Thesis (Ph.D.) - Indiana University, School of Public and Environmental Affairs, 2017This dissertation examines the process and consequences of nonprofits becoming important players in determining and supporting government service provision, in the context of parks and recreation services in large U.S. cities. By conducting a content analysis of 204 park-supporting nonprofits’ websites, the first paper empirically investigates under what circumstances nonprofits are more likely to be involved in the planning and design of public services. Built on a unique panel dataset that contains nonprofit and city government spending on parks, the second paper answers the question of how expenditures of park-supporting charities influence public spending on parks and recreation services. Built on interviews with local government and nonprofit executives in public-nonprofit partnerships for parks, the third paper investigates why different forms of government-nonprofit partnerships emerge and how they are governed in different ways. This dissertation contributes to scholarship on government-nonprofit relationships, public service provision, and governance by presentation new theories and evidence of nonprofit support for public services.