Writing assignment
COOL BREEZE
week1.docxPart I: Studying nonprofit organizations
The study of nonprofit, third sector, or voluntary organizations is a fairly recent development in the history of the social sciences. What has become one of the most dynamic and interdisciplinary fields of the social sciences today began to gather momentum more than three decades ago. At the same time, the field is rooted in long-standing intellectual and disciplinary approaches that seek to come to terms with the complexity and vast variety of nonprofit organizations and related forms and phenomena. After considering this chapter, the reader should:
■ have an understanding of the wide range of institutions, organizations, and types of activities that come under the label of the nonprofit sector;
■ be able to identify key intellectual traditions of nonprofit sector research;
■ have a sense of the major factors that influenced the field and that contributed to its development; and
■ be able to navigate through the book’s various parts and chapters in terms of specific content and their thematic connections. Some of the key concepts introduced in this chapter are:
THE EMERGENCE OF THE NONPROFIT SECTOR IN THE US While the concept of civil society as such is not common currency in the US, there is nonetheless a deep-seated cultural understanding that civil society finds its clearest expression in this country. Indeed a strong political as well as cultural current running through American history and contemporary society sees the US as an ongoing “experiment” in civility, community, democracy, and self-governance. Not only the country as a whole, but cities, such as New York, Chicago, Miami, and Los Angeles in particular, regard themselves as the “social laboratories” of modern urban life: they are among the most diverse in the world in ethnic, religious, and social terms, with large portions of immigrant populations, small local government, and high levels of community organizing and individualism. A strong expression of this cultural self-understanding is that the US, in all its imperfections and injustices, is nonetheless regarded as the embodiment of human political progress. This ideological current assumes at times mythical dimensions, perhaps because it is so closely linked to, and rests on, major symbols of US political history. In countless political speeches as well as in popular culture frequent references are made to highly symbolic events and documents that provide deep roots of legitimacy to both nonprofit organizations and the notion of self-organization. Among the most prominent of such cultural-political icons:
Charity, i.e. individual benevolence and caring, is a value and practice found in all major world cultures and religions. It is one of the “fi ve pillars” of Islam, and central to Christian and Jewish religious teaching and practice as well. In many countries, including the US, the notion of charity includes relief of poverty, helping the sick, disabled, and elderly, supporting education, religion, and cultural heritage.
Philanthropy, i.e. the practices of individuals refl ecting a “love of humanity” and the voluntary dedication of personal wealth and skills for the benefi t of specifi c public causes. While philanthropy, like the term charity, has long historical roots in religion, its modern meaning emerged in early twentieth-century America and refers to the private efforts to solve common social problems such as poverty or ignorance.
Volunteering, i.e. the donation of time for a wide range of community and public benefi t purposes such as helping the needy, distributing food, serving on boards, visiting the sick, or cleaning up local parks. Some 24 percent of the US population volunteers on a regular basis.
Giving, i.e. the donation of money and in-kind goods for charitable and other purposes of public benefi t to organizations such as the Red Cross or religious congregations, or to specifi c causes such as HIV/AIDS, cancer research, or humanitarian relief. Some two-thirds of US households donate money, a number not too different from that of many other countries, but not necessarily the highest. More recently, as we will see in more detail in Chapter 3, additional concepts have entered the fi eld of nonprofi t studies. First there is a set that clusters around the term civil society and the more social and political facets and dimensions of the nonprofi t sector: Civil society: Many different defi nitions of civil society exist, and there is little agreement on its precise meaning, though there is much overlap among core conceptual components. Nonetheless, most analysts would probably agree with the statement that modern civil society is the sum of institutions, organizations, and individuals located between the family, the state, and the market, in which people associate voluntarily to advance common interests. The nonprofi t sector provides the organizational infrastructure of civil society. The nonprofi t sector provides the organizational infrastructure of civil society.
Chapter 2: Historical background This chapter will introduce the historical background to the development of the US nonprofi t sector in the context of the wider civil society, and then compare the American experience to other countries. It will show the path dependency of the nonprofit sector and the development of distinct types of nonprofit regimes. The chapter will also link the historical study of the nonprofit sector to notions of state–society relations, forms of democracy, economic development, and community.
What these brief historical comparisons show is that the nonprofit sector is embedded in the broader political and social development of a country or region. Its development is shaped by political cultures and forms of government, but also by cultural and religious factors and sociological aspects of class structure. Salamon and Anheier (1998b) suggest that, cross-nationally, the nonprofit sector has different “moorings” in different countries that reveal different social and economic “shapes” and factors at work. They help create the diversity and the richness of the organizational forms and institutions located between the state and the market. In Chapter 3, we take a closer look at a complex terminology that has developed to depict the nonprofit or voluntary sector, including aspects of civil society and social capital. The development of the US civil society was an arduous process, “a story of gains won, rescinded, and reclaimed . . . about the ebb and flow of democracy and the exercise of power: who wielded it, toward what end, and how Americans ultimately created a civil society” (McCarthy 2003: 9). But it is also a history that shows how unlikely such a successful outcome ultimately was, how many uncertainties were in its way, and how likely it was that developments could have turned out differently. This is indeed the lesson that we draw from for philanthropy in the early twenty-first century: as we try to “build” civil society and philanthropy in many parts of the world, the highly contingent and long-term prospect of any such endeavor becomes apparent. Building a sustainable civil society is not the work of single events or projects; it is not the work of a decade; but it is the work of generations
Chapter 3: Concepts This chapter will discuss the various types of activities (volunteering, giving, civic engagement, advocacy, service provision, etc.), organizations (charities, associations, foundations, social enterprises, etc.) and institutions (charity, philanthropy, social economy, community, solidarity) that make up or relate to the nonprofit sector, and look at the various attempts to define the area between the market, state, and household sectors. The chapter will also explore how the nonprofit sector relates to the concept of civil society and the social economy, to social capital approaches, and to terms such as social investment, social entrepreneurship, and the social economy
