Toward Culturally Democratic Citizens: Nongovernmental Organizations and the State

This study investigates the relationships between nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the state. It demonstrates that Colombian state institutions aim to foster “culturally democratic citizens” through decentralization initiatives and participation mechanisms at the local level. The National Culture Plan is an overarching national policy that intends to be a reference for governance and civil society participation looking particularly to the players involved in the provision and consumption of cultural activities for its implementation. It marks a change at the national level as it launches civil society into the formulation of cultural policies and political participation in general. By examining local nongovernmental organizations through document and qualitative analysis, the study identifies four types of nongovernmental organizations that self-identified as working in cultural activities in Bogotá—insiders, yearners, dismissers, and outsiders. These types of NGOs emerged in personal interviews and illustrate that NGO–state relationships vary across the sector. Participation among the nongovernmental sector is uneven despite institutional reforms and initiatives supported by national legislation. This article provides data to add to a growing and innovative body of research necessary for professionals in public policy and nongovernmental management fields.     

Finding Meaningful Support: Young People's Experiences of “Risky” Environments

This paper reports on the qualitative phase of a New Zealand study of young people who had been exposed to “risky” environments from a young age. These young people had experienced traumatic events such as abuse, violence, addictions, mental health issues, and many had been excluded from school. The young people (aged between 13 and 17) were users of multiple services (statutory and nongovernmental services including: child welfare, juvenile justice, remedial education, and mental health services). Qualitative interviews (n?=?109) explored young people's experiences in their families, communities, education, and their perspectives on support provided by services and their own support networks. Three thematic clusters emerged as central motifs in young people's experiences and are the focus of this article: navigating “risky” environments; services and support; and, working to find different pathways.     

Accent on the POZitive? AIDS Coverage in POZ,A Magazine for HIV-Positive Individuals

The author examined biomedical AIDS stories published in POZ, a magazine targeted at HIV-positive men and women in the United States, during 1996-2000. A monthly stratified sample of 12 issues were content analyzed. The results show that the overall tone of coverage was 0.94 on a scale of 0 (negative) to 2 (positive) and that medical or scientific (nongovernmental) sources, unaffiliated HIV-positive sources, and AIDS activist sources figured most prominently in coverage.     

Five dimensions of effectiveness for nonprofit annual reports

Annual reports are an important communication device through which nonprofit entities can satisfy their duty to be accountable to donors and the public at large. The primary objective of this article is to identify best practices for annual reports based on five dimensions: completeness, accessibility, transparency, full disclosure, and relevance. This article reports on both the financial and nonfinancial content in voluntarily provided annual reports. Based on our survey, we include recommendations and examples to help nonprofit leaders improve communication with stakeholders. While many of the recommendations can be adopted at little or no additional cost, achieving the most important criterion, relevance, will require nonprofit leaders to substantially improve their reporting of organizational goals and accomplishments.     

How Should an International NGO Allocate Growth?

PLAN International (PLAN) developed a methodology to ensure that its robust growth in the late 1980s and early 1990s was directed in a manner that was explicitly consistent with organizational strategy. This methodology enabled it to target its growth toward countries where child-related need was greater and in which its program approach was likely to have most impact. Managers of international nongovernmental organizations should find PLAN's experience relevant as they strive to strike a balance between organizational expansion, with its pressures and distractions, and the crucial need to maintain institutional focus.     

