Becoming business-like: governing the nonprofit professional

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King, D. ORCID: 0000-0002-0277-8444, 2017. Becoming business-like: governing the nonprofit professional. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 46 (2), pp. 241-260. ISSN 0899-7640

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Official URL: http://doi.org/10.1177/0899764016663321

Abstract

How do nonprofit practitioners learn to understand themselves as nonprofit professionals? Although the literature has explored the extent and repercussions of nonprofits becoming more business-like and professionalized, little attention has been placed on the process through which this professionalization occurs. Using an autoethnography based on my practice as cofounder and eventual manager of a small nonprofit organization, this article narrates the range of practices and mechanisms through which I came to understand myself as a nonprofit professional. Following Mitchell Dean, who draws heavily on Michel Foucault’s later work, this article argues that professionalization is taught to nonprofit practitioners through two intertwined mechanisms: the “technologies of performance,” which include funding, and evaluation and monitoring procedures; and “technologies of agency,” which involve the often subtle socialization mechanisms into the sector. It thus deepens our understanding of how the transition toward being more business-like is occurring.

Item Type:

Journal article

Publication Title:

Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly

Creators:

King, D.

Publisher:

Sage

Date:

2017

Volume:

Number: