ACCOUNTABILITY MISPLACED - PRIVATE SOCIAL-WELFARE AGENCIES AND THE PUBLIC IN CLEVELAND, 1880-1920

Nonprofits are scrambling to account for their fiscal policies, manage ment structure, and the value of their missions. This current crisis o f accountability is only the most recent manifestation of a problem th at has plagued voluntary organizations for over a century. A historica l perspective reveals more about the issue of accountability than tax exemption, the ubiquity of nonprofits, or greed and insensibility amon g nonprofits and their employees. Four fundamental issues can be ident ified: the variety of constituencies to which nonprofits are accountab le, conflict over the allocation of resources, the matter of exclusivi ty, and two additional sources of conflict of values. The periodic cri ses of accountability faced by nonprofits reveal that the conflicts in herent in nonprofits are constantly being negotiated, necessarily lead ing to a dynamic, ever-shifting system of nonprofit organization and o f interorganizational relationships. The nonprofit sector provides an arena in which these conflicts can be negotiated.