The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management, 5th Edition

CHAPTER THREETHE MANY FACES OF NONPROFIT ACCOUNTABILITY

Alnoor Ebrahim and Lehn Benjamin

Calls for greater accountability are not new. Leaders of organizations, be they nonprofit, business, or government, face a constant stream of demands from various constituents to account for their behavior. But what does it mean to be accountable? At its core, accountability is about trust. By and large, nonprofit leaders tend to pay attention to accountability once a problem of trust arises: when there is doubt about whether their organization is meeting some explicit or implicit expectations of key stakeholders. This is most evident when a scandal emerges in the sector or in their own organization. But doubt can also arise when citizens or donors have ...