Diversifying revenue sources in Canada: Are women's voluntary organizations different?

Government policies in Canada have taken a hard right turn, and tax cuts now have priority over investing in social programming. Both federal and provincial governments have been withdrawing from direct service provision, with the expectation that the voluntary sector will fill the gap. At the same time, traditional government support for the voluntary sector has declined, which limits the ability of organizations to meet their current service demands. Using a sample of 645 organizations from across Canada, this article explores the use of revenue diversification as a response to policy changes. The findings indicate that the factors related to voluntary organizations' in Canada embracing revenue diversification to support program delivery differ for organizations run by women and nongendered organizations.     

Promoting Philanthropy? News Publicity and Voluntary Organizations in Canada

This paper reports exploratory data from a broader study that examines media representations of the voluntary sector in Canada. It specifically identifies the resources and organizational attributes of Canadian voluntary groups that appear to be important for receiving mainstream news coverage. The data identifies four sets of characteristics of more than 500 voluntary organizations: demographic variables, association type, noneconomic resources, and economic expenditures. These characteristics are examined in terms of their relationship to news coverage. The data suggest that area of activity is significantly related to the amount of media attention that organizations receive. However, the amount of media attention that an organization receives is most strongly influenced by its yearly budget. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to both current debates about advocacy in the voluntary sector and important contextual developments that are transforming the communication environment in which charities and nonprofit organizations in Canada operate. We also draw comparisons to news coverage of the voluntary sector in other liberal democratic countries.     

The Deployment of Partnerships by the Voluntary Sector to Address Service Needs in Rural and Small Town Canada

Service restructuring trends since the 1980s have resulted in the downsizing or closure of many services in rural and small town Canada. In response, voluntary groups have been filling some of the emerging service gaps. Services, however, often are directed at complex problems that demand information, support, or assistance from a range of sources and institutions. For voluntary groups, this underscores a need to partner with other groups, organizations, or service providers. At the same time, voluntary organizations are increasingly encouraged to develop partnerships with public or private partners in order to qualify for government funding. This study tracks 29 voluntary organizations in four rural and small town places across Canada to explore the development and maintenance of partnerships (both local and non-local), as well as the types of networks, resources, and expertise for which partnerships were used. The findings indicate that while voluntary organizations feel that local partnerships are more important, partnerships with groups outside of these places are equally developed. Partnerships were used to expand networks, obtain expertise, and access a range of resources to assist in daily operations and delivery of services. The increase in partnerships with groups outside of these communities, particularly with non-local service providers, will have important implications for voluntary organizations and policy makers.

Service Delivery and Civic Engagement: Disability Organizations in Northern Ireland

In the United Kingdom, the New Labour administration that came to power in 1997 has promoted two models of partnership between the state and the voluntary sector. The civic engagement model is based on the renewed interest among governments in the potential of voluntary organizations to contribute to the civic engagement of citizens. In the service delivery model, voluntary organizations are recruited to the task of delivering core social services. Drawing on data from disability-related voluntary organizations in Northern Ireland, this paper illustrates the impact of the service delivery partnership model on the development of voluntary action in the welfare field, and the relative paucity of resources allocated to participatory voluntary action and civic engagement. The consequent impact on the development of partnerships between the state and the voluntary sector is discussed.     

Benefits and Role Performance in Voluntary Organizations: An Exploration of Social Exchange*

This paper reports an exploration of the relationship between members' role performance and the benefits they receive from their organizations. The general relationship is interpreted in the context of a “social exchange model” for voluntary associations. Data for the analysis pertain to members of four voluntary farm organizations: Farm Bureau, Farmers Union, National Farmers Organization, and Grange. The data were obtained in a state-wide survey of Wisconsin farm operators in 1965. In general, the data show a moderate relationship, in a positive direction, between benefits and role performance. The benefits tend to differ in the magnitude and, in some instances, in the direction of their relationships to such performance. The findings indicate the importance of taking into account magnitude and direction of relationship, as well as interaction among the benefits and among costs, in order to devise a viable social exchange model of cost-benefit relations for voluntary associations.     

Role ambiguity and volunteer board member performance in nonprofit sport organizations

We explore the relationship between multidimensional role ambiguity and individual board member performance within nonprofit voluntary sport organizations. Role ambiguity accounted for 29 percent of the variance in perceived board member performance, and ambiguity about one's responsibilities was the strongest predictor. These findings extend our understanding of the drivers of individual board member performance within voluntary sport organizations and the multidimensional nature of role ambiguity. The study supports previous arguments that knowing what to do is fundamental to one's performance, and more critical than knowing how to do it, and what difference it makes.     

Leadership within Australian voluntary sport organization boards

This article applies leader‐member exchange theory to the study of dyadic relationships between leaders (board chairs and paid executives) and members (volunteer board members) within the boards of Australian voluntary sport organizations. The article specifically examines leader‐member exchanges within a sample of six Queensland State sport organizations and their relationship with board performance. It was found that leadership within voluntary sport organization boards emanates from either board chairs or executives and that when the individuals fulfilling these roles are able to develop a mature working relationship, the board's ability to perform is enhanced. These findings extend our understanding of the importance of leadership roles held by volunteers and paid professionals for the achievement of organizational outcomes.     

