David G. Berlan

Nonprofit activity produces social benefits, brings engaged actors in social networks, and promotes a sense of community and belonging by instilling shared values and norms, resulting in community trust and support back to the nonprofit. This reciprocal pattern of community building features the nonprofit role in building social capital. Social capital develops in interaction with the entrepreneurship context. Social entrepreneurial models of nonprofit learning and innovation demonstrate the potential of new entrepreneurial methods and market opportunities to help organizations achieve desired social impacts. This article adds a discussion on nonprofit missions as a vehicle driving nonprofit learning and innovation to be motivated to facilitate community building. By developing a moderated mediation model, we propose that value-instilled innovation from the interactive form of learning and shared mission enhances the nonprofit role in building social capital. The findings support the hypothesized relationships, producing implications for the community-building motivation of nonprofit organizations.