Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

How A Community Foundation’S Disaster Framework Guided Rapid Pandemic Response, Steven W. Mumford, Isabel Barrios, Kellie Chavez Greene

Political Science Faculty Publications

Disasters create opportunities for philanthropy to rebuild equitably by prioritizing the most vulnerable community members in disaster response and addressing existing disparities and structural inequities in the recovery phase. As intermediaries between donors and local communities, community foundations are well-positioned to lead transformational disaster response.

Through its experience with Hurricane Katrina and subsequent disasters in the region, the Greater New Orleans Foundation developed a flexible disaster framework that emphasizes four broad principles — resilience, sustainability, civic participation, and equity — and specific practices in each area to guide rapid and long-term disaster response and preparedness. This article describes how the …

Doing More With Less: Racial Diversity In Nonprofit Leadership And Organizational Resilience, Steven W. Mumford

Political Science Faculty Publications

Racial diversity in nonprofit leadership presents a variety of benefits crucial for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, leadership remains predominately white. Practitioner-oriented studies decry racial disparities in nonprofit funding, but academic literature offers mixed conclusions on how diversity influences resource acquisition. This article examines associations between racial composition of nonprofit leadership and organizational resilience to the pandemic, based on a survey of New Orleans-based nonprofits in winter 2021. Logistic regressions assess whether leadership diversity increases the likelihood of organizational resilience in both service delivery and financial health, finding that greater board diversity is associated with targeted programming and advocacy …

Barriers To Charitable Nonprofit Access And Advocacy Amid A Pandemic: A Case Study Of The Louisiana State Legislature, Stephanie M. Riegel, Steven W. Mumford

Political Science Faculty Publications

Research has long established nonprofit organizations’ vital role advocating for the needs of vulnerable populations before legislative policymakers. In the best of times, it is difficult for 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofits employing grassroots advocacy to mobilize vulnerable constituencies to compete with 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) advocacy and special interest groups. The latter organizations inherently have greater flexibility and resources to lobby lawmakers directly, permitting greater access to influencing the policy agenda. Through a multi-method case study of the 2020 regular session of the Louisiana State Legislature, this article demonstrates how the COVID-19 pandemic’s unique contextual conditions made legislative advocacy more difficult than …

The Politics Of Katrina In New Orleans: A View From Ground Zero, Christine L. Day, Marc R. Rosenblum

Political Science Faculty Publications

What is New Orleans like today? What will it take to return the city to some semblance of normalcy? Stunned by the events and revelations of governmental incompetence since Katrina, we review Katrina's aftermath and chime in on current policy debates about the city’s future. Our love for New Orleans may compromise our objectivity, but we find scholarly inspiration in three excellent articles in the last issue of The Forum.

Older Americans' Attitudes Toward The Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act Of 1988, Christine L. Day

Political Science Faculty Publications

Congress repealed the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988, which expanded Medicare benefits, after vigorous protests by groups of older people nationwide. Surveys show, however, that older Americans were deeply divided in their opinions. This study examines four explanations for divisions among the elderly on this issue: symbolic politics, socioeconomic status, distrust in government, and direct self-interest. The results of probit analysis indicate that high income, younger age (under 75), Republican partisanship, and distrust in government all contributed to older Americans' opposition to government catastrophic health care coverage. Direct self-interest—that is, perceived direct impact on one's own taxes and benefits—was …