years of 2010 and 2017. Chapter 4 investigates the intra-group nonprofit funding disparities within the BIPOC community and the inter-group disparities between the BIPOC community and advantaged group, as well as the relationship between these two types of group disparities, utilizing a national dataset of human services, general support grants awarded between the years of 2018 and 2022. Lastly, Chapter 5 concludes the dissertation by discussing the theoretical, empirical, and practical and policy implications of the findings.