Personal Influence Networks and Voluntary Association Affiliation*

Individuals ordinarily have considerable information about voluntary associations even before they seriously think about joining a group. In becoming affiliated, members usually rely on personal networks and often several persons are consulted. When mass media sources are utilized in the affiliation process, they serve as a stimulus or catalyst (not one respondent in the sample joined an organization solely on the basis of mass media sources of information). Those with an extensive network of friends and relatives often become members through informal leaders. Moreover, they are sought out and encouraged to join. Individuals who have fewer primary-group resources frequently become members through formal leaders and themselves initiate the contact which results in membership. Finally, personal influence networks are more likely to play an important role for those joining expressive rather than instrumental voluntary associations.     

Religious Pluralism and School Provision in Britain

Popular education in Britain grew out of the social conscience of the Christian churches. Government investment in schools only began in the last quarter of the 19th century and even where schools were funded it was primarily to plug the gaps left by the voluntary organisations. Throughout the 20th century, Britain had a dual system of provision by which state and churches cooperated in the provision and funding of schools. The last 30 years have witnessed an interesting development in Britain in the political response to religious diversity and education. Some members of the more recent religious minority communities have sought to join the dual system by seeking funding for religious schools on the same basis as the Christian churches. In the last 5 years, several schools run by minority religious groups have received state funding. In its latest Green Paper, the government argues the case for greater diversity in educational provision and looks to increasing the participation of Christian and other religious groups in educational provision, not least by reducing the financial quota which religious bodies have to pay towards the upkeep of such schools. In the light of continuing problems with personal and institutional racism at many levels of British society, and the well-documented increase in Islamophobia, this paper explores what model of pluralism is likely to suit Britain's future society best and what form of educational provision might prove the most effective in promoting it.     

THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RELIGIOUS RESOURCES IN THE PREDICTION OF MATTERING TO OTHERS: AFRICAN AMERICAN AND WHITE CONTRASTS

The perception of mattering, defined as one's perceived significance to others, is likely influenced by the interpersonal and intrapersonal dimensions of religious faith. Using data from a community study conducted in Miami-Dade County, this study examines whether private and public aspects of religiosity are independently as well as mutually associated with perceptions of mattering, net of secular social resources. We also consider whether the availability of religious and secular resources varies by race/ethnicity, and whether such differences account for race/ethnic differences in perceptions of mattering. Findings demonstrate that private religiosity and membership in a religious organization, in addition to secular social support and integration, are independently associated with perceptions of mattering. Findings also reveal that, compared to Whites, the higher levels of mattering reported by African Americans are largely explained by their higher levels of private religiosity and greater likelihood of belonging to religious organizations and attending religious services.     

Patterns of social affiliation as predictors of depressive symptoms among urban blacks.

This paper focuses on patterns of social affiliation viewed historically as sociocultural adaptations to stresses associated with minority group status. Data are from a community-based sample of 927 Black adults residing in a large metropolitan area. Specifically, this analysis assesses the extent to which patterns of social affiliation such as close family ties, religious involvement, and participation in voluntary associations diminish the detrimental impact of chronic economic strain on the level of depressive symptoms. The findings provide no support for a sociocultural adaptation explanation. Moreover, the results show an unexpected relationship among religious involvement, chronic economic strain, and depressive symptoms. At the most intense levels of religious involvement, a significantly higher level of depressive symptomatology was evident among those experiencing chronic economic strain. In contrast, those with less religious involvement had fewer depressive symptoms when experiencing chronic economic strain. Implications of findings are discussed relative to social changes affecting patterns of affiliation and sociocultural adaptation in Black communities.     

Organizational Resources and the Gender Gap in Congregational Lay Leadership

The purpose of this study is to examine how organizational resources affect the gender gap within lay (volunteer) leadership in religious congregations. Using institutional theory as a framework, this study situates congregations within a larger field of organizations competing for legitimacy. Congregations with higher levels of resources—such as wealthier members, better-educated members, or larger memberships—are more likely to be connected to the core of the field and therefore more likely to have gender egalitarian practices in order to signal their legitimacy. Therefore, I hypothesize that women in resource-rich congregations will have greater access to volunteer leadership positions than women in congregations that are resource deficient. I analyze 70,942 individuals in 344 religious congregations from the 2001 U.S. Congregational Life Survey using multilevel modeling. I show that religious congregations with more members, better-educated attenders, and wealthier attenders have smaller gender gaps in volunteer leadership positions. Congregational resources can mitigate the gender gap in lay leadership, and women within resource-rich organizations have greater access to positions of authority.     

