Community-Oriented Market Design for Nonprofit Resource Exchange

Unlocking Value Through Nonprofit Resource Sharing Nonprofit organizations often operate under tight budgets while idle equipment, unused space, and shareable skills and expertise are frequently underutilized, with existing resource exchanges in the nonprofit sector limited to bilateral barter or relatively homogeneous resources. In “Community-Oriented Market Design for Nonprofit Resource Exchange,” Huang et al. propose Sharing With a Purpose (SWAP), a resource-sharing system that enables nonprofits to exchange heterogeneous resources without monetary payments. SWAP combines an auction-based process, SWAPcredit valuation, and integer optimization to facilitate multilateral exchanges, allowing nonprofits to obtain needed resources by contributing resources of their own. The authors implement this market design through the SWAP Hub, a digital platform deployed with nonprofit communities in multiple regions. Through repeated exchange episodes, participating organizations have shared not only physical assets but also a wide range of skills, services, and expertise, including marketing, management, event planning, and organizational development. The study demonstrates how innovative market design can unlock latent value in community resources, alleviate resource constraints, and encourage new connections and collaboration among nonprofit organizations.