The Exclusion of Disabled People from Positions of Power in British Voluntary Organisations

Disabled people are excluded in various ways from a wide range of social privileges, activities and institutions. Voluntary and charitable organisations promote themselves as champions of disabled people in their struggle for access to the ordinary choices and opportunities of everyday life. This paper reports the findings of an empirical study which demonstrate that in voluntary agencies governed by able-bodied people, disabled people are excluded from positions of power and influence, and they experience the same sorts of barriers and constraints as those with which they are confronted in the wider world. Furthermore, the development of agencies governed by disabled people themselves is constrained by their lack of access to money, staff and other resources.     

Building the Capacity to Play on Multilevel Policy Processes: French Environmental Movement Organisations and the European Union

The European Union (EU) is a relevant case to address the dynamics of transnational politics, given the significance of the EU environmental legislation in member states. Infranational, national and supranational/EU decision-making arenas still co-exist, without completely overlapping. This study explores how the multilevel nature of the EU policy-making process is exploited by national environmental movement organisations (EMOs). Diverging from the explanation in terms of political opportunity structure or their resource basis, we examine EMOs that do not automatically adapt to the EU multilevel policy process. The discussion takes up the classic debate between grievances (intentionality) and resources (capacity) hypothesising that both are constructed in EMOs' actions and through their interactions with public authorities, allies and members. Within the analytical framework developed in this study, the organisation is viewed as a factor explaining EU activism by combining an endogenous action approach with classical resource mobilisation concepts. The ensuing longitudinal analysis compares the case of three French EMOs: France-Nature-Environnement, Friends of the Earth-France and Greenpeace-France.     

Episodic Volunteering in Sport Events: A Seven-Country Analysis

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Given its ubiquitous nature, sport events are one of the most popular venues for episodic volunteering around the world....     

Great Expectations: Voluntary Sports Clubs and Their Role in Delivering National Policy for English Sport

Voluntary sports clubs (VSCs) account for about a quarter of all volunteering in England. The volunteers work in a mutual aid, self-production, self-consumption system whose main purpose is identifying and nurturing high-level performers. But the new HMG/Sport England strategies leading to London 2012 expects volunteers to make a major contribution to sustaining and extending participation. The study utilized six focus group sessions with a total of 36 officials and members of 36 clubs across the six counties of Eastern England to assess whether and to what extent government policy objectives can be delivered through the voluntary sector. The study focused on the perceptions and attitudes of club members about being expected to serve public policy and the current pressures they and their clubs face. The results lead the authors to question the appropriateness, sensitivity, and feasibility of current sport policy, particularly the emphasis on VSCs as policy implementers.     

Informal Learning for Citizenship Building in Shared Struggles for Rights: Cases of Political Solidarity Between Colombian and Spanish Organisations

Dominant discourses and practices in international cooperation have been characterised by depoliticisation and unequal power relationships. However, a number of more transformative experiences of cooperation also exist, where joint work between Northern and Southern social organisations is linked with a more political perspective. These kinds of experiences can be considered processes of informal learning in social action: through shared actions, strategies and frameworks and through interaction between organisations, institutions and the grassroots, informal and multidimensional learning processes occur in the people and organisations engaged. The study approaches four cases of networks that have linked Spanish and Colombian organisations which promote advocacy and social mobilisation for the defence of human rights in Colombia. The results show that people engaged in the cases experience intense learning processes that are relevant for the construction of solidarities and a radical global citizenship, but that these processes are also replete with limitations, tensions and challenges.     

Searching for a Capacity Building Model in Social Work Education in China

This paper contains our reflections about our experiences in employing a capacity building model for training social workers to conduct community development work in rural China. Unlike the conventional approach to social work practicum, our approach advocates an educational practice of capacity building; not only for local people and learners, but for educators as well. It stresses that the educator should assume a non‐expert role in relating to his/her students so that the students will do the same with local people. We challenge the concept of the social work educator as an expert because it gives a teacher the power and authority to dominate students, which disempowers students during the learning process. In the same vein, we challenge the desire of social work students to become experts in rural development, which in turn disempowers local people from taking charge of the future direction of their lives in rural China. The capacity building approach subscribes to a critical pedagogy that calls for a re‐invention of self by challenging tradition and culture, and by developing academic knowledge, the habit of inquiry and critical curiosity about society, power, inequality, and social change.     

Building Capacity for Service User and Carer Involvement in Social Work Education

Requirements set out for the social work degree and post‐qualifying framework specify the involvement of service users and carers on a number of levels. Research indicates that service user and carer involvement can benefit students, professionals and service users and carers themselves. To keep up with demands placed on service users and carers by higher education institutions and other social work bodies, the issue of capacity needs to be addressed. This paper describes a programme (Getting Involved) designed by Skills for Care to build capacity to participate among service users and carers new to social work education. It describes the experience of piloting the programme in Dorset by a team at Bournemouth University consisting of service users and carers and staff from the Centre for Post‐Qualifying Social Work. Getting Involved is a welcome development and the outcomes of the pilot have been extremely positive for all involved. The process of undertaking and evaluating the pilot raised issues concerning setting up programmes, project management, service users and carers as co‐researchers and sustainability. These are discussed in terms of our experience and how they link with the literature. Lessons learnt and implications for similar work in the future are highlighted.     

