The DIRECTIONS nonprofit resource assessment model: A tool for small nonprofit organizations

Rapid growth in the number of nonprofits has created a shortage of trained staff and experienced volunteer leadership for nonprofit organizations. The Nonprofit Education Initiative (NEI) in South Carolina developed the DIRECTIONS nonprofit resource assessment model to provide tools to help nonprofits better meet the challenges facing our communities—tools that will help nonprofits develop effective plans, integrate resources, diversify revenue, communicate effective messages, and motivate constituents. These tools are also inexpensive and available close to home. The research and development process was a cooperative effort between the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management and Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service, with funding from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Cooperative Extension is a component of the land grant university system, the largest educational delivery system in the world. Cooperative Extension's role is to plan, execute, deliver, and evaluate learning programs consistent with locally identified needs. It helps people acquire the understanding, capabilities, attitudes, and skills essential to solving farm, home, and community problems. This article gives a background of the challenges facing nonprofit organizations in South Carolina, the steps taken to develop this new assessment model, and results of research conducted throughout the development process.     

Interdisciplinary bar for the public interest: What CSR and NGO frameworks contribute to the public relations of British and European activists

This paper outlines the ways in which various literatures and exemplary organizations (Business for Social Responsibility, the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management, and the Global Compact) define, set principles, and provide frameworks for corporate social responsibility (CSR). It also explores British broadcasters’ accountability mechanisms and the extent to which U.K. broadcasting activist NGOs view them as adequate CSR. The activists studied were six British broadcasting-centered and Scottish cultural NGOs that lobby in the EU and at home. The data suggested that these activists’ public relations has pro-social, pro-democratic effects and that the CSR/NGO literatures and organizational frameworks provided may enable broadcasting activists and targets to more effectively pursue CSR.     

Moral Positioning: Service User Experiences of Challenging Behaviour in Learning Disability Services

Several studies have indicated the importance of challengingbehaviour as a limiting factor on quality of life (Murphy et al., 1996;Brown and Thompson, 1997; Schwartz, 2003). This article presentsthe findings of research that aimed to investigate adults withlearning disabilities’ understanding and experiences ofwhat is perceived by staff and services to be challenging behaviour.This study was the final phase of research reported previouslyin this Journal (Hayden and Stevens, 2004). Interviews, groupdiscussions and observations were carried out with twenty-sixpeople with learning disabilities using social services’residential and day services. Participants were able to articulatecomplex responses about challenging behaviour, which is characterizedas a ‘moral web’: a complex network of antecedents,behaviours and consequences. Social care staff were seen byparticipants to play a key role: protecting people and ensuringthat appropriate (negative) consequences were suffered by instigatorsof challenging behaviour. These findings are interpreted withina positioning theory perspective, suggesting the importanceof understanding the ways that challenging behaviour is constructedthrough social interaction. Implications in the following areasare discussed: developing practice; the role of social carestaff; and the study of challenging behaviour as a social phenomenon.     

CORPORATE DIVERSIFICATION REVISITED: The Political–Legal Environment,the Multilayer‐Subsidiary Form,and Mergers and Acquisitions

This article examines causes of product‐line diversification in the largest 200 U.S. corporations between 1986 and 1996. The analysis shows that some corporations decreased their level of diversification. However, in contrast with previous studies, other corporations became more diversified. Change in the number of first‐level subsidiaries and the value of mergers and acquisitions influenced corporate diversification. In contrast with the multidivisional form, the organizational characteristics of the multilayer‐subsidiary form give management greater capacity to socialize capital, pursue mergers and acquisitions, and manage a large and diversified corporation. This multilayer‐subsidiary form limits the managerial problem of bounded rationality by organizing product lines and product groups in legally independent subsidiary corporations that are embedded in their respective markets.     

Countertransference issues for the consultant when a colleague is critically ill (or dying)

This report illustrates how countertransference issues emerged for a consultant therapist whose guidance about practice was sought by an ill and dying colleague. The detechment necessary for consultation was difficult to maintain. Denial, avoidance, and isolation operated for both. Ambivalence about directive behavior developed. Unexpressed grief, shock, feelings of inadequacy, and identification with the colleague intruted but were managed. The occurrence of such countertransference phenomena can be anticipated and understood in a consultation process that represents one valuable, underutilized, and important means of encouraging quality clinical practice under extremely painful circumstances.     

Family Therapy Following the Death of a Child*

The reactions of the entire family system to the death of a child are examined. The case illustrates therapeutic interventions dealing with changes in family structure, guilt and mourning processes in parents, anxiety and other reactions of children, and the cognitive confusion of both children and adults. The problems for the therapist in working with a family following the death of a child are discussed.