State history enterprises and capacity-development services

In the United States, state history enterprises---comprised of both nonprofit and government agencies---have provided capacity-development services and other history enterprises have used such services, since 1896. The call for providing capacity-development services in general grew in the U.S. following World War II, especially within government as a method for training sub-units of government. Federal and then State (lead) governments sought to more broadly distribute and ensure consistency of certain programs across the multi-level network of government. State history enterprises similarly sought to broaden public access to history and ensure consistency of quality ahead of the National Bicentennial in 1976 across a similar multi-level network of history enterprises.;With a growing emphasis on outcomes since the 1980s, scholars have measured the impact of providing capacity-development services by measuring the users. However, Strategic Network Theory affirms that benefits flow in both directions in a network, meaning that some benefits return to lead-network members that provide services to other members. This study used state history enterprises as lead members of a network and sought to determine whether such return benefits might be observed among the total revenue and certain other financial measures of the provider. Some state history enterprises have decided to begin, stop, or continue providing capacity-development services (CDS). The problem is that none of these decisions were made on the basis of a comprehensive analysis because evaluation of CDS has focused mainly on evaluating users of services and ignored the impact on providers of services.;Total revenue and other available data, generally 1999--2012, for 76 state history enterprises was gathered. The data for fiscal year 2012 was analyzed for association between providing CDS and financial strength using the Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test, Difference of Means Test and Regression Analysis. Additionally data relating to nonprofit enterprises was analyzed using the Tuckman and Chang (1991) method, Exploratory Factor Analysis based on Ritchie and Kolodinsky (2003), and Regression Analysis. Across the board, providing capacity-development services appears to be associated with stronger state history enterprises. State history enterprises that provide CDS appear to have higher total revenue, total revenue per capita, and total revenue per history organization. Among nonprofit state history enterprises, CDS providers, on average, appear to have higher margin, equity ratio and concentration ratio. Tests for causality were not conclusive. However, there is some evidence that CDS providers are more likely to experience positive growth of inflation-adjusted revenues. Finally, there is some evidence, albeit weak, that initiating CDS results over time in an improvement in the entity's financial position relative to its peers, while discontinuing CDS results in a relative decline.;This study adds to the literature on evaluation of capacity-development services. The results are consistent with and, to some extent, provide support for the hypothesis that providing CDS has a positive financial impact on the provider. An important implication is that state history enterprises should consider both the impact on the users and the impact on themselves (the providers) in the process of deciding the optimal quantity of services to provide. Underestimating the total benefits could result in a sub-optimally low quantity of provided services. However, the current study is only a first step. A wider study should be undertaken with a broader population and a richer set of measures to more fully investigate the overall impact of providing capacity-development services on both providers and recipients.;Key words: capacity-development services, state history enterprises, strategic network theory, multi-level networks, financial strength.