Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-tbj44 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-11-02T05:28:56.958Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - The Growing Specialization of INGOs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2025

Sarah Sunn Bush
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
Jennifer Hadden
Affiliation:
Brown University
HTML view is not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button.

Summary

Why are American INGOs’ missions becoming narrower while global issues are arguably becoming more expansive and interconnected? This chapter argues that mission specialization is a response to growing population density. As many INGO sectors became denser, more concentrated, and more competitive in the early 2000s, entrepreneurs began seeking ways to distinguish their new organizations. Creating an organization with a specialized mission was one way to survive in a crowded sector and thus became a common strategy. We support this argument with an analysis of original data on American INGOs’ mission statements. A case study of humanitarian INGOs further illustrates the value of our approach.

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
Crowded Out
The Competitive Landscape of Contemporary International NGOs
, pp. 85 - 123
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NC
This content is Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC-BY-NC 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/cclicenses/

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×