The SOPEMI experience: genesis,aims and achievements

The Systeme d'Observation Permanente sur les Migrations (SOPEMI) was established in 1973 to provide the European member states of the organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) with a mechanism for the timely sharing of information on international migration. The core of the SOPEMI has always been a group of national experts who prepare annual reports on the migration situation in their respective countries. A summary of those national reports constitutes the annual SOPEMI report. 11 European countries have been consistently represented by SOPEMI membership while overseas member states (Australia, Canada, and the US) have joined only recently. Currently, the functioning of SOPEMI can be described in terms of 6 elements: 1) The Working Party on Migration. The principal function of SOPEMI is to provide information to this body, whose mandate is to collect systematically information trends and policies in the OECD member states to identify emerging problems in international cooperation. 2) Correspondents. These are academic or government officials who are experts on international migration and whose appointment to SOPEMI has been deemed acceptable by both OECD and national authorities in their respective member states. 3) National Reports. Correspondents produce national reports summarizing the main features of international migration in their respective countries during the most recent calendar year. 4) The Meeting. In November of each year, SOPEMI correspondents meet in Paris for 2 days to compare national experiences and exchange information. 5) SOPEMI's Annual Report. The annual report contains an assessment of the major themes emerging from national reports and a series of statistical tables. 6) The Grid. In an attempt to enhance the comparability of national reports, the OECD Secretariat has prepared a grid outlining the main topics deserving attention. In its latest format, the Annual SOPEMI Report includes 4 types of statistical tables: 1) cross national tables (for OECD Europe), 2) host-country tables (for OECD Europe), 3) emigration country tables, and 4) tables for non-European countries. To the extent possible, data on both stocks and flows of foreigners are presented. 1 of the greatest contributions of SOPEMI has been its ability to signal changes in the patterns and processes of international migration in Western Europe and North America as they have happened. Since flexibility is 1 of the key factors allowing such an accomplishment, it would be unwise to restrict it now that both the similarities and differences between national experiences need to be carefully disentangled.     

International Nongovernmental Organizations and Carbon Dioxide Emissions in the Developing World: A Quantitative, Cross-National Analysis

This quantitative, cross-national study is designed to test hypotheses linking the activities of international nongovernmental organizations to reductions in carbon dioxide emissions in the developing world. While many quantitative studies of variation in carbon dioxide emissions have been published, none have included a control for the presence of international nongovernmental organizations. We review the literature that discusses the many ways that international nongovernmental organizations work to reduce environmental degradation in developing nations. We then conduct a panel regression analysis in which we include a variable to estimate the effects of international nongovernmental organizations on carbon dioxide emissions while including variables suggested by other relevant theoretical perspectives. Our findings are quite clear in that nations with high levels of international nongovernmental organization presence have lower levels of carbon dioxide emissions than nations with low levels of international nongovernmental organization presence. We also find support for the ecological modernization hypothesis pertaining to the existence of an environmental Kuznet's curve between the level of economic development and level of carbon dioxide emissions.     

日本文化名城保护——从“官督民办”到“官民协作”

本文在文献研究的基础上,通过分析多个实践案例,考察了日本文化名城保护从＂官督民办＂到＂民推官办＂,再到＂官民协作＂的历史发展过程,并总结出日本在文化名城保护方面的两大特色：民间力量壮大;官民配合默契。论文同时指出日本在文化名城保护方面面临的一些问题。最后从政府和民间、保护和宣传以及制度和文化的关系出发,提出了对我国文化名城保护的建议。     

Fifty Years of the Southern Sociological Society: Change and Continuity in a Professional Society. Methodological Perspectives on Studying the History of the Southern Sociological Society

This paper revisits research procedures used to collect and analyze data for Fifty Years of the Southern Sociological Society: Change and Continuity in a Professional Society (1988) to comment on methodological issues. The fifty years of change were conceptualized as having shifted the Southern Sociological Society from a disciplinary to a professional mode of organization. The shift occurred both from evolutionary processes and from deliberate revolutionary actions of officials and members. Data for the study came mainly from the Society’s Archives. It included personal accounts by presidents, secretary-treasurers’ and committee reports, annual programs and newsletters. Evolutionary processes of adapting the association to the growth of membership, to differentiation of fields of sociological study, along with the rationalization and formalization of the Society’s governance and operation, were extracted mainly from annual programs, the most continuous and objective body of archival information. Revolutionary changes, including adaptation to societal challenges including racial segregation, from the Society’s founding onward were inferred from personal accounts, committee reports, and newsletters, and were confirmed from interviews with long-standing members.     

