Giving Compass' Take:

• A report by Shena Ashley, Jesse D. Lecy, and Francisco J. Santamarina, studied how political views can have an impact on nonprofit missions.

• The authors found patterns across the board revealing that democratic districts and Republican districts support different categories of human services. The author contends that we need to be mindful of organizations that only offer certain benefits or social services to specific segments of a community.

• Read about how nonprofit missions are critical to the work.

In many ways, America’s population has grown more polarized along racial, economic, and political lines. Americans are more likely to live near others from the same socioeconomic background and those who share their political beliefs.

But we know little about how this divide has affected the nonprofit sector. Few studies have looked at the geographic distribution of nonprofit missions as a function of the demographics of communities in which they operate.

Nonprofit missions reflect the values of those who create, manage, and support nonprofits in their communities. Missions also shape how communities allocate resources to target populations and interest groups, so observed differences in missions may help explain variation in social outcomes by place.

In a report I recently coauthored with Jesse D. Lecy and Francisco J. Santamarina, we attempt to identify the effects of local values on nonprofit missions.

We can’t make conclusive inferences from the small sample sizes in each community category, but some interesting patterns emerged. Democratic districts are more likely to support community improvement, youth development, societal benefit, and disease prevention nonprofits, whereas Republican districts are more likely to support education, arts, recreation, and housing nonprofits.

In broad terms, it looks as though nonprofits in Democratic supermajority districts tend to focus more on economic development, broad community benefit, and support for vulnerable groups, while nonprofits in Republican districts seem to focus on providing specialized services and amenities to community members.

As communities have become demographically sorted into political, cultural, economic, and ideological silos, we should continue to explore how these trends affect civil society.

Historically, we’ve assumed that nonprofits are beneficial to society because they offer public goods and services that are accessible to most. But in an ideologically polarized world, we need to consider how communities use tax-exempt organizations to create private goods that might only benefit certain segments of the community.

Read the full article about political views impact nonprofit sector by Shena Ashley at Urban Institute.