Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly

This article constitutes a preface to an economic foundation of a theory of the voluntary sector-the share economy. The paper is divided into four sections. The first section is concerned with sharing as an alternative mode of interaction in a society, differing from two-way exchange and one-way transfer transactions and constituting an important element in building up communities. The analysis emphasizes the importance of certain types of goods requiring sharing. The characteristics of these goods, which are referred to here as collective goods, are explored in the second section. The third section shows that, from the point of view of social and economic efficiency, the production of collective goods will have to be assumed at least partially by a special economic sector termed the voluntary sector. Therefore, the voluntary sector and the transaction of sharing play a significant role in the allocation of resources comparable to the role assumed by the institutions of the market (exchange sector) and government (transfer sector). A concluding remark discusses some political ramifications of the economy of the voluntary sector.

Although record amounts of money and other resources are being donated to American charities, few discussions focus on the issue of accountability. This article attempts to lay the framework for such a discussion by exam ining charitable health organizations as a case study. Such issues as fiscal responsibility, fund-raising, organizational structure, and political lobbying are explored in an effort to define the problems that surround the concept of accountability in the nonprofit sector.

Voluntary action scholars and disaster researchers have paid little atten tion to the permanent volunteer in the context of large-scale social crisis. In contrast, there have been many studies on particular types of volun teering behavior in the everyday setting, such as bystander intervention, while many other studies have explored the personality profile and orga nizational settings of full-time career emergency workers, such as police, ambulance, and fire officers. The comparative lack of systematic inquiry on disaster volunteerism has implications for countries like Australia, where the disaster management system relies heavily on a trained and readily available unpaid citizenry. In particular, little practical material is currently available that deals with the management of permanent volun teers as a specific emergency worker group. In an effort to remedy this imbalance and encourage further study of this group, this article explores the characteristics of permanent disaster volunteerism and their location within the existing knowledge framework of volunteerism and voluntary organizations.

Voluntary organizations may serve somewhat different functions in devel oping countries and colonial societies than they do in more developed countries. In all societies, voluntary organizations engage in social action in order to make their governments more responsive to the social needs and political rights of the population, but this function is especially crucial in societies where there is no access to the political decision-making structures. This case study explores yet another role for the voluntary organization: the deliberate and planful utilization of a voluntary organi zation structure to prepare for self-government and political independence. The establishment and early years of operation of the Social Service Department of the Jewish National Council in British-ruled Palestine in the 1930s serves as the example.

This article reports the findings of one of the few studies to examine how administrators in nonprofit agencies manage contracted services. The analytic framework for explaining and describing managers' experience is their primary metaphor: contracted services as a game.

This article defines a charitable nonprofit organization as financially vulnerable if it is likely to cut service offerings immediately when a financial shock occurs. It discusses why the vulnerability of the nonprofit sector is of interest to researchers, explores the destabilizing role of third-party finance, considers the reasons for the lack of research on vulnerability, and presents a conceptual framework for identifying finan cially vulnerable nonprofits. Four vulnerability criteria are defined and applied to a 1983 national sample of tax returns filed by 4,730 U.S. charitable nonprofits. The financial data of at-risk organizations are then analyzed to discern the characteristics of vulnerable and other nonprofit organizations.