Annual reports: Earning surprising respect from institutional investors

This study provides an analysis of the corporate annual report as a vehicle of information and usefulness to the institutional investor. Considerable research and literature exist on the “how-to's” of annual reports, but little is known about the annual's information value to those who many consider to be the paramount audience for the publication-the institutional fund/ portfolio managers.Considering the significant impact institutions have on share price and cost of capital, there is value in examining corporate America's financial communication with this influential audience, particularly in respect to the role of the annual report, the most expensive and controversial element.This study is a condensed version of a thesis submitted to the University of Houston's School of Communication. Mr. Hutchins is Secretary of the Shell Oil Company Foundation in Houston.     

Navigating the Shifting Sands of Social Work Terrain: Social Work Practice in Postmodern Conditions

In an effort to inform social work education, this article reports on part of a study examining the factors that hinder or facilitate involvement in social justice efforts. Based on a case example of Canadian international development nongovernmental organizations, the article presents the findings of an analysis of organizational documents. I argue that international development organizations' conceptions of involvement reproduce inequitable North-South power relations through a perpetuation of colonial discourses of the South. This perpetuation of inequitable power relations is evident in three main themes: the tragic South; the hero/victim binary; and the ideal of one world. The implications of these findings for social work education are outlined.     

A Social Networks Approach to Public Relations on Twitter: Social Mediators and Mediated Public Relations

This study proposes theoretical and practical frameworks to systematically examine mediated public relations in social media spaces. We applied a social network conceptual framework to identify and characterize social mediators that connect the US State Department with its international public. The results showed that social mediators vary in terms of their formality and interdependence. Formal social mediators were primarily US government agencies while informal social mediators were nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and individuals. Notably, relationships with populations in the Middle East and North Africa were mediated primarily by informal actors, and formal mediators played a key role in connecting the public with everywhere else in the world. Government-related formal mediators and informal social mediators showed similar levels of bilateral relationships. In contrast, news media, the most traditional public relations mediators, were rarely found as social mediators and demonstrated the most unilateral relationships.     

The careers of NGO field‐workers in Bangladesh

This article looks at field‐workers employed by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Bangladesh. It can be argued that NGO field‐workers, who work directly with clients, are an undervalued and underused resource in Bangladesh. A questionnaire survey, participant observation, and semistructured interviews of field‐workers in four types of NGOs (international, large national, regional, and small local) revealed that they are from rural, middle‐class families and, because the work requires rigorous physical exercise, most of them are young. They do not join NGOs as field‐workers enthusiastically, but rather to have a job and earn money. Most field‐workers in Bangladesh must leave the job when they grow older or (in the case of women) get married.     

BRAC: Anatomy of a “poverty enterprise”

Management of the poverty alleviation process has created a new form of poverty enterprise. This enterprise provides poverty‐production‐market linkages, and in the process, it combines three features: a nonprofit nongovernmental organization, a for‐profit nongovernmental organization that has established an internal market, and a profit‐making industrial and business concern. This article explains how BRAC (Building Resources Across Community) in Bangladesh has used poverty to transform itself from a tiny relief distribution organization into the world's largest poverty enterprise. This enterprise is characterized by contradictions between its public claims and actual practices.     

Hierarchization,Boundary Making,and Inequality: Exploring the Structural Changes of Chinese Grassroots NGOs in a Transition Era

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Grassroots nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) around the world have experienced a process of hierarchization in recent...     

Essential Data Elements for Reporters of Elder Abuse

Most states' adult or elder protective services and aging agency personnel prepare annual reports about their protective services. These reports vary by state and have different terms for the reporter of abuse. Reviewing annual reports from 46 states and the District of Columbia, 248 different terms were used for the reporter of abuse. To develop essential data elements for reporters of abuse, a literature search, a compilation of state elder abuse annual report list of abuse reporters, and a sorting exercise were conducted. Eleven terms were recommended for the different reporters of abuse, encouraging all state administrators and caseworkers to reach consensus to standardize the language.     