Elements of Capacity in Youth Development Nonprofits: An Exploratory Study of Urban Sport for Development and Peace Organizations

Organizational capacity is often discussed among nonprofit practitioners and scholars. Yet, empirical research employing a multidimensional capacity framework remains scarce in the nonprofit literature (Andersson et al. in VOLUNTAS Int J Volunt Nonprofit Organ 27(6):2860–2888, 2016). Using a qualitative research approach, we explored capacity in a specific segment of youth development nonprofits—sport for development and peace (SDP). We were guided by three research questions: (1) what are critical capacity elements of SDP nonprofits? (2) how do these capacity elements influence the ability of SDP nonprofits to achieve their desired goals and objectives? and (3) what are the capacity needs of SDP nonprofits in the USA? Findings from in-depth interviews with leaders of 29 organizations contribute to the development of theory on nonprofit capacity by providing a more nuanced understanding of capacity strengths and challenges related to broader nonprofit goal achievement. For example, paid staff, revenue generation, and internal infrastructure emerged as critically more important for capacity in this context. Practical and theoretical implications are further discussed.     

Civil Society Capacity Building for Democratic Reform: Experience and Lessons from Indonesia

This article examines civil society strengthening experience in Indonesia to illuminate issues, challenges, and lessons for non-governmental organization (NGO) capacity building and international donor-supported democratic reform. The authors conceive of capacity as a function of contextual factors, and internal factors associated with an individual NGO or a network of NGOs. Contextual factors that need to be taken into account in Indonesia include weak reform implementation, state distrust of NGOs, and backsliding on some basic freedoms. Among the important internal features of NGOs in democracy promotion are overreliance on confrontational advocacy strategies, shallow organizational capacity, inability to cooperate to leverage impact, limited outreach to indigenous constituencies and sustainability problems. Indonesia’s democracy-promotion NGO coalitions have largely operated as instruments of donor-supported reforms. As they seek to become socially embedded actors pursuing indigenous agendas, they face the need to confront the various expectations of their stakeholders regarding their roles and legitimacy, develop flexibility to respond to new engagements with government and with citizens, and address their internal capacity gaps. Three cases are presented that illustrate both the problems and the encouraging progress with government–NGO collaborations in democratic governance.     

Crisis on the Border: Specialized Capacity Building in Nonprofit Immigration Organizations

Traditional views of the nonprofit–government relationships suggest that while government may depend on nonprofit organizations to provide human services, nonprofits must also conform to government standards, monitoring, and regulation. In this paper, we argue that through specialized investments in capacity building, nonprofit providers can become irreplaceable to government funders. By developing a comparison case study of two organizations serving unaccompanied minor children who cross the U.S.–Mexico Border, we provide evidence of specialized capacity investments in a complex policy environment and discuss the implications of capacity building for both government and nonprofits.     

Assessing the Effectiveness of a Capacity Building Intervention in Empowering Hard-to-Reach Communities

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on hard-to-reach communities with weak histories of engagement and it explores whether facilitated community interventions can empower and develop community resilience. Drawing on data from 6 communities, the article indicates a need for tailored and context-specific support that matches local needs. Implementation of community projects is not linear and the delivery of interventions in hard-to-reach communities is associated with the risk of failure. Developing community resilience among communities that do not engage requires long-term interventions, on-going input, and a collaborative approach to working with communities to support equal and harmonized development.     

Exploring Digital Culture in Virtual Teams: Implications for Leading and Developing Distributed Organisations

Understanding human communication in the technological age is becoming more complex as advances in technology and its use in human exchange are being magnified. New studies show that technology is no longer just a device for human connections; it is an integrated artefact in the human exchange and communication process. As a result, we are witnessing and experiencing new norms and patterns of behaviour, values in human connections, expectations of one another, language, and other symbol systems: a digital culture. This article explores further development of the digital culture model in relation to organisational work culture. Specifically, the dimensions related to digital communication and online group dynamics are further articulated from a literature review. The findings are also presented from a study of e-process teams in a distributed organisation based on data from a digital culture inventory, focus group observations, and participant reflections, which illustrate changes in behaviour, language, group dynamics, and communication exchange between team members working in a distributed organisation. The article aims to contribute new insights which could inform approaches to organisational development that view organisational culture as central to the process.     

Increasing Opportunities for Co-production and Personalisation Through Social Work Student Placements in Disabled People's Organisations

Social work student practice placements in disabled people's organisations offer several advantages for individual students, their peers and tutors, and DPOs themselves, who can offer placements for students in supporting service users to give their views as well as delivering social care services. In this context professional skills and anti-discriminatory practice are fostered through learning directly from disabled people as experts without the constraints of local authority policies.

This paper draws on my experiences of such student placements at Wiltshire and Swindon Users' Network over a 15-year period, 1993–2008, in collaboration with different universities. The social work student on placement here experiences an alternative organisational culture which recognises service users' expertise over professionals. The student learns to value collective peer support and working with activists who view their experience through the framework of the social model of disability. This facilitates a two-way exchange as the student learns about user-led practice and the disabled activists appreciate the skills the student brings.

The advent of policies of personalisation, the Big Society and the decreased role of local authorities is challenging the traditional model of adult care social work within local authorities. The placement of social workers in local centres for independent living, in order to provide intensive one-to-one support in support planning for those in complex situations, is only likely to increase in future. This can be seen as a positive alternative which enables professionals to rediscover their professional values and practice and extends the opportunity for placements beyond DPOs concerned with user involvement only.     

Building Community Capacity to Advocate for Policy Change: An Outcome Evaluation of the Neighborhoods Working in Partnership Project in Detroit

This article presents results of the outcome evaluation of Neighborhoods Working in Partnership (NWP), a community-based participatory research project of the Detroit Community–Academic Urban Research Center, designed to enhance policy advocacy skills through training and support, thereby increasing community capacity, engagement, and empowerment of Detroit residents to change policies. Focus groups and conversational interviews were conducted with NWP participants. Results indicate that the workshop empowered participants and enhanced dimensions of community capacity. Participants reported engaging in policy advocacy activities and various policy successes. Participants identified challenges and facilitating factors to their policy campaigns. Recommendations for similar trainings are provided.