Adding the Organizational Perspective: How Organizations Shape Service Work Abroad

International volunteering is an increasingly popular form of service work, but the scholarship on international volunteering has done little to unpack the assertion that organizations shape the international volunteering experience. We demonstrate the utility of taking an organizational perspective by reporting on an ethnographic investigation of an international voluntary service episode in Southern India. In doing so, we attend to all of the parties common to international volunteering—the coordinating international volunteer service organization, the host NGOs, and the volunteers—and pay particular attention to the organizational dynamics that influence the service rendered. We find that the different actors in the service relationship understood successful international development efforts in different ways, which frustrated the productivity of the relationships in question. These mismatched goals were partly the legacy of a partnership-formation process that followed a cultural–historical logic rather than an instrumental one. The consequences were dissatisfaction on the part of volunteers and mixed benefits for the organizations with which they were matched. We suggest that these findings have relevance to other international volunteering sites.     

The Case for Better Maps of Social Service Provision: Using the Holy Cross Dispute to Illustrate More Effective Mapping

Third-sector organizations provide essential services, but not all types of organizations operate equally well given different intensities of public problems. This article argues for maps that would help social service funding bodies. Those maps would include three elements: (1) a measure of service demanded by a community, (2) data on the full range of organizations able to supply those services, and (3) a chart that identifies those organizations that provide services at different intensities of need. By providing information about the supply of organizations in a community, with measures of demand for services, state funding bodies, foundations, and individual philanthropists can make informed decisions about where to allocate funds. An ideal map is illustrated by using the case of the Holy Cross Dispute (2001), whereby a host of voluntary sector organizations provided a voice for residents in this divided Belfast community. The result is a call for more intensive mapping exercises of voluntary sector social service provision.     

Volunteers and Professionals in Norwegian Sport Organizations

The mass media, politicians, and social scientists assert that there are increasing problems in recruiting volunteers to voluntary organizations. This paper investigates the situation with respect to voluntary sport organizations in a Norwegian context. The situation for voluntary and paid work is described and discussed with respect to different kinds of sport organizations. The empirical results show that voluntary work still is the foundation of most sport organizations, but that there are large differences between various types of organizations, and that voluntary work functions in complex interaction with other important economic and structural features of these organizations.     

Leader–member exchange in nonprofit sport organizations

Numerous human resource studies examining the relationship between leaders and followers have found that employees' high levels of leader–member exchange (LMX) are associated with higher job satisfaction and a greater intention to stay with their organizations. Considering the nature of voluntary work in nonprofit sport organizations, leader–member relations may be one of the most important factors influencing volunteer workers' commitment. This study examines the influences of LMX dimensions (Affect, Loyalty, Contribution, and Professional Respect) of volunteer leaders and followers on job satisfaction and assesses the influences of LMX dimensions and job satisfaction of volunteer leaders and followers on intention to stay with their organizations. The findings imply a strong value in positive reciprocal relationships between leaders and followers for enhancing job satisfaction and retention.     

Child Protection,Voluntary Organizations,and the Public Sector in Sweden

This paper presents an analysis of the role of Swedish voluntary organizations within the field of child protection as well as processes of institutionalization within such organizations. The empirical focus is on the two most important voluntary organizations within the field today, namely Rädda Barnen (Save the Children) and BRIS (Children's Right in Society). And their importance within the child protection discourse, as well as their role as producers of welfare, is discussed. In the latter respect two different processes of professionalization—professionalization of volunteers and avant-garde professionalism—are identified. It is demonstrated that the relationship between the state and voluntary organizations is a key issue when understanding the nature of the organizations and their role in the organizational landscape.     

The Contribution of Voluntary Organizations to the Care of Children with Life-limiting Incurable Disorders and their Families

A national postal survey of voluntay organizations providing for children with life-limiting incurable disorders (n = 147) is described. The majority of organizations originated from the motivation of parents or care workers in response to deficiencies in service provision from other agencies. A wide variety of services were available from the organizations with over half providing an information service, emotional support and counselling, patient and family support and a telephone helpline. The provision of some services, for example respite care, was, hoverer, associated with the size of annual budgets. Publicity, referral and funding arrangements are also discussed. The role of voluntary organizations as partners in care with statutory agencies is discussed in the light of instability of funding arrangements and the use of health and social work staff as the main source of information about voluntary services to parents. Areas of further research in this field are suggested.     

Organized Environmentalists: Democracy as a Key Value?

