Accountability in Nonprofit Sector

Accountability in nonprofit sector concerns an articulated assessment of global and overall consistency inherent in the following key elements: (a) Transparent use of financial and nonfinancial resources. (b) Correctness of management and governance. (c) Adequacy and conformity between actions and objectives. (d) Clear communication of the results achieved. In essence, it is intended to refer to the application of the concept of accountability to the non-profit sector. If the generic term accountability is very multifaceted, as it is highly debated and chameleon-like (Mulgan 2000; Messner 2009), it is even more complex and profound when referring to nonprofit institutions (NPIs) (Rademacher and Remus 2017). In fact, it presents an evident versatility, being able to represent a principle, a duty, a system, a process, a mechanism, a set of tools and techniques (Ricci 2019): it describes the need to report, responsibly, the work of NPIs towards all stakeholders regarding the use of the resources, the correctness of the management, the correspondence and the consistency of the activities with respect to the programmed objectives (Ricci 2016). The final aim is to allow the correct demonstration of social value (Campbell 2002) and public value (Moore 1995; Esposito and Ricci 2015) generated by NPIs, which are necessary to guarantee their success (Krisch and Grabner-Kräuter 2017).