Certification of Authorship

Certification of Authorship
Bowling Together Revised: A Longitudinal Analysis of Nonprofit Mergers

Nonprofit organizations are struggling to remain sustainable in the challenging and competitive market by seeking mergers as the best alternative for reorganizing themselves. Previous research has attempted to ascertain the factors facilitating the merger and partnership of the organization of eleven nonprofit organizations. This journal looks at the outcomes and impacts of four of the nonprofit organizations that had been previously studied. The cases studied showed that the process of merger and partnership has a lot of options to consider. Besides, the cases studied revealed that there are significant leadership changes that are associated with mergers and partnerships. Additionally, the merger of nonprofit organizations only leads to a step in the process of achieving a continuum of strategies for restructuring (Pietroburgo & Wernet 4).
Nonprofit organizations have embraced the concept of merging due to financial challenges, demand by members, and a complete turnover of the executive and industry consolidation. By joining forces, they face challenges unique to their sector. The reason is that the mergers of nonprofit organizations never fulfill the main agenda of merging or are never consummated at all. Also, little literature is available on the long-term impacts of the mergers of nonprofit organizations, or any gain that nonprofit organizations have achieved from such mergers and partnerships has from nonprofit mergers (Pietroburgo & Wernet 4).

The research done to analyze the impacts of mergers among trade associations and professional associations found in the United States in 2012 is one such rare literature on nonprofit partnerships and mergers. The research involved the study of the case of eleven mergers from the beginning of their consideration to the point of implementation. The research evaluated nonprofit organizations that successfully implemented the mergers and those that failed to implement them.

Critique of the Article
The types of activities undertaken by nonprofit organizations differ and thus will determine the outcome of the partnership and merger. There are those nonprofit organizations whose merger and partnership will lead to a blend of their functions while others may form what seems like an acquisition. In the latter case, one larger nonprofit organization takes over a smaller nonprofit organization and then begin operating as one huge nonprofit organization (Elissa & Elissa 25). None the less, the main aim of a merger is to obtain synergy from a combination of two or more nonprofit organizations. Although this may seem true, not all mergers lead to synergy as alleged by the authors.
The aftermath of mergers and acquisitions are numerous and diverse according to the authors of this journal. They assert that the leadership and management of nonprofit organizations change the moment a merger takes place. Also, the physical location of the tow nonprofit organizations will change. It is also important to note that the operations, culture, and employee of the nonprofit organizations will also change. To achieve the mission of the merger, the organization will have to adopt a complete overhaul of its mission statement to accommodate its new status (Elissa & Elissa 25). However, not many changes are expected from ordinary mergers and partnership as claimed by the authors
This article has vividly analyzed the factors that determine the success of mergers and partnerships between various nonprofit organizations. However, the main purpose and background of looking at the outcomes and impacts of four of the nonprofit organizations that had been previously studied has not been met. Unfortunately, little is brought out in the journal concerning the adverse impacts that are the main cause of the failure of the merger and partnerships of nonprofit organizations. Besides, the author had the sole purpose of carefully analyzing the impacts of and viability of merger of nonprofit organizations as an alternative strategy for sustainability. This purpose has also not been met to the satisfactory level of the reader. In fact, the author of the article relied much on secondary sources from the research that had previously been conducted including methodology, sampling and data analysis.
One of the authors of this journal is an associate professor in policy analysis while the other is a professor of public policy. The fact that the two authors come from different institutions of higher learning gave more credit to the article since more diverse opinion and comments were available for a quality research work. However, the reputation of the two authors and their authority in the field of public policy analysis especially in the area of nonprofit organizations is questionable. The two are conducting their first research in this field of study and thus are expected to have a low depth of knowledge of the topic.
From the article, the two authors conclude that partnerships and mergers are formed as a result of the requirement for efficiency and economic stability when a nonprofit organization faces a strained economy. These issues according to the authors were the major concerns that lead to partnerships and mergers in the nonprofit organization (Pietroburgo & Wernet). Contrary to their argument, there is no nonprofit organization that is in possession of data relating to the survival of nonprofit organizations after a merger and partnership. The authors also assert that organizations look at their mergers as complete after the sixth year and thus could not differentiate the impacts from other activities of the organization that caused the merger to culmination.(Pietroburgo & Wernet 6). This is not true because six years is a long time for on to say that a merger and partnership is not viable (Elissa & Elissa 25).
From the thesis statement, it is clear that the journal has failed to looks at the outcomes and impacts of mergers of nonprofit organizations. Much need to be done again by taking into consideration the diversity of nonprofit organizations in the United States to ensure that no biased sampling is used. The journal assumes that the impact of mergers and partnership among nonprofit organization is averse and thus creates a bad outcome that are never consummated.
The journal is applicable in understanding the problems facing merger of the professional and trade associations only but not the diverse nonprofit organizations. Thus, the journal is a shallow research on the problem statement and the main purpose of the research. It raises issues of economic constraint and incompetency in mergers and partnerships of nonprofit organizations but avoids other critical factors such as political will and globalization.
The journal is not convincing at all and cannot be relied on to make a sound decision about the future and viability of mergers and partnerships among nonprofit organizations. The choice of nonprofit organizations from professional and trade organizations was biased and cannot be taken as a good sample of a population of nonprofit organizations that span across education, environment, health, research, advocacy, training, poverty alleviation, gender and journalism and public administration (Schennink & Haar 57).

Works Cited
Julie Pietroburgo and Stephen P. Wernet Bowling Together Revised: A Longitudinal Analysis Of
Nonprofit Mergers (2014) Journal For Nonprofit Management. Retrieved from
HYPERLINK “http://supportcenteronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Bowling-Together-Revisited-A-Longitudinal-Analysis-of-Nonprofit-Mergers.pdf on 13th November 2015” http://supportcenteronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Bowling-Together-Revisited-A-Longitudinal-Analysis-of-Nonprofit-Mergers.pdf on 13th November 2015
McCarter, Elissa, and Elissa McCarter. Mergers in NGOs: Twelve Case Studies.
Baltimore, MD: Microfinance Unit, Catholic Relief Services, 2014. Print.
Schennink, Ben, and Gemma. Haar. Working on Mergers and Partnerships: Experiences and
Dilemmas of Dutch NGOs. Amsterdam: Dutch University Press, 2013. Print.

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