ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the concept of diversification of nonprofit sectors by localities. It spells out the place-based impacts that lead us to model regional effects on trusteeship. The chapter explores how different civic cultures and philanthropic traditions of six cities may be modeled as influencing the structure of boards of trustees of indigenous nonprofit organizations. The local vagaries of property tax policy, for instance, have impacts on the concomitant structuring of local nonprofits and sectors. Variation of the nonprofit sector by local community has been at least a minor theme of empirical research in the nonprofit field for almost two decades. The Johns Hopkins University Third Sector Comparative Project is based on the idea that national differences impact, in patterned ways, the shape and scope of nonprofit sectors and organizations. Local legislative bodies may create different legal environments within state jurisdictions, and community norms may play a greater role in the institutionalization of organizational practices.
