This volume offers empirically based insights and findings on the question of how human service organizations are reacting to the increasing need for greater impact, effectiveness and performance. It was originally published as a special issue of the Human Service Organizations journal.

Jennifer E. Mosley is Associate Professor in the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, USA. She researches the role of nonprofit organizations as political actors, specifically the role human service organizations, community-based nonprofits, and philanthropic foundations play in advocating for underrepresented populations.

Steven Rathgeb Smith is the Executive Director of the American Political Science Association and Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, USA. His research interests include nonprofit organizations, nonprofit and public management, philanthropy, and social services.

1. Human service agencies and the question of impact: Lessons for theory, policy, and practice 2. Remaking "Community" Mental Health: Contested Institutional Logics and Organizational Change 3. Marketization strategies and the influence of business on the management of child welfare agencies 4. Frontline managers' contribution to mission achievement: A study of how people management affects thoughtful care 5. Policy fields, data systems, and the performance of nonprofit human service organizations 6. What counts? Quantification, worker judgment, and divergence in child welfare decision making 7. Levels and consequences of embeddedness among private human service organizations: National survey evidence from child welfare