Funding Disability: Ambivalences in Nonprofit Fundraising in the United States

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dc.contributor.advisorHowe, Cymeneen_US
dc.creatorVainker, Ellieen_US
dc.date.accessioned2021-05-03T22:07:27Zen_US
dc.date.available2023-05-01T05:01:12Zen_US
dc.date.created2021-05en_US
dc.date.issued2021-04-30en_US
dc.date.submittedMay 2021en_US
dc.date.updated2021-05-03T22:07:27Zen_US
dc.description.abstractThis ethnographic study discusses the ambivalences, complexities, and contradictions involved in nonprofit fundraising practice, based on three and a half years of fieldwork in a disability-focused nonprofit and CDFI in the United States. I show how Loans for Independence (LFI) must balance competing pressures in delivering services and in securing funding for those services. Chapter One discusses the legacies LFI emerges from, including the Independent Living Movement as well as postwar rehabilitative medicine and barrier-free design. Chapter Two explores how LFI balances different portrayals of disability in order to reach people who qualify for services but who do not recognize themselves within the rubric of disability and considers the ramifications of this individual framing of access. Chapter Three focuses on client stories in fundraising and the challenges of meeting the conventional form of telling client stories while avoiding the charity model of disability; I link the discussion to humanitarian imagery and urge for a greater attention to the field of action open to nonprofits. Chapter Four addresses the marketization of nonprofits through reference to two institutional forms that LFI occupies, which carry competing demands and best practices; I show how LFI carves a line through this space that satisfies the form but exceeds what is imagined within it. Chapter Five analyzes how LFI depicts disability in grant applications in order to meet funding conventions and expectations; I draw attention to the creative practice involved in this endeavor of incorporating disability into a space where it is not imagined to belong. Throughout I frame the dynamics in terms of friction (Tsing 2005) and note the fraught lines that LFI follows, seeming to bend toward logics of rehabilitative medicine and cure (Clare 2017) to secure the necessary resources to pursue a different kind of project. I argue through this dissertation that we cannot talk about NGOs without talking about NGO funding and we cannot fully engage in critique regarding NGOs without attending to this central problematic that NGOs face: the fact they need to secure resources in order to deliver programs.en_US
dc.embargo.terms2023-05-01en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.citationVainker, Ellie. "Funding Disability: Ambivalences in Nonprofit Fundraising in the United States." (2021) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/110464">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/110464</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/110464en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectActivismen_US
dc.subjectCDFIen_US
dc.subjectDevelopmenten_US
dc.subjectDisabilityen_US
dc.subjectFundingen_US
dc.subjectFundraisingen_US
dc.subjectGrantsen_US
dc.subjectHumanitarianismen_US
dc.subjectNGOsen_US
dc.subjectNonprofits.en_US
dc.titleFunding Disability: Ambivalences in Nonprofit Fundraising in the United Statesen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentAnthropologyen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineSocial Sciencesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
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