More Easy to Serve Inc.: Cross-Country Evidence on the Link Between Marketization and Nonprofit Creaming Behavior

Journal article

By now, the idea that marketization can induce nonprofit mission drift seems common knowledge. However, there is limited insight to what extent this argument holds across (a) different aspects of nonprofit marketization and (b) different organizational, sectoral, and welfare state contexts. Drawing on survey data collected among nonprofit executives across three different welfare state regimes, this study examines to what extent nonprofit marketization is related to a critical manifestation of mission drift: nonprofit creaming behavior. Best understood as nonprofits prioritizing more easy-to-serve clients over those with more complex needs, we find that nonprofit creaming behavior is (a) to different extents reported by one out of five nonprofits surveyed and (b) positively associated with resource competition and commercial venturing regardless of the organizational, sectoral, and/or welfare state context. Accordingly, our findings constitute a universal warning for nonprofit marketization adherents.

Authors: Suykens, B; Hvenmark, J; Hung, C; Verschuere, B

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Journal: Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly
• Volume: 55
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 397-420
• Article number: 08997640251343052
• Publication date: 2025-06-17
• DOI: 10.1177/08997640251343052
• EISSN: 1552-7395
• ISSN: 0899-7640
• Language: English
• Keywords: nonprofit marketization; cream skimming; cherry-picking; organizational hybridity; mission drift