This article, taking as its point of departure that voluntary organizations are of crucial importance in a democracy, views the transformation of the Norwegian voluntary sector through the lenses of what happens within the environmental field. Seeing changes within this field as prototypical for the transformation of the voluntary sector more generally, we start with the organizational level and contrast old versus new environmental organizations. The aim is to ascertain to what extent the newly built organizations are leaving the historically important democratic organizational model. Second, we compare attitudes toward democracy of members of the democratically and nondemocratically built organizations: attitudes both toward democracy within a voluntary organization (internal) and democracy in society (external). Furthermore, we compare these findings with what we find for the population at large. The last section analyzes demographic characteristics of organized environmentalists to see whether a new type of elite, more distanced from the population at large, is emerging in the new and nondemocratically built organizations. The study finds that new organizations are definitely breaking with the democratic organizational model. The support for democracy (internal and external) is comprehensive but not always overwhelming, and there is a tendency in the direction of congruence between organizational structure and individual attitudes. That is, members of democratically built organizations especially value internal but also to some extent external democracy more than members of nondemocratically built organizations. However, even if formal democratic structure and democracy as an absolute and generalized value seems to be under pressure, it does not follow that a new type of elitism is emerging.     

Organizational and Leadership Status*

Sociological research on voluntary associations seldom has dealt with the characteristics of these organizations as emergent properties. Generally associational elements are conceived of as mere configurations of aggregate member qualities. Thus, the status accorded voluntary groups at any given time is thought to be the sum total of member and leader prestige. Although a high correlation exists between organizational rank and leader-member status, the relationship remains unexplained. Focusing on three organizational properties as determinants of associational rank, a tentative explanation is offered. It is maintained that as organizations mature their emergent properties become crucial considerations in the selection of their leaders, one consideration being who will best symbolize the organizations' rank in the community.     

Retaining Critical Human Capital: Volunteer Firefighters in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Effective delivery of services for the public good involves a multiplicity of organizations and actors, including those from the public, nonprofit, and private sectors. In some cases, service delivery is accomplished using programs that directly engage volunteers, including key public services like community-based and nonprofit volunteer fire departments. Volunteers in fire departments—often highly engaged volunteers with specialized training—provide vital services for a substantial portion of the United States, allowing local governments to realize considerable cost savings. Thus, issues of volunteer retention are a critical challenge for fire departments. Existing research has addressed issues of retention in a variety of settings; we argue that the challenging and particular context of fire departments is worthy of focused research. This article is an exploratory study of the predictors of voluntary firefighter retention in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We use data from a web-based survey of volunteer firefighters to examine the factors that influence volunteer retention, focusing specifically on volunteer management practices and broader job-related concepts. Results indicate that volunteer training, performance management, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment influence both short- and mid-term intent to remain, indicating that management practices and programs, as well as other contextual factors that shape satisfaction and commitment, are important in retaining volunteers.     

Leader‐member exchanges and board performance of voluntary sport organizations

Using leader‐member exchange theory developed by Dansereau, Graen, and Haga (1975), this chapter analyzes the dyadic relationship between leaders (board chairs and paid executives) and members (volunteer board members) within the boards of Australian voluntary sport organizations. The chapter specifically examines the quality of leader‐member exchanges that exist within a sample of thirty‐four Queensland State Sporting Organizations and their relationship with board performance. It was found that board chairs and executives perceived the quality of their leader‐member exchanges to be higher than their respective relationships with board members, and that higher‐quality leader‐member exchanges among all three possible pairings of executives, board chairs, and board members were positively related to higher levels of board performance. The chapter discusses implications and directions for further research into leader‐member exchanges within voluntary sports organizations.     

Women’s Voluntary Organizations in Canada: Bridgers,Bonders, or Both?

Using a sample of 645 voluntary organizations in Canada, this study explores the differences between women’s voluntary organizations and gender-neutral organizations in their propensity to form a bridging or a bonding interorganizational relationship. The results suggest that not only do women’s organizations in Canada collaborate more than gender-neutral organizations, but also the tendency to have bridging or bonding relationships is significantly different. The factors predisposing women’s organizations to have collaborators inside or outside their network seems to be affected by how much the environmental changes in Canada impact their survival and whether the nature of the causes they support makes them an attractive partner. For gender-neutral organizations the tendency to bridge or bond seems to relate more to traditional organizational characteristics, such as size and staffing efficiency.     

WHEN 'VIRTUAL' MEETS VALUES: INSIGHTS FROM THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR

Electronic networking can support strategic re-positioning within organizations seeking to respond effectively to deep shifts in the social, economic and political regimes in which they operate today. Evidence, though, from our large-scale survey of core UK voluntary organizations suggests that voluntary organizations do not always seek to exploit this capability. Instead, our survey indicates that voluntary organizations are exploiting information and communication technologies (ICTs) in conventional ways to enhance administrative and operational efficiency and effectiveness. There is little evidence of more strategic applications supporting reconfiguration of the organization internally, redefinition of relationships across organizational networks or the extension of business scope. Further research based upon in-depth case studies demonstrated that social conditions are active in shaping the uptake and application of information and communication technologies within voluntary organizations. Within volunteer-intensive settings in particular,founding philosophies and the deeply rooted values that accompany these can have a profound effect. Ultimately,the technologically supported transformations, which occur within the organizations that we examine here, emerge from the inter-play between historically institutionalized values, strategic objectives and technological capability.