Nonprofit Resilience and Adaptive Capacity: Bonding and Bridging Social Capital in Local Collaborative Networks

Adopting the Network Theory of Social Capital (NTSC), this study explores how bonding and bridging network ties in collaborative social networks of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) relate to organizational resilience and adaptive capacity following the COVID-19 pandemic. Network data were collected from 59 nonprofits in a midsize U.S. county, yielding a collaboration network comprising 240 partners organizations and 608 ties. Bridging social capital was measured via constraint and betweenness centrality, while bonding social capital was measured via transitivity and closeness centrality. Results show NPO resilience was associated with both forms of bridging social capital, constraint and betweenness centrality, but unrelated to bonding social capital. NPO adaptive capacity was positively associated with closeness centrality, but unrelated to constraint, betweenness centrality, or transitivity. Findings offer insight into NPOs networks, differentiating organizational resilience and adaptive capacity relative to network position, advancing a conceptual distinction between these constructs, and yielding practical insights for NPO collaboration.