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The social work profession has a long history of seeking legitimacy by adopting frameworks and methods from higher status professions. This quest has led to concerns about social work's strengths potentially being sacrificed for broader professional approval. In this commentary we explore a contemporary iteration of this phenomenon—social work's participation in the "What Works" movement, which promotes greater use of evidence-based practice (EBP) and policy—and discuss the impact of increasingly linking government funding for human service organizations (HSOs) to the use of EBPs. At risk are three foundations of social work practice: valuing community-based knowledge; preserving staff autonomy and a pipeline for social work trained managers; and making program decisions with a thorough understanding of organizational and community context. We argue that an organizational learning perspective may help HSOs maintain social work values while also drawing on evidence to improve the lives of consumers and their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative governance is intended to solve complex problems and promote democratic outcomes by connecting ground‐level stakeholders with government. In order for these goals to be met, however, participants must have meaningful influence and opportunities for voice. Using national survey data from Continuums of Care (CoCs) mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, this article investigates what structural characteristics of collaborative governance networks are related to promoting stakeholder inclusion and voice through policy advocacy involvement. Specifically, it investigates which network characteristics are associated with (1) the frequency of advocacy involvement by the network, (2) providers' engagement in and influence over that advocacy, and (3) the CoC having stronger relationships with policy makers. Findings show significant relationships between greater network capacity and network advocacy, and between network governance structure and provider engagement and influence in that advocacy. Networks have stronger relationships with policy makers when providers are more engaged, providers have more influence, network capacity is higher, and direct advocacy tactics are used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human service agencies are facing an environment in which demands for impact, effectiveness, and performance are rising faster than our knowledge about how to best to achieve those goals. Organizations are increasingly pressured to do “more” with little guidance about what service-related changes might mean for the long-term well-being of their organizations, the consumers of their services, and the communities in which they are embedded. This article introduces a special issue on the effect of the pursuit of “impact” on staff, managers, and organizational processes by tracing the history of how human service organizations became targets for greater demands of efficiency and impact, some of the field level changes that are taking place as a result, and the managerial dilemmas that have arisen under this new regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participation in policy advocacy by human service nonprofits has the potential to both strategically position organizations in their environment and promote client well-being. Despite these possible benefits, however, many human service nonprofits do not engage in policy advocacy. This article helps explain why, by placing advocacy involvement in a broad theoretical context and providing evidence on the factors that best explain involvement. It presents a new conceptual framework that employs both resource mobilization theory and resource dependency theory to outline why a variety of organizational resources and environmental incentives may influence participation. That framework is assessed using large-scale survey data. Results suggest that advocacy is most common among organizations that have already achieved some success, as evidenced by having relatively large size, professional leadership, strong collaborative ties, use of e-mail, and high levels of government funding. Overall, advocacy is found to be a more professionalized endeavor than previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]