Governments and nonprofit organizations are becomingly increasingly intertwined in a complex policy dance as they attempt to improve service delivery to Canadians. Yet little is known about developments across the various jurisdictions.
Exhorting people to volunteer is part of the everyday vocabulary of American politics. Routinely, members of both major parties call for partnerships between government and nonprofit organizations. These entreaties increase dramatically during times of crisis, and the voluntary efforts of ordinary citizens are now seen as a necessary supplement to government intervention. But despite the ubiquity of the idea of volunteerism in public policy debates, analysis of its role in American governance has been fragmented. Bringing together a diverse set of disciplinary approaches, Politics and Partnerships is a thorough examination of the place of voluntary associations in political history and an astute investigation into contemporary experiments in reshaping that role. The essays here reveal the key role nonprofits have played in the evolution of both the workplace and welfare and illuminate the way that government’s retreat from welfare has radically altered the relationship between nonprofits and corporations.
Recently the topic of civil society has generated a wave of interest, and a wealth of new information. Until now no publication has attempted to organize and consolidate this knowledge. The International Encyclopedia of Civil Society fills this gap, establishing a common set of understandings and terminology, and an analytical starting point for future research. Global in scope and authoritative in content, the Encyclopedia offers succinct summaries of core concepts and theories; definitions of terms; biographical entries on important figures and organizational profiles. In addition, it serves as a reliable and up-to-date guide to additional sources of information. In sum, the Encyclopedia provides an overview of the contours of civil society, social capital, philanthropy and nonprofits across cultures and historical periods. For researchers in nonprofit and civil society studies, political science, economics, management and social enterprise, this is the most systematic appraisal of a rapidly growing field.
Collaboration has emerged as a central concept in public policy circles in Australia and a panacea to the complex challenges facing Australia. But is this really the cure-all it seems to be? In this edited collection we present scholarly and practitioner perspectives on the drivers, challenges, prospects and promise of collaboration. The papers, first presented at the 2007 ANZSOG Conference, draw on the extensive experience of the contributors in either trying to enact collaboration, or studying the processes of this phenomenon. Together the collection provides important insights into the potential of collaboration, but also the fiercely stubborn barriers to adopting more collaborative approaches to policy and implementation. The collection includes chapter from public servants, third sector managers, and both Australian and international academics which together make it a stimulating read for those working with or within government. It adds considerably to the debate about how to address current challenges of public policy and provides a significant resource for those interested in the realities of collaborative governance.
The past several decades have seen unprecedented growth in the scope and complexity of relationships between government and nonprofit organizations. These relationships have been more fruitful than many critics had feared and more problematic than many advocates had hoped. Nonprofits and Government is the first comprehensive, multidisciplinary exploration of nonprofit-government relations. The second edition of this important book is fully updated and includes two new chapters. The authors address a host of important issues, including nonprofit advocacy, direct regulatory and tax policy, the conversion of nonprofits to for-profits, clashes in government interaction with religion and the arts, and international nonprofit-government relationships. Practitioners, researchers, and policymakers alike will benefit from the authors' wide-ranging discussion.
We advance nonprofit scholarship by using the conceptual framework of policy fields to examine differences across nonprofit fields of activity. We focus on the structure of relationships among four sectors (government, nonprofit, market, informal) and how relationships differ across policy fields (here health, human services, education, arts and culture, and religion). The fields differ notably in the economic share that each sector holds and the functional division of labor among the sectors. Systemic differences also exist in how the nonprofit sector interacts with the government, market, and informal sectors. The policy fields themselves operate within national contexts of distinctive economic and political configurations. The framework explores how government-nonprofit relationships differ across policy fields, the factors responsible for this variation, and offers predictive capacity to generate hypotheses and research designs for additional research. We provide insights on how nonprofit organizations differ in key sub-fields with direct relevance for policy and practice.
In many countries, particularly in continental Europe, societies have been plagued by high unemployment for several decades. Simultaneously, due to recent shifts from industrial to service-oriented post-industrial societies, labor as a significant culture code is increasingly loosing importance. Because of this, the third or voluntary sector as a place of employment and as a service agency to society has become important for Europe as indicated by the 1997 Communication of the European Commission and various declarations by the European Parliament and the EU's Economic and Social Council. Strategy Mix for Nonprofit Organizations: Vehicles for Social and Labor Market Integration explores the role of the third sector in Europe, where unemployment is high and in North America, where unemployment is rising and exploring the "gaps" that the third sector is fulfilling: both as a social service and as an employer. The volume is organized into two distinctive parts. Part 1: The Nonprofit-Sector and Social Integration highlights the embeddedness of the sector in selected countries; it discusses how the sector is currently affected by changes of public policy particularly in the traditional social-democratic welfare state regimes, and it draws our attention to the sector's potentials to provide avenues for social integration, self-actualization and civic empowerment. Part 2: Labor Concepts and Market Integration refers to the multifunctionality of third sector organizations discussing potentials of workplace as well as community involvement via nonprofit organizations. This seminal volume will be of interest to those in the nonprofit sector, organizational management and economics, political scientists and other researchers working with nonprofit organizations and civil society studies on an international level.
Addressing a key social policy problem, this book analyses modern voluntary organisations through the lens of a new theory of hybrid organisations, which is tested and developed in the context of a range of case studies. Essential reading for all interested in the future of the third sector.
In recent years, government's primary response to the emergent problems of homelessness, hunger, child abuse, health care, and AIDS has been generated through nonprofit agencies funded by taxpayer money. As part of the widespread movement for privatization, these agencies represent revolutionary changes in the welfare state. Steven Smith and Michael Lipsky demonstrate that this massive shift in funds has benefits and drawbacks. Given the breadth of government funding of nonprofit agencies, this first study of the social, political, and organizational effects of this service strategy is an essential contribution to the current raging debates on the future of the welfare state. Reviews of this book: "An insightful analysis of the implications of an important, broad trend of the past thirty years in the social welfare policy of the United States and many other countries...[Smith and Lipsky] demonstrate that we do not have to read about other countries to find a comparative perspective that sheds light on the choices we face in our national health care debate." DD--Bradford H. Gray, Health Affairs "The most comprehensive account we have of the history, extent, nature, and meaning of delivering social services that are paid for by government and delivered through nonprofit organizations." DD--H. Brinton Milward, Public Administration Review "An interesting, absorbing, and important book." DD--William T. Gormley, Jr., American Political Science Review "An important contribution to welfare state scholarship." DD--Kirsten A. Gronbjerg, Contemporary Sociology
Twenty years from now, security issues may dictate that counter-terrorism is more important than operations to secure stability and rule of law. Security at the border, ethnic demography, and the perspective of the next generation will determine what strategic choices Canada will make about special military operations and the elite forces developed to carry out special missions.
