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All Earned Revenue is Not Created Equal: Revenue Embeddedness as a Framework for Exploring Crowding-In/Crowding-Out Effects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Jamie Levine DanielOpen the ORCID record for Jamie Levine Daniel[Opens in a new window]
Jamie Levine Daniel*
Affiliation:
Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, BS 4060/801 W. Michigan St., Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
*
jlevined@iupui.edu
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Abstract

Nonprofit organizations increasingly rely on earned revenue to sustain their mission-driven activities. Previous research examining the effects of earned revenue on other income streams tends to study earned revenue in the aggregate. Using panel data from 12,372 organizations from 2010 to 2015, this analysis applies a framework of revenue embeddedness to link earned revenue activities to mission and analyze the effects of earned revenue activities on donations. Earned revenue activities offering new products or services to existing donors appear to complement individual donations. These findings have theoretical and practical applications related to how nonprofits pursue earned revenue.

Keywords

Earned revenueCompetitionDonationsOrganizational identityCrowd-out

Information

Type
Research Papers
Information
Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations , Volume 32 , Issue 5 , October 2021, pp. 1027 - 1041
Copyright
Copyright © International Society for Third-Sector Research 2021

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