Religious Nongovernmental Organizations: An Exploratory Analysis

This paper represents the first systematic attempt at an analysis of religious nongovernmental organizations (RNGOs). Largely ignored as an organizational field, RNGOs constitute a new breed of religious actors shaping global policy–an organizational hybrid of religious beliefs and social activism at local, national, and international levels. This paper proposes a definition of RNGOs, traces the emergence of RNGOs from an historical perspective, and situates them in their current religious and sociopolitical contexts. Drawing on interviews and documentary data from a sample of 263 United Nations-affiliated RNGOs, the author proposes an analytical framework to examine the religious, organizational, strategic, and service dimensions of these organizations. Religious nongovernmental organizations' unique contributions to the redefinition of a just society as well as the sociopolitical challenges arising from their religious identity are discussed.     

Women's legal knowledge: a case study of Mexican urban dwellers

In Mexico, the nongovernmental organization Sevisio, Desarrollo y Paz, A.C. (SEDEPAC) is helping poor women acquire legal knowledge in an economic climate characterized by the increased feminization of poverty brought about by the Structural Adjustment Program. The Mexican legal system is grounded in a patriarchal tradition, and the codified laws continue to favor men. Women were not granted full citizenship until 1953, and discrimination against women was not addressed in Mexican law until 1974 as the country prepared to host the First UN International Women's Conference. However, legal advances are not being applied in the family or in larger society where men remain in power. Mexico also distinguishes between private law and public law. Because domestic violence falls in the realm of private law, authorities are loathe to follow-up on women's complaints in this area. Since its founding in 1983, SEDEPAC has applied a gender perspective to its activities and programs. SEDEPAC held its first women's legal workshop in 1987 and realized that most poor women have no knowledge of existing laws or their rights, that alternative legal services for women are scarce, that existing laws must be changed, and that the authoritarian and conservative legal system helps maintain cultural stereotypes. Since then, SEDEPAC has held annual workshops, follow-up meetings, and training sessions and has provided counseling. The main topics addressed are women's social conditions; violence and the penal code; civil rights, power, and dependency; women's bodies and reproductive rights; and women's organization and leadership. The workshops use techniques of popular education such as group participation and use of gossip as a communication tool. The workshops have changed participants' lives and led to the formation of an independent Popular Defenders' Coordination.     

Peace and Conflict Resolution Organizations in Three Protracted Conflicts: Structures,Resources and Ideology

Guided by organizational and social movement theories, this study compares the structures, resource bases, ideologies, and strategies of nongovernmental organizations engaged in peace and conflict resolution (P/CROs) in three regions with extended violent conflicts: Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Israel/Palestine. Qualitative content analysis techniques are used to analyze 27 detailed case reports. We analyze the funding patterns and structural attributes of the P/CROs in our sample, with particular attention to how they obtain fiscal resources and membership in spite of the risks they may experience. We then explore the degree of formalization among P/CROs over time and, finally, we examine the ideological frames that P/CROs use and how these frames relate to their tactics. Throughout the analysis we pay attention to how the political context of each region influences P/CRO behavior.     

Mandatory Public Benefit Reporting as a Basis for Charity Accountability: Findings from England and Wales

Charitable status is inherently linked in many jurisdictions with the requirement that an entity must be established for public benefit. But, until recently the public benefit principle had relatively little impact on the operations of most established charities. However, in England and Wales, reforms linked to the «Charities Act 2006» led to a new requirement for public benefit reporting in the trustees’ annual report (TAR) of every registered charity. This new narrative reporting requirement had the potential to affect the understanding of accountability by charities. The paper investigates the impact of that requirement through a study of over 1,400 sets of charity reports and accounts and subsequent qualitative work with trustees and others involved in preparing TARs.