Abstract
There have been discussions on how to secure diverse financial sources such as donations and membership fees and increase self-sufficient ones such as commercial revenues. This paper examines the relevance of revenue structure and financial viability, employing econometric models and a financial database of Japanese nonprofit organizations developed and released by the Center for Nonprofit Research and Information of Osaka University. Our empirical analysis shows that a concentrated increase in commercial revenues is effective for the short term financial viability, whereas it is advisable to obtain diverse financial sources such as donations and membership fees in order to be financially viable in the mid-and-long term. We have seen realities where many nonprofits are under pressure to carry out daily business and unable to put their effort and energy into fundraising campaigns. However, it is conceivable that nonprofits stagnate in the mid-and-long term due to insufficiency of various financial sources and fail to carry on business and activities ultimately. Therefore, it is necessary to continuously acquire and collect panel data, including disaggregated information of business revenues and donations, so as to develop research on this field and explore revenue strategies which nonprofits should map out.