Social policy,community service development,and religious organizations

The retrenchment policies of the Reagan and Bush administrations have made human service much more locally oriented. As a result, religious groups have become increasingly involved in providing services. This article explores some of the historical and contemporary aspects of service involvement by religious groups, focusing on the meaning this involvement has for the social work community. Recommendations are provided to aid community planners in working more effectively with the resources of religious groups.     

Motivations for self-assembling into project teams

This study investigates the self-assembly mechanisms of ad hoc project teams using a bipartite network perspective. Individuals and projects are modeled as two types of nodes and team membership as relations between them. This approach enables us to investigate factors that impact voluntary team assembly at the individual, dyadic, and team levels simultaneously. Using Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGM/p*), we study players’ combat teams in a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) as a case of self-assembled project teams. Empirical results show that individuals are motivated to join ad hoc teams to complete difficult projects but not projects with long durations. We also found that individuals tend to collaborate with specific teammates who have complementary skills, those who have similar age or skill level, and those who are affiliated with the same organizational entity.     

An Appeal to Aid Specialists

The appeal I am making is (roughly speaking) for aid specialists to do more to help those of us who are not aid specialists to arrive at judgments about the effects of the work of (voluntary) aid agencies that we have at least some reason to think accurate. I argue that the fact that it is so difficult for us to arrive at such judgments at present has certain negative consequences, and that this gives those who are in a position to make it easier for us to arrive at such judgments strong reasons to do so. And I argue that (certain) aid specialists are in such a position. Hence my appeal to them to do so.     

Communalization and Homophile Organization Membership:

This paper applies a sociological perspective to homophile organizational membership in the pre- and post-Stonewall gay community, and now, during AIDS. Focus is on comparing early theories of gay community organizational participation with the genesis, nature, and meaning of gay/AIDS volunteerism as a political statement. By emphasizing how the communalization of AIDS empowered gay people, earlier homophobic vocabularies of analysis are replaced with those that recognize gay pride as the source of organizational membership. Today, self-acceptance by gays leads to the willingness to “bear witness” to People with AIDS in voluntary community based initiatives which join the personal and collective interest in a way that confirms a positive homosexual identity. The theory that communalization empowers by undermining homophobia is supported by data taken for a survey of volunteers at Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York.     

Membership participation and ideology in large voluntary organisations: The case of the National Trust

Commonly, voluntary organisations are formally accountable to their memberships, but the rights of members to influence organisational policies are often minimal. Members may be recruited by organisations to provide funding, legitimacy and voluntary help; members may join in order to obtain material benefits, to express support for organisations' goals and, in some cases, to influence policy. The disjunction between these two sets of expectations can lead to disputes in large voluntary bodies, especially those whose members hold a wide range of ideological positions. This creates problems for those running the organisations, who both have to account to a variety of other groups and also maintain their public legitimacy. Illustrations of some of these issues are drawn from environmental organisations, particularly the National Trust. An earlier version of this article was given at the first international conference of the International Society for Third Sector Research at Pecs, Hungary, in July 1994. I am very grateful to Michael Fogarty, Peter Jackson and Jean Warburton for detailed comments on earlier drafts.     

Will ‘Emerging Donors’ Change the Face of International Co‐operation?

Responding to the recent upsurge of interest in ‘emerging donors’, this article argues that the DAC share of aid is likely to decline only slowly from what is a historically high level, and at least some non‐DAC donors are likely to see DAC approaches and norms as relevant. Nevertheless, low‐income countries seem likely to have a wider range of financing options. Three key risks are that: they prejudice their debt situation by borrowing on inappropriate terms; they use low‐conditionality aid to postpone necessary adjustment; and they waste resources on unproductive investments. DAC members should develop constructive dialogue with other bilateral donors based on recognition that sustainable development and poverty reduction should be the core purpose of aid.     

