More Than the Usual Suspects: Roles of Nonprofits in Local Government Environmental Sustainability Initiatives

This exploratory study examines the various roles nonprofits play in the adoption and implementation of local government environmental sustainability initiatives. Using grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967) and a mix of deductive and inductive approaches, we analyzed 59 semi‐structured interviews conducted in 2023 with local government sustainability managers across the United States. As predicted by traditional conceptualizations of government‐nonprofit relations, our results indicate nonprofits frequently deliver public services on behalf of local governments and are involved in advocacy. At the same time, we identify several examples of nonprofits acting in other capacities, too. Nonprofits provided direct financial assistance to support local government initiatives; they served as information resources to local government; and they were intermediaries between nonprofit constituency groups and local government. In addition, some interviewees reported that nonprofits played multiple roles in the same project. This study enriches the government‐nonprofit relations literature by addressing Grønbjerg and Smith's (2021) call for more field‐specific research and by providing a greater understanding of the range and complexity of the roles that nonprofits perform when interacting with government.