The Relationship between Provision of Membership Benefits and Fulfillment of Representational Roles in Nonprofit Advocacy Membership Organizations

This article explores the ways nonprofit advocacy membership organizations can manage their resource dependence on members and fulfill the organizations' representational roles, focusing on the provision of membership benefits. Membership organizations rely on financial or other resources from members and thus are constrained by them. For a nonprofit that aims to primarily speak for members, constraints by members may help to focus organizational attention on members' interests. Contrarily, for a nonprofit that aims to mainly represent broader constituents, members' constraints may hamper an organization's ability to advocate for broader constituents because members do not necessarily share the same policy goals with broader constituents. The provision of membership benefits can be a useful strategy for organizations to fulfill their representational roles and to satisfy and engage members, because people often join an organization to enjoy certain membership benefits. For an empirical analysis, this study collected a large‐scale data set through web and mail surveys of nonprofit advocacy organizations across the United States. The mixed‐mode surveys achieved a 57.5 percent response rate (729 responses). The survey and regression analysis results show that member‐serving nonprofits providing members with opportunities to participate in advocacy work are more likely to represent members' interests directly. Although broader constituency‐serving nonprofits tend to prioritize members' opinions, these organizations are more likely to adhere to the mandates of broader constituents when providing selective material membership benefits. However, when providing purposive membership benefits, these nonprofits are more likely to represent members' opinions.     

Modernization and religious intermarriage in the Republic of Ireland

There are strong theoretical reasons for hypothesizing that those sections of the population who are most exposed to modernization processes are more likely to marry outside their own religious group. We examine this for Catholic-Protestant intermarriage in the Republic of Ireland. We use a multivariate analysis on survey data to test the hypotheses that urban dwellers, persons of non-farming parents, persons with higher levels of education and the young are more likely to be religiously intermarried. While the odds of being in an intermarriage are greater for urban dwellers, this is in large part due to their being non-farmers. The farming effect is not necessarily related to religiosity. The odds of being in an intermarriage do not increase significantly for persons with third level education and this can be explained in terms of the marriage market for minority groups. It is shown that the historical context and the minority position of religious group should be taken into account in explanations which relate modernization to the pattern of religious intermarriage.     

Going Green: The Process of Lifestyle Change1

This article draws on 40 in‐depth semi‐structured interviews of three groups of people who restrict their consumption in various ways: voluntary simplifiers, religious environmentalists, and green home owners. I identify common patterns in the emergence of green lifestyles across all groups. Green practices are not isolated decisions or actions, but components in an ongoing project. As a result, green lifestyles are often experienced as both a work in progress and a provisionally coherent life narrative. Furthermore, I explore bricolage, the cobbling together of resources at hand by nonexperts, as a mechanism for lifestyle change and expand the concept to include environmental practices and themes. I adopt a pragmatist perspective to understand lifestyle change as a deliberate process undertaken in response to a problem left underaddressed by current policies and practices. This article also weighs in on the debate in the sociology of culture over how culture influences action.     

Religious and Secular Voluntary Participation by Immigrants in Canada: How Trust and Social Networks Affect Decision to Participate

Participation in voluntary associations is an important part of an immigrant’s integration into a host country. This study examines factors that predispose an immigrant’s voluntary involvement in religious and secular organizations compared to non-immigrants (“natives”) in Canada, and how immigrants differ from natives in their voluntary participation. The study results indicate that informal social networks, religious attendance, and level of education positively correlate with the propensity of both immigrants and natives to participate and volunteer in religious and secular organizations. Immigrants who have diverse bridging social networks, speak French and/or English at home, and either attend school or are retired are more likely to participate and volunteer for secular organizations. Further, social trust matters to native Canadians in their decision to engage in religious and secular organizations but not to immigrants. Pride and a sense of belonging, marital status, and the number of children increase the likelihood of secular voluntary participation of natives but not of immigrants. These findings extend the current understanding of immigrant integration and have important implications for volunteer recruitment.     

VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATION MEMBERSHIP AMONG BLACK AMERICANS: THE POST-CIVIL RIGHTS ERA

This article discusses voluntary association membership among black Americans in the post-civil rights era. Previous empirical studies comparing black to white social participation are critically assessed. A model composed of social class and intragroup regionality variables is offered to explain membership patterns as a manifestation of vertical and horizontal differentiation in the black American social structure. The analysis of empirical data collected by telephone interviews (N= 321) in a southwest Chicago community revealed that education most accurately predicts membership across associations but that occupation and regionality are also important variables. The analysis showed that members of church groups and civil rights groups are likely to be women from the rural South with at least 12 years of education. These findings suggest that explanations of black American life in the post-civil rights era may wish to consider vertical as well as horizontal differentiation.     

The Impact of Religious Homogeneity on the Rate of Divorce in the United States

This study extends the understanding of the relationship between religious homogeneity, that is, the extent to which formal religious groups are concentrated at the county level, and the rate of persons currently divorced in those counties. Linking the research question to Durkheimian precepts of religion as an integrative force in social life, the essential question is, “At the county level, does the rate of currently divorced vary inversely with more concentrated affiliation with formal religious organizations?” We investigate this relationship using data from the 1990 U.S. Census and from the Glenmary Research Center that encompasses 621 counties in the U.S., that is, a 20 percent random sample of counties from each state. As hypothesized, the divorced rate is inversely related to religious homogeneity, even after controlling for a series of factors that have been shown to be correlated with divorce in other studies.     

Civic involvement in deprived communities: A longitudinal study of England

This study aims to understand how community material deprivation is related to associational membership amongst neighbourhood residents. We posit that aside from personal characteristics and willingness to engage, experiences of neighbourhood deprivation are strongly correlated with how much people devote themselves to associational membership. We identify three mechanisms through which community deprivation can determine individual participation in political, civic, and work voluntary associations: social cohering, norms of obligation, and activated dissatisfaction. We link individual panel data from Understanding Society from 2010 to 2019 with the English Index of Multiple Deprivation at the neighbourhood level. This study finds that neighbourhood deprivation is associated with lower norms of civic obligation which, in turn, lowers a person's propensity for engagement. Individuals with low income and education are less likely to participate in voluntary associations in the first place, therefore the contextual role of neighbourhood deprivation exerts a further external negative pressure on civic participation. We find that membership in political organizations is an exception whereby it is positively associated with neighbourhood deprivation. The results imply that given the many economic and social capital benefits of associational involvement (Putnam, 2000), collective deprivation can produce an additive pattern of economic disadvantage which is reinforced through a lack of social participation.     

Commercial ventures of religious organizations

Religious groups represent almost 40 percent of all U.S. nonprofits. An empirical study of 105 religious-based commercial ventures suggests several conclusions and implications for practitioners and scholars. First, the earning of income is rarely the primary consideration or measure of success in the initiation and evolution of religious-based nonprofit enterprise. The primary purpose of religious venturing is to achieve social and spiritual aims, such as evangelism, provision of membership services, or economic development. Second, the philosophy of the groups studied was more cooperative than competitive vis-vis other nonprofit and for-profit groups. Third, the study's findings on staff difficulties within nonprofit enterprise are consistent with those of other studies and underscore the importance of using volunteers strategically and of clearly defining how enterprise activities fit into the organization's mission. Fourth, a spiritual dimension distinguishes the operation of religious nonprofits, especially the Christian groups, from secular enterprise.     

Heterogeneity and union membership determination

This paper formalizes theoretical and empirical analyses of the determination of union membership. It is argued that an important (and usually ignored) consideration affecting the union status of workers is the externalities between (potential) union members: The gain a worker derives from unionization is affected by the characteristics of the workers who already belong to the union, and the gain union members derive from admitting an additional worker to membership depends on that worker’s characteristics. Thus, two conditions must hold if a worker is to join a union: (1) unionization should increase his wage, and (2) union members must benefit from adding him. The main implication of this analysis is that in a given industry/occupation a union is more likely to form among workers withlower rents. To test this proposition, I present an empirical analysis using data from the May 1979 Current Population Survey (CPS) Public Use Sample. A procedure for measuring worker’s rent is discussed and certain relationships between rent and union membership are identified. I am most indebted to Finis Welch for many valuable comments and suggestions throughout the preparation of this study. I have also benefited from comments made by Mark Killingsworth, Kevin Murphy, Mark Plant, the editor of this journal, and an anonymous referee. The generous availability of the computer facilities at Unicon Research Corporation is appreciated.